Greenbrier County, West Virginia Biography of JOSEPH R. COLE. This biography was submitted by Sandy Spradling, E-mail address: This file may be freely copied by individuals and non-profit organizations for their private use. All other rights reserved. Any other use, including publication, storage in a retrieval system, or transmission by electronic, mechanical, or other means requires the written approval of the file's author. This file is part of the WVGenWeb Archives. If you arrived here inside a frame or from a link from somewhere else, our front door is at http://www.usgwarchives.net/wv/wvfiles.htm History of Greenbrier County J. R. Cole Lewisburg, WV 1917 p. 296-300 JOSEPH R. COLE. (See Sketch of the Peters Family.) J. R. Cole, publisher of the forthcoming History of Greenbrier County, West Virginia, a son of Broad and Leah (Peters) Cole, was born near Royalton, Fairfield county, Ohio, on January I, 1869. He was educated in the district schools and in the Fairfield Union Academy; and graduated from the Illinois Wesleyan University in i869. His collegiate course was supplemented by study at the Normal School of Illinois. Teaching was Mr. Cole's chosen profession and upon leaving school he was elected to the principalship of the schools of Tuscola, Ill. In 1878 the principalship of a ward in Cincinnati, Ohio, was offered to Mr. Cole, but he took up newspaper work, accepting a position with a Hebrew publication under the direction of Rabbi Wise. While in school work Mr. Cole began writing school books, the first being Cole's Primary Writing Grammar, published by Gushing, Thomas & Company, Chicago. This work met with general favor, not only with the teachers of the Western States, but was also highly commended by school journals and leading dailies of the large cities. Shortly afterwards A. S. Barnes & Company, of New York and Chicago, published Cole's Self-Grading Register for Public Schools. Next came The Etymological Writing Spellers, to accompany a series of readers, by E. A. Sheldon, principal of the Oswego Normal School, and published by Scribner, Armstrong & Co., of New York. Later, because of disagreement regarding the royalty to be paid Mr. Cole, the work was abandoned. During the first year of Mr. Cole's stay in Cincinnati he compiled a work for William Russell on "How to Shoe the Horse's Foot." The work was published by Robert Clarke & Co., of Cincinnati, and has since been printed in several languages. Mr. Cole also wrote a book on the same subject, published by Peter G. Thompson, of Cincinnati. Jn addition to these works, "The Lives of Hancock and English, printed by the Methodist Book Concern for Douglas Brothers, of Philadelphia, was the product of his pen, a work which had an extensive sale during that Presidential campaign. In i886 Mr. Cole moved to New York City, and becoming acquainted with Gen. Thomas A. Davies, who had taken upon himself something to do with the revision of the St. James version of the Bible, became interested with the general on the subject of the creation of the human family and now has manuscript for publication in the near future, entitled "Plural Origin of Man." During the present European war his attention has been directed to different streams of prophecy which led to the great conflict and has prepared manuscript, advance chapters of which have been read by Rev. A. H. Murrill, which he pronounces "wonderful and very fascinating reading." This work, entitled "The Birth of the Next Nation," Will also be published in the very near future. Mr. Cole's work as a historian was begun on The State History of Indiana, which was a work of great magnitude. Since that time he has written and assisted in the preparation of more than a score of State and county histories, including those of New York City, Chicago, Cincinnati, Newark, N.J., Providence, R. I., and other cities, together with the History of the Red River Valley, North Dakota. During the past ten years he has published his own productions, the last of which was that of Preston county, West Virginia, and of which the editor of the West Virginia Argus said was the finest history ever gotten out in the State. The Preston News, another paper of Preston county, said: "It is the best piece of work of the kind we have ever seen." On February 2, 1871, Mr. Cole was married to Miss Sara Steele Goudy, of Monmouth, Ill. She was a daughter of Thomas and Nancy (Kirkpatrick) Goudy, Scotch-Irish stock of the Cov-enanter faith. Mr. Goudy was a ruling elder in the Presbyterian church, which absorbed the old Covenanter church to a very great extent, for more than fifty years. Mrs. Cole was born and lived with her parents in Ohio until she was fourteen years of age, and her father's farm adjoined that of the father of Whitelaw Reid, editor of the New York Tribune and ambassador from this country to the court of St. James. Mr. Reid's father was a ruling elder in the same church with Mr. Goudy. Mrs. Cole was a teacher until her marriage, being at the head of one of the wards of Bloomington, Ill. Her eldest brother, John Goudy, afterwards Judge Goudy, became a distinguished educator before he went on the bench. Alexander Goudy, another brother, was at one time State superintendent of schools of Nebraska. One child, Grace De Ella, was born to Mr. and Mrs. Cole. She was reared in New York City, and here she was educated under the tuition and training of her mother, subsequently completing her studies in the Packer Collegiate Institute of Brooklyn, N.Y. She also received a training for business life and has written arid spoken in public to some extent in the interest of suffrage. At present she is recording secretary of the West Virginia Equal Suffrage Association. She is now employed in the Agricultural Department at Washington, D. C. Mrs. Cole died on April 29,1906. Thomas Cole, born March 11, 1757, died August 20, 1840, was the grandfather of the subject of this sketch. He bought what is now known as the Cole farm in Huntington county, Pennsylvania, in 1789, but in 1801, sold his one hundred and sixty-eight acres there and moved to Ohio, where he entered upon a section of land near which the village of Royalton now stands. He was paid $1,113.33 for the old homestead but had to walk back from Ohio to get one of the payments. The Ohio farm remained in the hands of the Cole family over one hundred years. On July 9, 1778, Thomas Cole married Elizabeth Stevens. Their children were: Mary, born June 3, 1779; Abram, May 27, 1781; Joshua, November 25, 1783; Sarah, June 19, 1786; Elizabeth, March 12, 1789; Rachael, October 18, 1791; Athalia, September 20, 1794; Thomas, February 1, 1797; Ann, November 10, 1799; Broad, September 23, 1802; Rebecca, June 7, 1805. The removal to Ohio was made the year before the birth of Broad Cole, our father. In the year 1828 Broad Cole married Leah Peters (see sketch of the Peters family), and from that union came fourteen children, ten of whom lived to man- and womanhood. Of them, Thomas was the eldest. He was a farmer and an elder in the old Hard Shell Baptist church. His son, Alva, eldest of his family, is a Government contractor. Frank Cole, the youngest son, was private secretary to Attorney General Wickersham of the Taft administration. Mary Cole, the only daughter of Broad Cole who grew to womanhood, married William West. Their son, Andrew P. West, was president of a bank in Los Angeles, Cal. David Cole, second son, lived and died in Indiana. His son, Enos, is a well known lawyer in Hartford City; his son, Amos, is a very prosperous hardware merchant in Bluffton, that State. Nehemias Cole, fourth son, was a physician for many years in Bloomington, Ill. He was a surgeon. Jonathan Cole, the fifth son, has been a teacher in public school work all his life. The Lincoln Times, Lincoln, Ill., speaking of him as a superintendent of schools, said: "As an educator he stood in the first rank, and as a man there was none better." His two sons, Fred and Ross, are train dispatchers. Ross has just received his commission as a first lieutenant in the Signal Corps. Two grandsons are in France; Harold Bachman, the elder, is leader of Headquarters band in the One Hundred and Sixteenth Engineers' Department. Rufus Cole, at the age of twenty-three years, was the first of the ten children to die. He was a brilliant orator and a man among men, even at that age. J. R. Cole, see mention above. Benjamin Cole was a teacher and farmer. His family are succeeding in the affairs of life. Lewis Cole was also a farmer and teacher. His eldest son, Earle, is a teller in a bank in Columbus, Ohio. Henry Cole, the youngest of the family, reared a large family, all of whom are doing well. His eldest son, Milbert Cole, was a boy of all work a few years ago in a large plant for the manufacturing of tile at Logan, Ohio. He is now superintendent of the works, is in charge of one hundred men, more or less, and under his man-agement the business has doubled. The company after just paying a war tax of $26,000, gave him an extra check of $1,000 in addition to his salary. Rufus Cole, his brother, is rate agent for the Big Four Railroad Company, with offices in Cleveland, Ohio, and Chicago. Only three of the above children of Broad and Leah Cole are now living-Jonathan, Lewis and Joseph. Joseph R. Cole was a member of the One Hundred and Sixty-ninth Ohio Infantry in the late war between the States. He was connected with the marshal's office in Old Baltimore.