THE HOLLINGSWORTH REGISTER

VOLUME 14, NUMBER 4.

      One of the most interesting and vital items I discovered in the office of the Clerk of the District Court at Newton, Iowa, was the socalled Index to Papers Filed. This index is chronoligical in order of papers put into boxes, wrapped up with rubber bands or silk ribbons, and tucked into numbered file boxes. These boxes line the walls of one of the vaults. They are filed by first letter of surname of each case. The case is filed by name of the Plaintiff. Sometimes by Defendant. A special ladder which rolls along a track and equipped with casters proved to be dangerous. It scared me to get up on this contraption. It began to sway or roll along from my body weight. I elected to use the special hook and pole. This item is as tall as the highest box on the wall, and, with a little practice, one can catch the front handle of the file box needed, in the loop of the handle, and pull the box out of its slot safely, and lower it for examination. I was proud to say that I never dropped one (but came close to it a couple of times!).

     There are indexes for the District and Circuit Court cases in separate books. Various appearances are indexed by case, under Plaintiffs. But the Index to Papers Filed contains all of the papers of the case, or, at least, we hope so - the original papers, not the court clerk's brief notes.

     When I discovered this fact, it happened that one of the deputy clerks came into the vault and saw me opening up one of these old, original packages, which was stiff with age, wrapped with a rotted rubber band. She got very excited and chided me, that we were "not supposed to see these records." Well, forget her! I had to stand up for my rights. She did not prevail. I was not about to be thwarted by some old Biddy after my only chance in eighteen years to see these records. As far as she was concerned, they were supposed to be left "safe" to decay and rot away, rather than to be examined by descendants. I was just nasty enough, just pushy enough, to get my way, and now have good xerox copies of all these documents. If you happen upon this type of clerk, good luck! Remember: THEY DO NOT OWN THE RECORDS. DON'T LET THEM TRY TO INTIMIDATE YOU.

     We have already published in the last issue, the full file of the estate of Frederick Hollingsworth. Now, here we will continue to publish the records of cases filed in the various courts of Jasper County. We have already published, in June, 1978 issue, pp. 26-34, the most important case, Miller v. Hollingsworth. It should be noted, however, that on page 29 of our June 1978 issue, we were puzzled by the case of Miller v. Hollingsworth in the December Term of 1872. Since then, the Law Library, State Capitol, Des Moines, Iowa, sent us a xeroxed copy of the printed case, word for word of our citation from the handwritten copy. There were two cases argued before the Iowa Supreme