BIO: GEORGE B. COLE, Cumberland County, Pennsylvania

   

  Contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives by Joe Patterson

  OCRed by Judy Banja



  Copyright 2004.  All rights reserved.

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  http://www.usgwarchives.net/pa/cumberland/

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  >From Biographical Annals of Cumberland County, Pennsylvania,

  Chicago: The Genealogical Publishing Co., 1905, pages 231-232

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    GEORGE B. COLE, of Shippensburg, was born Nov. 6, 1835, at Freemansburg,

  Pa., a son of Jacob B. and Mary Ann (Messenkop) Kohl. The Kohl family is of

  German-Holland extraction and the grandparents of our subject were Jacob and

  Elizabeth (Buck) Kohl, of Nockamixon, Bucks Co., Pa. Jacob B. Kohl was a

  coachmaker by trade. He died in Bucksville, Pa., July 18, 1838, in his

  thirty-fourth year, and is buried in the grave yard attached to St. John's

  Church, Haycock, Pa. The mother of our subject was a daughter of George

  Messenkop, a prominent citizen of Lancaster, who for a long time was city

  treasurer. She died in 1888.

  

    George B. Cole, while living in Baltimore, in 1857, changed the spelling of

  his name from Kohl to Cole, on account of mail com-

  

  232  CUMBERLAND COUNTY.

  

  plications. He was educated in the public schools of Lancaster and then came

  to Shippensburg, where he attended the academy. In 1852 he entered the employ

  of Arnold & Co., dry-goods merchants, as a clerk, later purchasing an interest

  in the establishment, and the name became D. W. Totten & Co. Later he sold his

  interest to Dr. Alexander Stewart, and, in 1860, embarked in the boot, shoe

  and hat business, which he continued for over thirty years, doing a most

  successful business, having the leading establishment in this line of trade.

  

    In 1895 Mr. Cole, with Col. J. A. Kunkel, of New York, organized the

  Shippensburg Odorless Cold Storage Egg Case Filler Manufacturing Co.,

  associating with them prominent business men. Mr. Cole is secretary,

  treasurer and general manager of this company. The business is in a

  flourishing condition, a large force being employed, and they have a large

  trade in this and foreign countries. Besides his interest in this company,

  Mr. Cole is a stockholder and one of the directors of the People's National

  Bank of Shippensburg; vice-president of the Shippensburg Gas & Electric Co.;

  a member of the board of trustees of the Cumberland Valley State Normal

  School; a director in the Baltimore & Cumberland Valley Railroad Company, a

  branch of the Wabash System; a member and president of the city council; and

  was at one time a member of the school board.

  

    In 1856 Mr. Cole married Miss Elizabeth Trone, of Shippensburg, daughter of

  George Trone. At her early death she left one daughter, Anna, who married Dr.

  Clark, Cramer, of Newburg, Pa. Mr. Cole married (second) Miss Mary E. Gish,

  also of Shippensburg, daughter of John and Lydia Gish, and six children were

  born to the union, two of whom are deceased; Katie is the wife of S. W. Means,

  of St. Paul, Minn.; Lou M. is the wife of Jacob H. Stoner, cashier of the

  People's Bank of Waynesboro, Pa.; Edith is at home; George is in the employ

  of the Bell Telephone Company.

  

    Fraternally Mr. Cole is a member of Cumberland Valley Masonic Lodge, No.

  315; St. John's Chapter; and St. John's Commandery, Knights Templar; and is

  also a member of the Scottish Rite branch in Philadelphia. He is one of the

  leading citizens of Shippensburg and the owner of property in the town and

  vicinity, and is considered a man of progressive ideas and much public spirit.