San Francisco County Biographies

JUDGE AYLETT RAINS COTTON

Transcribed 2-12-05  Marilyn R. Pankey

This file is part of the California Genealogy & History Archives http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cagha/index.htm

	 A short sketch of whom follows, is a native of the State of 
Ohio, and a son of John Cotton, a native of Massachusetts, and a descendent of 
the noted Cotton family of Colonial days.  The first instruction our subject 
received was in the common schools; he then attended Cottage Hill Academy, 
Ellsworth, Ohio, and afterward became a student at Alleghany College, Meadville, 
Pennsylvania.  He afterwards went South, and for two years was engaged in 
teaching in Fayette county, Tennessee.  At the end of this period he went to 
Iowa, studied law in Davenport, and was admitted to the bar.  It was about this 
time that the attention of the whole civilized world was centered upon 
California on account of the gold discoveries which had been made there.  Mr. 
Cotton determined to try his fortunes on the coast, and made the trip by ox team 
across the plains in the "orthodox" fashion.  He arrived in the State of 
California in October, 1849, and went immediately to the mines.  After a 
successful experience there covering a period of two years, he returned to Iowa, 
and resumed his professional work at De Witt.  For more than thirty years he was 
one of the leading members of the bar of the State, and was prominently 
identified with its legislature.  In 1851 he was elected Judge of Clinton county 
and held that position for two years.  He was elected a member of the 
Constitutional Convention in 1857, and represented this important county in the 
legislature for four years, a portion of which time he was Speaker of the House. 
 In 1870 he was elected to Congress, and after serving two years, was 
re-elected, discharging the duties of the office for four years with great skill 
and credit to himself and the entire satisfaction of his constituency.
     In 1883 Judge Cotton returned to the Pacific Coast, and since that time he 
has occupied a leading position in the legal profession of San Francisco.  He 
has been prominently identified with the Masonic order for a half century; he 
was Grand Master of the State of Iowa in 1855 and 1856, and is a thirty-third 
degree Mason, Scottish Rite.  He is also an honored member of the California 
Pioneer Society.
 
Source: "The Bay of San Francisco," Vol. 1, page 43, Lewis Publishing Co, 1892.


	Of San Francisco, owning a beautiful ranch in San Luis 
Obispo County, was born at Austintown, Ohio, November 29, 1826. His father, John 
Cotton, was a pioneer of Ohio, and also of Iowa, having moved there when it was a 
Territory. Judge Cotton, our subject, accompanied his father to Iowa in 1844, crossed 
the plains to California in 1849, and after working in the mines returned to Iowa in 1851, 
and resumed the practice of law; was elected County Judge of Clinton County, Iowa, 
in 1851, resigned the office in 1853 to return to the law practice; was a member of the 
Convention in 1857 to revise the Constitution of Iowa; was a member of the Iowa Legislature 
in 1868 and in 1870, and occupied the position of Speaker of the House at the last session. 
He was a member of Congress from the Second Iowa District from 1871 to 1875. In 1883 
he removed with his family to California and engaged in the practice of law in San Francisco. 
He has also taken an interest in fruit-tree culture, having planted some 160 acres in San Luis 
Obispo County, where lie made purchase of several tracts of land, with French prunes, 
apricots, peaches, and other varieties. 

Judge Cotton has also attained a high position in the Masonic order, having been Grand 
Master of Masons in Iowa in 1855-'56, and been honored with the thirty-third degree in 
Scottish Rite Masonry. 

In 1873 he was united in marriage with Miss Hattie E. Walker, a native of Williams- 
port, Pennsylvania, and a daughter of J. T. Walker, also a native of that State. They 
have two sons, Aylett R. and Stewart W., and a native California daughter, Claudine. 

History of Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo and Ventura Counties, California  - by 
C.M. Gidney, Benjamin Brooks, Edwin M. Sheridan, Vol I, II.  -Lewis Publ. Co., 
Chicago, 1917.

Submitted by Peggy Hooper