ASHTABULA COUNTY OHIO - BIO: COLE, William Barrett (published 1925)

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HISTORY OF OHIO, The American Historical Society, Inc., 1925
Volume IV, page 266, 267

        WILLIAM BARRETT COLE.  The Cole Nursery Company, Incorporated, of
Painesville, Ohio, is a family corporation, the founder and active head of
which is William Barrett Cole. This is one of the largest industries of its
kind under individual ownership and control in the country, and the
nurseries have supplied stock for the foundation of hundred of orchards,
vineyards and landscape gardens all over the East and Middle West.
        William Barrett Cole, head of the business, was born in the Village
of Colebrook, Ashtabula County, Ohio, March 23, 1864. His grandfather,
Gilbert Cole, a native of New York State, was a pioneer at Colebrook,
owning and operating a large farm there, and spent his last days in
Illinois. He married Sallie Owen, also a native of New York State, who died
at Colebrook. Their son, William Franklin Cole, was born at Colebrook, in
1840 and during his brief lifetime was engaged in farming there. He died in
July, 1865, at the age of twenty-five. He was reared a whig and voted as a
republican, and was an active supporter of the Baptist Church. William
Franklin Cole married Addie Eliza Barrett, who was born at Highland in
Oakland County, Michigan, in 1842. By their marriage were two children,
Edith C., of Perry, Ohio and William Barrett. The mother of these children
subsequently married Luther R. Jayne, a nurseryman at Painesville. Both of
them died in August, 1920. To their marriage were born the following
children: Ethel Jayne, wife of Lewis T. Curtis, a grocery and meat market
owner at Painesville; Alfred Jayne, engineer of the municipal waterworks at
Painesville; and Forrest M., engineer in an ice plant at Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania.
        William Barrett Cole was an infant when his father died, and his
education was acquired in the grade schools and high school at Geneva in
Ashtabula County, and the high school at Corry, Pennsylvania, where he
graduated in 1881. Soon afterward he became interested in the nursery
business at Painesville, and in time became an independent operator and has
kept the business growing through all subsequent years. He was the
individual owner and head of the business until January, 1923, when he took
his three oldest sons into the business as partners, giving his two other
sons an interest, and since then the industry has been the Cole Nursery
Company, Incorporated. The company has about 500 acres of land in use for
nursery purposes, these farms being in the three townships of Painesville,
Perry and Concord. The offices are on Mentor Avenue in Painesville.
        Mr. Cole owns a fine brick residence, remodeled in 1923, on Mentor
Avenue, and has three other dwelling houses in the city. He is an
independent in politics, and is a member of the Lake County Chamber of
Commerce and the Cleveland Chamber of Commerce.
        In August 1894, in Ashtabula County, he married Mrs. Mary (Stowe)
Shepard. She was born in Ashtabula county, October 15, 1867, and died at
Painesville November 10, 1917. To this marriage were born five sons, the
three oldest active partners in the nursery business, and the two others
still in school. They are: Gilbert Stowe, who took the engineering course
in the Carnegie Institute of Technology at Pittsburgh; William Alfred, a
graduate of the Austinburg High School in Ohio; David Barrett, who finished
his education in Denison University at Granville, Ohio; Kenneth Roosevelt,
a graduate in 1924 from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor; and Victor
Arthur, a student in the public schools of Painesville. On February 21,
1921, at Painesville, Mr. Cole married Miss Frances Dann, a daughter of Mr.
and Mrs. Frank R. Dann, residents of Painesville. Her father is a minister
of the Baptist Church.


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