Sacramento-San Francisco-Los Angeles County CA Archives Biographies.....Cole, Cornelius September 17, 1822 - November 3, 1924 ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/ca/cafiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Ila Wakley iwakley@msn.com March 21, 2006, 3:07 am Author: California and Californians CORNELIUS COLE was born in the Lake country of Western New York, September 17, 1822, a member of a family of eleven children, to whose correct rearing the thrifty parents devoted themselves. His maternal grandfather moved from Dutchess County, where his mother was born. His paternal grandfather, Capt. David Cole, also made his way through an unbroken wilderness to the Lake country at the time when the depressing effects of the Revolutionary war were wearing away. His parents became prosperous pioneer farmers. The education of Cornelius began at the district school, and was continued at Ovid Academy and Lima Seminary. After a year at Geneva College he attended Wesleyan University, Connecticut, for two years, graduating there in 1847. He always regarded the years of study at Wesleyan as profitably spent. In 1922 seventy-five years after graduation – at the time the oldest college alumnus in the United States – he journeyed from Southern California to “Old Wesleyan” for the reunion, there receiving the honorary degree LL.D. at the hands of his alma mater. Only a few months earlier he had been similarly honored by the University of Southern California. After a brief experience in teaching school he was admitted to the bar, in the spring of 1848, spending some time in the law office of Seward, Morgan & Blatchford at Auburn. It can not be doubted that the young attorney’s political ambition was aroused and his imagination kindled by association with these distinguished characters. His classical education at Geneva and Wesleyan and his intimate association with brilliant lawyers failed to render him immune from the contagion of the wide-encircling California gold fever. Quite the opposite, in fact it was to many a choice and daring spirit like his that the lure proved most irristible. “Full were they of great endeavor.” Turning his face toward the Golden Gate and the setting sun, Cornelius Cole with six companies left his native town of Lodi on February 12, 1849, for the journey overland to California. Being yet mid-winter, the open sleigh was used as far as Pittsburgh. Proceeding a fortnight later by steamboat to St. Louis, the party laid in a great variety of supplies for the trip across the plains. Final preparations were made at Independence, the common rendezvous. Their experience cost them dearly, and the backwardness of the spring caused considerable delay; but on the 24th of April they “launched forth on the then great Indian Territory of Kansas and Nebraska.” Cole was fortunate in obtaining from an Indian a small black pony, which he rode all the way to California, and pronounced the most useful animal he ever expected to see. The vicissitudes of the journey overland can not be recounted here. The sturdy pioneers were much retarded by the heavy freightage – largely through useless ignorance they burdened their wagons; guard was posted religiously every night; at all times they were solicitous for the safety of their animals; the frequency of new-made graves along difficult parts of the route was not reassuring. The furious hailstorm, the swollen river, the swarms of blood-thirsty gnats interposed obstacles and delays. These and a multitude of their experiences were but incidents along the way common to the gold-hunters in the days of ’49. Cole completed his journey overland to Sutter’s Fort on July 24, 1849, in the excellent time of ninety days from the Missouri frontier. His was the first regular party of that memorable year to make the trip across the continent, being preceded into California by some Mormons from Utah and by Argonauts coming by way of the Isthmus or ‘round the Horn. As he was of the first of the Army of forty-niners to reach the mines of California, so he was one of the last survivors of that illustrious company – and withal one of the most eminent. To recount the many and varied experiences of Cornelius Cole – typical of the best of California pioneers – would be impossible. On election day (November 13, 1849) he walked to Coloma, a dozen miles distant, to cast his vote for our first State Constitution and for Peter H. Burnett as first governor. On January 6, 1853, he married Olive Colegrove, of Tompkins County, New York, to whom he had previously become engaged, a talented young woman who had just arrived in California by way of the Isthmus in company with her brother, Silas Colegrove, and an older brother of Cornelius Cole, Elijah Townsend Cole. His mining operations were brief but not without profit; his career as a young San Francisco lawyer ended with one of the great fires that swept that city. Locating in Sacramento, he numbered among his first clients Leland Stanford, Collis P. Huntington, Mark Hopkins and others, later connected with the organization of the Central Pacific Railroad Company, of which he became one of the first organizers and assisted in drawing up the original legal papers. His political career was long and varied, his service in public office generally satisfactory and useful if not always of particular brilliancy. As early as 1854 he was nominated for district attorney of Sacramento County; during his incumbency of two and a half years he frequently found himself in opposition to such distinguished criminal lawyers as N. Green Curtis and Humphrey Griffith. He owned and edited in 1856, in company with James McClatchy, the first Republican newspaper in California, the Sacramento Daily and Weekly Times. In 1863 his nomination for Congress came quite naturally, and he led his ticket in the election to the Thirty-eighth Congress. Thomas B. Shannon and William Higby were his colleagues in Washington and California. The conduct of the Civil War dwarfed all other topics at the national capital. Though never specially gifted in the arts of oratory, he was a master of the English language and was steadfastly every inch a true American, “animated by unswerving devotion to the cause of the Union and interests of his local constituency.” As a member of the select committee on the Pacific Railroad he rendered most influential service in the railroad to completion even if this had to be done at the expense of granting the projectors very generous concessions. Three of Cornelius Cole’s brothers were in service during the Civil War – Elijah, David and George, while a fourth, Gilbert, held the post of United States consul at Acapulco at the time when Maximilian invaded Mexico. When the thrilling tidings of Lee’s final surrender came Cole was in Washington, and he took an active part in the spontaneous demonstration of universal rejoicing. On the very eve of his departure for California he called upon President Lincoln, in company with Speaker Colfax. This was on the afternoon of April 14, 1865. Referring to the incident in his Memoirs, he feelingly remarks: “On leaving the room at the White House, after a most agreeable conversation about the ending of the war, and about California, in which he was always interested, I bade the great and tender-hearted man good- bye, little anticipating the sad ending of that day. In December, 1865, Cole received, at the hands of the State Legislature, the highest political honor to a Californian, election to the United States Senate, to succeed James A. McDougall, and he served the full term from March 4, 1867, to March 4, 1873. His political opponent in the senatorial election was his fellow pioneer and personal friend, William T. Coleman, “Old Vigilante.” As senator he was called upon to participate in the great and difficult work of reconstruction, and with his colleagues to sit in reluctant judgment at the impeachment trial of President Johnson. Among his colleagues were senators- elect Simon Cameron of Pennsylvania, Roscoe Conkling of New York, and John Sherman of Ohio, and older members, George F. Edmunds, William P. Fessenden, Charles Sumner and Richard Yates. John Conness was senior senator from California. In Congress Senator Cole’s numerous interests included new post roads, and improved postal service, canal construction for purposes of irrigation, and the reclamation of non-producing land, the promotion of forest tree cultivation on the plains, education, the protection of fur-bearing seals, the humane treatment of the Indians, and national finance. A contemporary San Jose paper thus referred to him: “No Senator ever went from any state and achieved so high a position in the councils of the nation in the same time. He is the first senator from the Pacific Coast who has been honored with the important position of chairman of a leading committee. (Appropriations.)” By virtue of representations made on the occasion of a visit to General Phineas Banning at Wilmington in Southern California, he was later enabled to secure from the federal government an appropriation of upwards of $200,000 for the improvement of the harbor that is now the pride of Los Angeles. With reference to the Chinese question Cole was not an alarmist. He was opposed to granting the Chinese the privilege of voting but not inclined towards total exclusion. He was the instigator and leading spirit in the purchase of Alaska from the Russian Government. The failure of Cornelius Cole to secure re-election to the United States Senate brings to light a bit of the irony of political history. He had been one of a small group of men to meet in 1861 in a small room over the Huntington and Hopkins Store in Sacramento for the purpose of organizing the Central Pacific Railroad Company of California. While he was serving as congressman Collis P. Huntington was not an infrequent visitor at his home. While readily conceding that favorable legislation assisted in the upbuilding of vast fortunes and political prestige for the projectors, he claimed that the real object of the government grants in aid of the railroad was “for the purpose of promoting the general welfare of the country.” It may be doubted that any other man in the national councils wielded a greater influence for the actual building of the road than Cornelius Cole. But with an insatiable appetite for government aids, the railroad coveted possession of Goat Island as a strategically located terminus for the system. A bill embodying this bold project passed the House with slight opposition. In the Senate, however, Cole, animated by a patriotic sense of duty, vigorously opposed the measure in accordance with the wishes of the people of San Francisco. The bill was finally defeated and Goat Island was saved as a valuable possession of the military authorities of the government. In compassing the defeat of the measure Cole incurred the hot displeasure of the railroad interests, to which he had rendered such conspicuous service, and as a result of the powerful opposition he failed to receive the renomination for a second term. Thus ended, quite abruptly, the political career of Cornelius Cole In 1881 Senator Cole removed from San Francisco to Southern California and took up his residence on his 500 acre ranch in which is now the heart of Hollywood. He opened a law office in Los Angeles, which he actively maintained up to his hundredth birthday. He took great pride in the transformation of Hollywood from a country suburb to a flourishing city, ultimately to be blended into metropolitan Los Angeles. Mrs. Olive Cole, gifted companion of Cornelius Cole for sixty-five years, held in loving esteem by a wide circle of friends, died in 1918, at the age of eighty-four years. On November 3, 1924, this prince of California pioneers died at his lovely home in Hollywood at the age of one hundred and two years, surrounded by his children and grandchildren. His sons are Seward, Schuyler and George T. Cole, all of Los Angeles, and his daughters are Mrs. Emma C. Brown, Mrs. Lucretia C. Waring and Mrs. Reginald H. Jones, of Los Angeles, and Mrs. James G. McLaughlin, of New York City. When the centenarian took his final departure the sentiment of the entire community was well expressed in the words of William Gibbs McAdoo: “In the death of former United States Senator Cornelius Cole, Los Angeles has lost her most distinguished and universally respected citizen. Senator Cole was loved and admired by all classes of the people. Every Californian felt a deep pride in him personally in his exemplary and lovable character and in his distinguished career which associated him in an intimate way with the immortal Lincoln. To have lived as Senator Cole did to the great age of one hundred and two, preserving his spirits and interest in everything that concerned the community and the nation, and to have conducted himself as he always did, with such dignity and nobility, are rare achievements for any man.” Additional Comments: California and Californians, Edited by Rockwell D. Hunt, A.M., PhD., Volume IV, The Lewis Publishing Company, Chicago, San Francisco, New York and Los Angeles 1932. Copyright, 1932 The Lewis Publishing Company Pages 3-6. File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/ca/sacramento/bios/cole354gbs.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.org/cafiles/ File size: 13.7 Kb