Springer, Francis (lawyer)

Born: 1811-04-15 Portland, Maine

Died: 1898-10-02 Iowa

Flourished: Iowa

Francis Springer was a lawyer, judge, and territorial and state legislator. He lived with his family in Maine until the age of eleven, when he was separated from his parents and sent to live in New Hampshire. He spent the next six years working on a farm and attending school in the winter months. When he turned seventeen, he attended Rochester Academy, earning a teaching certificate. He taught school for four years before returning to Maine to read law. He earned admission to the Maine bar in 1838. In December of that same year, Springer moved from Maine to the Iowa Territory, settling in Wapello in Louisa County. He commenced practicing law and entered into local politics. In 1840, he won election as a Whig to the Legislative Assembly of the Iowa Territory, representing Louisa and Washington counties in the Territorial Council. Springer won reelection in 1841, 1842, and 1843. In December 1842, he married Nancy R. Coleman, with whom he had eight children. From 1846 to 1850, Springer represented Louisa and Washington counties in the Iowa Senate. He served as a special agent of the U.S. Post Office from 1849 to 1850, and as register of the U.S. General Land Office at Fairfield, Iowa, from 1851 to 1853. He and his family moved to Columbus Junction in Louisa County, where he developed two farms. In 1854, Springer won election as prosecuting attorney of the county, and the following year, he became county judge. In 1856, he represented Louisa County in the convention to form the Republican Party, and he was vice-president of the delegation sent to the Republican National Convention. In 1857, Louisa County voters chose him as their delegate to the Iowa state constitutional convention. Convention attendees elected him as president of the convention. In 1858, he won election as judge of the First Judicial District of Iowa. Reelected in 1862, he remained on the bench until his retirement in 1869.

Benjamin F. Gue, History of Iowa from the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century (New York: Century History, 1903), 3:443, 444, 445, 459, 460; "Francis Springer," The Iowa Legislature, accessed 24 April 2020, https://www.legis.iowa.gov/legislators/legislator?ga=-6&personID=6006; Richard Acton, "Springer, Francis," The Biographical Dictionary of Iowa, ed. by David Hudson, Marvin Bergman, & Loren Horton, (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2008), 481-82; Gravestone, Columbus City Cemetery, Columbus City, IA.