Dixie County FlArchives Biographies.....COTTRELL, EUGENE L. October 21, 1858 - 
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Nancy Rayburn http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00025.html#0006128 July 27, 2008, 1:56 am

Author: The History of Florida: Past & Present, The Lewis Publishing Co., 1923, Vol. III pg.22

	COTTRELL, EUGENE L., an honored citizen residing at Old Town, Dixie 
County, formerly included in Lafayette County, is a native son of Florida, a 
scion of an old and prominent Southern family of ancient French lineage, and 
has been successful in his constructive enterprise as an agriculturist and 
stock-grower and also as a merchant.  He has served in the State Senate, and 
has otherwise found means to prove his civic loyalty and public spirit.
	In the summer home of his parents at Cedar Keys, Florida, EUGENE L. 
COTTRELL was born on the 21st of October, 1858, the youngest in a family of 
four sons and six daughters.  His father, JAMES LAFAYETTE COTTRELL, was born 
in Virginia and died at Cedar Keys, Florida, when seventy-seven years of age, 
his wife, whose maiden name was MARGARET REBECCA McQUEEN, having been born in 
Lowndes County, Alabama, and having died at Cedar Keys, Florida, when sixty-
six years of age.
	JAMES L. COTTRELL was a boy when he accompanied his parents on their 
removal from Virginia to Georgia, and after to Alabama, where he studied law 
and was admitted to the bar.  In the Town of Hayneville, that state, he became 
senior member of the law firm of Cottrell & Pope.  JOHN EDMORE read law in 
their office, was admitted to practice and became a member of the firm known 
as Cottrell, Pope & Edmore.  Business increased and Edmore was sent to 
Montgomery as representative of this firm.  J. L. COTTRELL was a leader in the 
councils of the democratic party in Alabama, served in both Houses of the 
State Legislature, and was at one time the presiding officer of the Alabama 
Senate, besides which he represented the state in the United States Congress 
in 1846.  In 1854 JAMES L. COTTRELL removed to Florida, and here he became the 
owner of a large landed estate in Levy and Lafayette counties, his plantation 
being operated with slave labor and he having had a home at Old Time, with a 
summer home at Cedar Keys.  At the time of the Civil war he removed with his 
family to Cuthbert, Georgia, and he was elected to the Senate from Randolph 
County, Georgia.  He was at the same time elected senator from Levy County and 
also that senatorial district embracing Taylor and Lafayette counties, 
Florida, and served the latter district twelve terms.  After the war he 
returned to Florida, and he gave most loyal service as a member of the State 
Legislature in the reconstruction period, he having been a member of the 
Senate at this time.  JAMES L. COTTRELL was a courtly, dignified and scholarly 
gentleman, an able lawyer and a man whose sterling character and kindly nature 
gained to him the high regard of all who knew him.  He was affiliated with the 
Masonic fraternity.  He was a leader in development and progress along both 
civic and material lines, and his name merits high place on the roster of the 
distinguished men of Florida.
	The Cottrell family was founded in America in the Colonial days, the 
original representatives having come to this country from England.  The family 
was one of much prominence and influence in France, where as Huguenots it 
endured religious persecution that led to flight to England, where was adopted 
the anglicized spelling of the name, which in France had been COTREAL.
	The depressed status of the South after the close of the Civil war 
caused educational advantages to be below former standards, but in this period 
EUGENE L. COTTRELL attended private schools, his early education having been 
acquired in Florida, Georgia and Alabama.  At the age of fifteen years he 
found employment as mail carrier, and while living with kinsfolk in Alabama he 
there worked at the carpenter trade.  He passed four years in the State of 
Tennessee, and then, in 1877, returned to Cedar Keys, Florida, where for eight 
years he was a clerk in the general store of C. B. ROGERS & Company.  
Thereafter he there continued to be associated with the mercantile business of 
the firm of Cottrell & Finlayson until 1890, when he removed to Old Town and 
engaged independently in the same line of business.  In the following year he 
formed a partnership with WILLIAM D. FINLAYSON, and this alliance continued 
more than fifteen years, the two having been successful in their mercantile 
business at Old Town and also as agriculturists and stock-growers.
	Like his honored father, Mr. COTTRELL has been active in the councils 
and campaign activities of the democratic party in this section of Florida.  
In 1901 he was state senator, as representative of the Twelfth Senatorial 
District, comprising Taylor and Lafayette counties, and in 1907-9 he again 
represented his district in the State Senate.  He has ever been a supporter of 
good government, and in the Senate he worked earnestly for the constructive 
legislation that should be of benefit to the state and its people, with naught 
of other official ambition.  He has been liberal in his civic stewardship, and 
his support is ever to be counted upon in the furthering of measures and 
enterprises advanced for the general good.  He was one of the organizers and 
became a director of the Farmers & Merchants Bank at Trenton, and is still a 
stockholder in the same.  Mr. COTTRELL has large land holdings in the vicinity 
of Old Town.  He was a Knight of Pythias at Cedar Keys, and he and his wife 
hold membership in the Methodist Episcopal Church, South.
	The first wife of Mr. COTTRELL is survived by two sons, JAMES E. and 
WILLIAM WESLEY, both residents of Old Town.  In 1903 Mr. COTTRELL married Miss 
PAULINE HIGHTOWER, who was born in Leon County, Florida, a daughter of SAMUEL 
and KATE HIGHTOWER, her father having been a farmer in Leon and Jefferson 
counties and having after engaged in the mercantile business in the City of 
Tallahassee, where his death occurred.  Mr. and Mrs. COTTRELL have four 
children; R. FLETCHER, JOSEPH M., DAVID and WARNER. 


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