William Alfred Ladd

LADD, ESTABROOK, BACHMAN

Posted By: Emmet County IAGenWeb Coordinator (email)
Date: 2/21/2011 at 16:07:57

William Alfred Ladd, attorney at law at Estherville, where he has practiced continuously for thirty-five years, was born November 10, 1856, on a farm near Damascus, Mahoning county, Ohio, a son of Joshua and Lydia C. Ladd, the former a native of Charles City county, Virginia, and the latter of Mahoning county, Ohio.

In the common schools of his native state William A. Ladd began his education and later attended Damascus Academy and Mount Union College of Mount Union, Ohio, completing the philosophical course in that latter institution in 1876. Determining upon the practice of law as a life work, he began studying in the office of an attorney and later matriculated in the State University of Iowa, graduating from the law department of that institution with the class of June, 1880. Before entering upon his law studies, however, he engaged in farming and stock raising in Ohio and during the winter and spring seasons taught in the common schools for a number of years. It was in 1879 that he came to this state and began his law reading, at the same time acting as law clerk in the office where he studied. In 1881 he entered into partnership with O. L. Binford, of Marshalltown, Iowa, and in August 1882, removed to Estherville, where he formed a partnership with J. B. Binford. That relationship was maintained until 1886, since which time Mr. Ladd has been in business alone.

On the 3d of October, 1883, in Marshalltown, Iowa, Mr. Ladd was married to Miss Eva M. Estabrook, a daughter of Royal and Augusta (Franklin) Estabrook. She was born in Vermont, of which state her father was also a native, but her mother was born in Massachusetts. Mr. and Mrs. Ladd have a son, Clarence E., who is now living at Grand Forks, North Dakota. He married Alizanah Bachman on the 17th of June, 1908, and they have a daughter, Ruth Mary.

Mr. and Mrs. Ladd are members of Grace Episcopal church of Estherville and fraternally he is connected with the Brotherhood of American Yeomen and the Benevolent Protective Order of Elks. In politics he has always been a republican since age conferred upon him the right of franchise and for four or more terms he served as city attorney of Estherville and was also county superintendent of schools for Emmet county from 1882 to 1892. He is recognized as a lawyer of pronounced ability, careful and painstaking in the preparation of his cases, direct and forceful in argument and logical in his conclusion.

Source: History of Emmet County and Dickinson County Iowa: A Record of Settlement, Organization, Progress and Achievement, The Pioneer Publishing Company, Chicago, Illinois, 1917.