Joseph Lafayette Rawlins

 

The information in this history has been taken from a newspaper article published at the time of his death in Salt Lake City in May 1926.

 

Joseph Lafayette Rawlins was born at Mill Creek, March 28, 1850, a son of Joseph S. and Mary Rawlins. He was but two years of age when his parents with their family settled at Draper, then called Willow Creek, and upon the home farm in that locality was reared to manhood. Through the winter months he was a student in the village school and in the summer seasons worked on the home farm. On attaining the age of 18, he became a student at the University of Deseret, then located in the old council house at Salt Lake City, and, by reason of his ability, he was engaged as instructor in mathematics.

 

For the expense of his more advanced education he had to depend upon his own resources. The frugality which he practiced enabled him to enter the sophomore class of Indiana University in July, 1871, where he pursued a classical course until his funds were exhausted.

 

Through the succeeding two years, Mr. Rawlins was professor of Greek and Latin at the University of Deseret, and during that period he devoted the hours which are usually termed leisure to the study of law in the offices of Williams, Young & Sheeks. In 1874 he was admitted to practice in the Third District Court, and in 1875 was admitted to the bar of the supreme court of the territory. He then entered upon the regular practice of law and formed a partnership with Ben Sheeks. In the latter part of 1878,  he was admitted to the bar of the United States Supreme Court, before which he won his first case.

 

In 1882 Senator Rawlins was chosen a member of the fourth constitutional convention in Utah, which was held in April of that year, and in which he recommended a clause prohibiting polygamy, but the question did not come before the convention at that time. Two years later Senator Rawlins became a leading figure in the political circles of the state through his organization of the Young Democratic club of Utah, of which he was the first president.

 

In 1892 Senator Rawlins was one of a committee who went to Washington to support the Utah legislative petition for home rule. In November, 1892 he was elected to congress. He took his seat in the house in August, 1893, and was also a member through the extra sessions of the Fifty-third Congress. As soon as practical, he drafted and presented a bill for Utah's admission to the union. Having passed the senate and house, the bill won the signature of  President Cleveland on July 16, 1894. Under a law known as the enabling act, the constitutional convention met at Salt Lake City and framed the constitution which Utah was admitted to the union January 4, 1896.

 

Mr. Rawlins' work in the national halls of legislation was of a most important character. He introduced various measures, which were passed including: House Resolution 34, providing for the return to the Mormon Church of personal property seized under operation of the Edmunds-Tucker act of 1888-90 and House Resolution 3135 granting to the University of Utah a site off the public domain.

 

Mr. Rawlins course received the endorsement of the Democrats of Utah in a re-nomination at the convention in Salt Lake City in December, 1894. He met defeat in the Republican landslide that was brought about by changed conditions in the state.

 

In 1897 he was elected United States Senator. He served during an extra spring session of congress, in which the tariff question was considered, after which came the Spanish-American War and the recognition of Cuba. In the debates upon these questions he took a prominent part. He retired from congress March 4, 1903, and resumed his law practice at Salt lake. In 1907 he was joined by his son, Athol, and his son-in-law, W. W. Ray in a partnership under the firm style of Rawlins, Ray & Rawlins.

 

Senator Rawlins was a man of varied but concentrated interests. He was faultless in honor, fearless in conduct and stainless in reputation, and was known as the "father of Utah".

 

All members of the family were present at his bedside, including Mrs. Rawlins, formerly Julia E. Davis, whom he married December 8,1876, and the following children: Mrs. W. W. Ray,  Athol Rawlins,  Mrs. John Jensen, Mrs. Herbert Coffman, and Boyce Rawlins. He died in May 1926.