Alfred Tinnenbaum

Alfred Tinnenbaum (1831-?) was an Iowan surveyor, speculator, capitalist and political hopeful during the state's infancy. His notability derives largely from his proximity and indirect involvement in many of the era's pivotal events leading up to and following the American Civil War. As a local political candidate and activist, his folk wisdom carried the day throughout rural politics. While his life in Iowa can be traced with reasonable certainty, the circumstances surrounding his death are unknown; he is believed to have left his Iowa City homestead for business ventures in Canada, from which he never returned. His historical ventures are now celebrated in Iowa, particularly at The University of Iowa. There is a student group in his name, which some suspect to be a secret society.
New historical work at the University of Iowa contests Captain N. Levering's contention that J.W. Hornsby was the first white man born in Iowa City, offering that Tinnenbaum was, in fact, Iowa City's first born. The research admits, however, that it does not account for the potential of biracial children that may displace Tinnenbaum's title.
Early life
Tinnenbaum was born sometime in the winter of 1831 to Loras and Jane Tinnenbaum, shortly after a series of Native American land treaties, but just before the Black Hawk Purchase. While traditional history believed him to be born in Dubuque, recent evidence has indicated that he also could have been born in Iowa City. Tinnenbaum wrote Clark affectionately, relating his own accounts of suffering experienced and witness, and concluding that, "no honey-fuggling Lord 'ought trye to hert a man 'sas good as my Governor." Though Clarke was devoutly religious, these parting words offered his great solace and comfort before he would pass.
Unexpectedly, Tinnenbaum attempted to leverage Clarke's death into an argument for his accession to Territory Governor. It is almost universally believed that Tinnenbuam exaggerated his correspondence and closeness with the former Governor in an effort to appear as the heir-apparent. What Tinnenbaum had failed to realize was that President James K. Polk had already signed a bill that would grant Iowa statehood, and Clarke's continued tenure as Territory Governor was primarily to organize land purchases from Native Americans and settle border disputes. TInnenbaum's case apparently made it to Washington, where Executive and Legislative confusion over his goal was particularly pronounced. Nonetheless, Washington decided to grant Tinnenbaum a provisional Gubernatorial tenure, lasting 24 hours. This was an entirely honorary title, but Tinnenbaum always campaigned for lesser offices as the "Former Governor" of the Iowa Territory.
In an early election for the office of Johnson County Recorder, Tinnenbaum lambasted his opponent for lacking the requisite manhood to manage the business of so many brave frontiersmen. When the true nature of his "experience" surfaced and was exploited, Tinnenbaum's shame drove him to vacate the office despite winning in a landslide victory. In vacating the victory, he offered words that are emblazoned upon an honorary boulder on the grounds of the Iowa Old Capitol Building: "In doing what I done, I done bungled it. Forgive me friends, pardon me neighbors. I am a servant who, in dreaming, imagined himself a king. I now wake, and return to my humbler element." Numerous State and National political figures have laid hands on this rock during visits to Iowa City.
After the loss, a seemingly new Tinnenbaum began campaigning. He became a man concern entirely with equity and honesty, foregoing many of his "dirty trick" tactics that lost his earlier elections. Though he would never win a single election during this period of his life, he was renown for the vigor of his campaigning and his unusual tactics to showcase his political bravado. He once demanded that his opponent for the office of Sheriff drink and speak to an audience for 24 hours without sitting down or resting in any way. After less than three hours, Tinnenbaum, a man who rarely drank and privately reviled the habit, was unconscious. Nonetheless, he came with 18 votes of victory that year, and had made a name for himself as "the slurring Sheriff." Despite his embarrassment, Tinnenbaum relished his celebrity.
The Great Debate: Tinnenbaum's Showdown with Territory Officials
Mississippi Shipping Speculation
Bankruptcy and Resurgence
Tinnenbaum in the Civil War
After his brief love affair with a U.S. Marshal's wife was exposed, Tinnenbaum hastily joined the 5th Iowa Volunteer Infantry under the pseudonym "David Terrill." Initially, Tinnenbaum's service in the 5th was relatively uneventful: "While no considerable bodies of the enemy were encountered, the difficult and annoying character of this service can best be understood the deplorable conditions then existing in the State of Missouri..." The 5th Iowa Volunteer Infantry was mainly used as a martial law force to suppress rebel uprisings in Missouri until 1862 when it began marching to Mississippi. Tinnenbaum's hurry to leave Iowa and attend his new venture seem to indicate he was aware, to some extent, of the burgeoning governmental corruption these lucrative findings had engendered. Gregory S. Kealy credits foreign investment, Tinnenbaum included, in purchasing the necessary capital and accessories to accelerate the industry into modernity. Tinnenbaum left Iowa hurriedly in the Spring of 1872, at the age of 42. He wrote no letters to his business partner, Captain Abe Wilkin. There is no confirmation that he ever arrived at his destination, nor are there any historical records of Tinnenbaum reaching any of his anticipated checkpoints between Iowa and Canada. The historical community has presumed that he passed while traveling. Critics of the traditional historical resignation on the issue point to Wyoming County petitions for residency some 10 years later, where the unusual name Tinnenbaum appears. This camp believes this person to be Alfred Tinnenbaum, who moved and used a pseudonym to escape his political failures and, perhaps, failed attempts at love and marriage. The critics argument is not wholly unmerited, as Tinnenbaum was notably transient throughout his life.
Legacy
Tinnenbaum's folk legend is strong and pervasive in central and eastern Iowa. State historians have expended considerable resources determining Tinnenbaum's exact movements throughout the state, but the transiency of the era has led to little success. Moreover, the poor records of early Iowa settlements and townships, compounded by the courthouse fires in several Iowa counties, has frustrated historical efforts.
The historians that believe Tinnenbaum returned to Iowa from Canada suggest that Tinnenbaum may have made a significant contribution to the Iowa insurance industry. During the 1880s, an unnamed but talented cartographer living in Wyoming County created the first fire insurance maps used in Iowa. This Wyoming County cartographer bartered his maps for a rare French Chassepot rifle to the father of a young George Morris Smith who would later found the Iowa Mutual Insurance Company. Given Tinnenbaum's experience as a surveyor, his familiarity with French weapons after living in Canada, and the relatively small population of Wyoming County during the 1880s, most Iowa historians concur that if Tinnenbaum did return to Iowa, he was the cartographer who provided George Morris Smith's father with the fire insurance maps necessary to start the insurance company.
In hindsight, Tinnenbaum is known colloquially as Iowa's "William Jennings Bryan" on account of his numerous failed political campaigns and near-losses for office. The nickname can also be attributed to his talent for the spoken word, and his ability to captivate an audience, which undoubtedly made him a popular neighbor in the otherwise uneventful Iowa Territory. His self-taught legal education apparently impressed the early University of Iowa students, who founded a student organization bearing his name. Tinnenbaum's education was not without flaw, however: the will he drafted for prominent businessman and later mayor James Grant is abysmally done. It is on reserve at the Iowa College of Law and is considered a paradigmatic example of a lawyer creating estate issues for his client. Tinnenbaum violated the Rule Against Perpetuities numerous times, failed to designate clear springing and shifting executory interests, and in sum failed to provide his client with any manageable estate plan. Unsurprisingly, Grant revoked this will almost immediately. The group in Tinnenbaum's name is presumably functioning to this day, though increasingly clandestine activities have led some to believe the group has become a secret society. Group members in the early 20th century claimed that they haze new members with the bones of Tinnenbaum himself.

The legend has been propagated in popular media as well. In the HBO Series Deadwood, Tinnenbaum is referenced indirectly when character Wyatt Earp is asked if he "detoured from Galena." The intimation is that the Earp brothers feared treading through Eastern Iowa, where Tinnenbaum support was strong.

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