With D. H. Payne, I was not so intimately acquainted. Mr. Payne was of Virginia extraction, his father and grandfather having come from that State in an early day, locating in Henry County, Iowa, soon after the departure of the Indians. He had the misfortune to lose both his father and mother before he had attained his eighth year. He was born in Wapello County in 1847, reared in Wapello and Henry Counties, and educated in the Iowa Wesleyan University at Mt. Pleasant. He read law with General James B. Weaver, and in 1871 became associated with him as a partner in the practice at Bloomfield. The firm of Weaver & Payne continued for a number of years and until the retirement of General Weaver and the formation of the firm of Traverse, Payne &

Eichelberger, this firm continuing until Mr. Traverse went upon the bench, when it became Payne & Eichelberger, and so continued until Mr. Eichelberger was elected to the bench.

He married a daughter of Abram Weaver, father of General Weaver, and one of the oldest and most influential settlers of the County, long identified with its interests.

Mr. Payne was noted for being a most industrious, painstaking, able lawyer, and a man of high character and irreproachable integrity. He was County Attorney for a number of years, and the recipient of other public favors.

By EDWARD H. STILES DES MOINES THE HOMESTEAD PUBLISHING CO. 1916

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