Duval County FlArchives Biographies.....Drew, Sr., Columbus ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/fl/flfiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Nancy Rayburn http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00025.html#0006128 July 7, 2015, 11:48 pm Source: Vol. II pg.37-38 The Lewis Publishing Co. 1923 Author: History of Florida, Past and Present DREW, Sr., COLUMBUS. In every community, whether great or small, there are to be found families whose members have had a determining influence upon its history, and whose wholehearted and public spirited efforts have brought about the changes which have resulted in the development of the place. Perhaps no name is associated with more constructive work than that of Drew, and among those bearing it was COLUMBUS DREW, who founded the family at Jacksonville in 1848. COLUMBUS DREW was born of English parents, natives of Cornwall, England, who established themselves in the United States during the early part of the last century. COLUMBUS DREW spent his boyhood and early manhood at Washington City, and quite early in his career became proofreader on the National Intelligencer, one of the most famous journals of its times, owned and edited by Gales and Seaton. Rising in newspaper work, by 1847 he was one of the editors of the American, which brought him into intimate touch with the leading men of the nation, it was through his friendship with Congressman E. CARRINGTON CABELL, then representing Florida in the National Assembly as a whig candidate, that in 1848 he was induced to come to the state and take charge of the Florida Republican, the leading journal of the whig party in Florida. Mr. Drew was himself an ardent supporter of whig principles, and a very convincing and forceful writer, and his editorials awakened a widespread interest and aroused bitter controversies. In 1855 Mr. Drew went into business for himself, establishing the book in job printing house now known as the H. & W. B. Drew Company. A man of wide vision and keen intelligence, he stood with Governor Call and other leaders of the whig party against secession and the dismemberment of the American Union, but when Florida joined the Confederacy he went with his people and was loyal to the South. Because of his great business ability, the administration offered him a position at Richmond, and he was connected with the treasury department in a responsible capacity during the greater part of the war. Although he had been sincere in his work for the Confederacy, after the fall of that government he was equally determined to give the best of himself to the re-United States, and during the dark days of the reconstruction period was of great service in the political and financial redemption of Florida. Like the other states of the Confederacy, Florida faced many difficulties after the close of the war. The credit of the state both at home and abroad was gone, and the obligations were staggering, and but little progress was made until the election of a Democratic ticket in 1876, when Governor GEORGE F. DREW, a Union man of Northern birth, was placed in office. While he belonged to another section, he was a man of high ideals and had a broad outlook on life, and through him and the cabinet he appointed Florida began her return to the position which is rightly hers among the leading states of the Union. Perhaps no appointment gave more universal satisfaction than that of COLUMBUS DREW to the office of comptroller. Mr. Drew was no connection of Governor Drew, although they bore the same honored name, but both worked in unison for the greatest weal of the state each had adopted as his own, and the results were magnificent. Mr. Drew’s duties were onerous and manifold. He it was whose duty it became to audit the accounts, to separate the wheat from the chaff, to turn down unjust claims, to devise means of paying the just ones, to look after the collection of taxes and to guard the treasury. That he ably discharged them all, and that he shared with the governor and the other members of the cabinet the great work accomplished for Florida by that administration, is a matter of history, and his part in it will always stand to his everlasting credit. COLUMBUS DREW possessed a nature that was gentle, affable and unaffected, and he was loved by all who had the honor of his acquaintance. An incessant reader, he kept himself abreast of the best thought of his times, and was himself contributor of note to magazines, and an art critic of a high order. He was a poet whose verse showed genius, his productions went the rounds of the American Press. One which is known all over the South was written after the blockade of Southern ports was effected, when the Confederacy was unable to buy cloth to clothe the soldiers, and was without factories, or spindles to spin, or looms to weave it, and the spinning wheels of another generation were brought out of the attics and used. The first verse of this rhythmic, swinging poem is as follows: “Out of the Garrett, out of the barn Summoned am I to my duty; Long set aside with my lusterless yarn, Robbed of my fabric of duty, I’m summoned to come with a whir and a hum, With a voice like the flying of chaff From some mighty machine that the grain may be clean,-- ‘Tis but me and my mighty distaff.” COLUMBUS DREW continued to be a living force at Jacksonville until his demise in 1891, and with his passing from the scenes of his former activities, a truly good man went to his Maker, and Florida lost one of its most worthy and useful citizens. File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/fl/duval/bios/drewsr110bs.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.poppet.org/flfiles/ File size: 5.9 Kb