Constant Sweeney Lake (1840-1917)

 

  The second posting for this new year takes us to Iowa and Constant Sweeney Lake, a longtime Marengo resident who was active in Democratic politics in that region. A veteran of the Civil War, Lake served as a delegate from Iowa to the Democratic National Convention of 1880 and six years later was tapped by President Cleveland as U.S. Pension Agent for the districts of Iowa, Nebraska, and the Dakota Territory, where he served for four years. A native of Ohio, Constant Sweeney Lake was born in Mansfield on February 14, 1840, the son of Elijah and Susan Crothers Lake.

  A resident of Ohio until age thirteen, Lake removed with his family to Iowa City, Iowa in the early 1850s and here received his education. Desiring a career in law, Lake began study in the office of Edmund and Ransom in 1859, continuing until the outbreak of the Civil War. He enlisted in Co. B., First Iowa Infantry in April 1861 and later re-enlisted in the Eighteenth Iowa Infantry. Sometime later he was transferred to the Twenty-Second Infantry and concluded his service as an adjutant with the Twentieth Iowa Infantry. 

  Constant S. Lake married in the mid-1860s to Sarah Elizabeth Shepherd (1841-1897). The couple's three-decade union produced six children, Bertha Lee (1866-1937), Jessie Louise (1869-1949), C.B., Norma (1872-1951), Lallah (1874-1878), and Pearl (1884-1885).

  Following his war service, Lake resumed his law studies, reading in the office of state representative Rush Clark (1834-1879), of Iowa City. Upon completion, Lake relocated to Marengo in 1866, where he operated a practice with N.B. Holbrook. Sometime later Lake partnered with state senator and future congressman John Nicholas William Rumple (1841-1903), and their firm continued well into the 1880s. In 1880, Lake served as part of the Iowa delegation to that year's Democratic National Convention, journeying to Cincinnati, Ohio where Winfield Scott Hancock was nominated for the presidency.

  In 1886 President Grover Cleveland named Lake as Pension Agent for the districts of Iowa, Nebraska, and the Dakota Territory. His appointment was profiled in the Sioux City Journal in April of that year and denotes Lake as "one of the clearest-headed lawyers in the Fifth district", and further notes that he was:

"Universally esteemed as an honorable, open handed, high minded gentleman of education and character. As a democrat he has never faltered, even in the darkest hour of the party's history. He was a delegate from the Fifth district to the national convention, which nominated Gen. Hancock for president, and has been active and influential in state politics." 

 Lake's tenure in the pension office continued until June 1890, when he resigned. He resumed the practice of law in Marengo and continued until the death of his wife Sarah in 1897. Following her death, he resettled in Marion, Iowa, where he lived with his daughter Bertha. He died at her home several days prior to his 77th birthday on February 7, 1917, and was interred alongside his wife at the IOOF Cemetery in Marengo. 

From the Marshalltown Evening Times-Republican, February 9, 1917.