Cle-Col: Clement through Colwell

See below for annotated biographies of American abolitionists and anti-slavery activists. Sources include: Scribner’s Dictionary of American Biography and Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography.


CLEMENT, John, abolitionist, Townsend, Massachusetts, Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, Vice-President, 1855-1856, 1857-1860.


CLEVELAND, Charles D., abolitionist, Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society.


CLEVELAND, Chauncy Fitch, 1799-1887, Hampton, Connecticut, lawyer, Governor, U.S. Congressman, reformer, Free Soil Party.  Elected Governor of Connecticut in 1842 and in 1843.  Elected Congressman in 1842.  Opposed the Missouri Compromise of 1850 and the Fugitive Salve Law.  Joined the new Republican party in 1856. 

(Wilson, Henry, History of the Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America, Volume 2.  Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, 1872, p. 338; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 4, Pt. 1, p. 203; Biographical Dictionary of the U.S. Congress 1774-1927 (1928); Congressional Globe).
 
Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 4, Pt. 1, p. 203:

CLEVELAND, CHAUNCEY FITCH (February 16, 1799-June 6, 1887), lawyer, governor, congressman, was born at Hampton, Connecticut, the son of Silas and Lois (Sharpe) Cleveland. After receiving a common-school education, he studied law with Daniel Frost of Canterbury, Connecticut, for three years, and in August 1819 was admitted to the Windham County bar. He became clerk of the probate court (1827), probate judge (1829), prosecuting attorney (1833), and state bank commissioner (1837). Between 1826 and 1866 he was twelve times elected to the General Assembly from the town of Hampton and was speaker of the House in 1835, 1836, and 1863. Elected governor of Connecticut in 1842 and 1843, he interested himself in social reform and recommended and carried through an act abolishing imprisonment for debt, a child-labor law, and appropriations for a "Retreat" for the insane poor at Hartford. During the Dorr insurrection in Rhode Island, he twice refused to honor the requisition of Charter Governor King for Thomas W. Dorr [q.v.], charged with treason against the State of Rhode Island, on the ground that Dorr was a political refugee and not a fugitive from justice (Providence Daily Journal, September 2, 1842). Nominated for Congress, he was defeated in 1838 and 1840 but was elected to the Thirty-first and Thirty-second Congresses, where he defended the United States Supreme Court, asked that the franking privilege of members of Congress be curtailed, and opposed Clay's compromise measures of 1850 including the Fugitive Slave Bill. He was strongly anti-slavery, twice receiving the nomination of Free-Soilers for Congress, simultaneously with the Democratic nomination, and went so far in obeying the resolutions of the Connecticut legislature against the extension of slavery as to compare Daniel Webster with Benedict Arnold. A leader of the Democrats in Connecticut, he bolted his party in the mid-fifties, joined the new Republican party, acted as one of the vice-presidents of the Republican conventions of 1856 and 186o, and served as Republican presidential elector in 1860. In the following year he was appointed by Governor Buckingham to the delegation representing Connecticut in the peace conference that met in Washington, February 4-27, 1861, at the invitation of the State of Virginia. After the war he returned to the Democratic fold and was a Democratic presidential elector in 1876. He abandoned his law practise about 1879 and died at Hampton of apoplexy at the age of eighty-eight. He was married, first, to Diantha Hovey, December 13, 1821, by whom he had two children. She died, October 29, 1867, and on January 27, 1869, he was married to Helen Cornelia Litchfield.

[Public Acts, State of Connecticut, May Session 1842, chapters xxiii and xxviii; Resolutions and Priv. Acts, State of Connecticut, May Session 1842, p. 52, May Session 1843, p. 28; Congressional Globe, 31, 32 Congress; Roll State Officers and Members of General Assembly of Connecticut (1881); L. E. Chittenden, Report Debates and Proc ...  Conference Convention (1864); E. J. and H. G. Cleveland, Genealogy Cleveland and Cleaveland Families (1899); E. D. Larned, History of Windham County, Connecticut, volume II (1880); Hartford Daily Courant, May 8, October 27, 1842, May 6, 1843; Hartford Times, June 7, 1887.]

F.E.R.


CLEVELAND, Giles B., New York, American Abolition Society.

(Radical Abolitionist, Volume 1, No. 1, New York, August 1855)


CLEVELAND, John P., abolitionist, Detroit, Michigan, American Anti-Slavery Society, Manager, 1837-40, Executive Committee, American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, 1840-1843.


CLEVERLY, Joseph, abolitionist, Abington, Massachusetts, Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, Vice-President, 1838-40.


CLOPPNER, J. C., Ohio Anti-Slavery Society, Manager, 1838-39.


CLOTHIER, Caleb, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Society of Friends, Quaker, abolitionist, member of the Association of Friends for Advocating the Cause of the Slave, and Hicksite Anti-Slavery Association.

(Drake, Thomas. Quakers and Slavery in America. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1950, pp. 154, 156, 172)


COALE, Edward J., Maryland, bookseller.  Manager of the Maryland Society of the American Colonization Society. 

(Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961, p. 111)


COATES, Lindley, 1794-1856, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, Society of Friends, Quaker.  Manager, 1833-1840, and founding member of the American Anti-Slavery Society, December 1833.  Ardent abolitionist who helped escaped slaves.  Member of the Underground Railroad.  Petitioned Congress on November 19, 1835, to “Secure the rights of freedom to every human being residing within the constitutional jurisdiction of Congress, and [to] prohibit every species of traffic in the persons of men [i.e., the internal slave trade], which is as inconsistent in principle and inhuman in practice as the foreign slave trade.”

(Drake, Thomas. Quakers and Slavery in America. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1950, pp. 146, 149; Abolitionist, Volume I, No. XII, December, 1833)


COATES, Samuel, 1748-1830, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Society of Friends, Quaker, merchant, director of the First Bank of the United States, member and delegate of the Pennsylvania Abolitionist Society (PAS), Committee of Twenty-Four.

(Basker, James G., gen. ed. Early American Abolitionists: A Collection of Anti-Slavery Writings, 1760-1820. New York: Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, 2005, pp. 223, 224, 238, 240n15; Nash, Gary B., & Soderlund, Jean R. Freedom by Degrees: Emancipation in Pennsylvania and Its Aftermath. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991, p. 129; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 4, Pt. 2, pp. 238-239)

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 4, Pt. 2, pp. 238-239:

COATES, SAMUEL (August 24, 1748-June 4, 1830), merchant, philanthropist, was more successful as a citizen than as a merchant. He was born in Philadelphia of an old Quaker family descended from Thomas Coates who emigrated from England probably after the year 1680. His father, also Samuel Coates, died when Samuel, Jr., was nine weeks old, and his mother, Mary Langdale Coates, allowed his uncle, John Reynell, to adopt him. He was given a good classical and business education and at nineteen was put in charge of a small commercial business which he handled so well that at the end of three years it was terminated so that he might enter into partnership with his uncle as a member of the firm of Reynell & Coates. His first wife, Lydia Saunders, whom he had married in 1775, died in 1789; and in 1791 he married Amy Hornor.

After the withdrawal of his uncle from active business life, Samuel Coates formed a partnership with his brother, Josiah Langdale Coates; but the brother withdrew to establish himself as a grocer, and after 1785 Samuel Coates was in business for himself. He prospered, but after he became interested in philanthropic enterprises he neglected his business and it dwindled away. When he finally paid all his debts and gave up his business he had but a small competence instead of a fortune.

One of his chief interests was the Pennsylvania Hospital. He was elected a manager in 1785 and president of the board of directors in 1812. He gave forty-one years of unremitting attention to the affairs of this hospital and during the fearful yellow-fever epidemic of 1793 was one of the few citizens of means who remained in the city to gather together the forces with which to combat the scourge. His portrait, by Sully, is still in the possession of this institution. For a period almost as long, 1786-1823, he gave his services to the body entitled. "The Overseers of the Public Schools, founded by charter in the town and county of Philadelphia," which was the ruling authority managing what were called "the Quaker Schools." In 1800 he was elected a director of the first Bank of the United States and was still a director at the time its affairs were wound up in 1812. He was under the average size, but of an athletic figure, with a large chest and head, and heavy hair. He was cheerful and sociable, genial and entertaining, fond of children, who were also fond of him. His death occurred in the house at the corner of Walnut and South Front Sts., which had been his place of business since 1791.

Mary Coates, Family Memorials and Recollections (1885); Stephen N. Winslow, Biographies of Philadelphia Merchants (1864); Henry Simpson, Lives of Eminent Philadelphians (1859).]

E. Y.


COBB, Amasa, Member of the U.S. House of Representatives, voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery.

(Congressional Globe; Biographical Dictionary of the U.S. Congress 1774-1927 (1928)


COBB, SYLVANUS (July 17, 1798-October 31, 1866), Universalist clergyman, state politician clergyman, newspaper editor, temperance and anti-slavery leader.  Editor of the Christian Freeman for 20 years. “All the time he was at heart a journalist and he began to publish in Waltham, Massachusetts, The Christian Freeman and Family Visiter in 1839. In religion it stood for the Universalist faith and also for total abstinence and anti-slavery. Both were unpopular causes. He was accused of mixing politics and religion, as he had been accused in his pulpit.”

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 4, Pt. 2, pp. 245-246:

COBB, SYLVANUS (July 17, 1798-October 31, 1866), Universalist clergyman, was the son of Ebenezer and Elizabeth Cobb, both descendants of Elder Henry Cobb who came to Plymouth on the second voyage of the Mayflower. The year before Sylvanus was born his parents went in an ox-wagon as pioneers to Norway, Maine. As a boy he cut hoop-poles at a cent each to provide himself with books and stationery. During the War of 1812 he early exhibited his journalistic and political tendencies by writing poetry and prose in support of the Republican or War party. The fir st Universalist Church in Maine was built in Norway and in his sixteenth year he espoused that faith. It was a controversial era when hostility to Universalist doctrine was strong and vigorous. When Cobb received his first certificate to teach school the "orthodox" preacher wrote a "P. S." that the young man was legally qualified but he could not consistently commit a child to the care of one of his religious sentiments. In 1820 the young man went to Portsmouth, New Hampshire, to study with Reverend Sebastian Streeter preparatory to entering the Universalist ministry, to which he was ordained in Winthrop, Maine, June 28, 1821. While pastor at Winthrop and Waterville, he became the chief pioneer and missionary of Universalism in the state of Maine. The first Parish Church of Malden, Massachusetts, became Universalist instead of Unitarian by calling Cobb to its ministry in 1828. All the time he was at heart a journalist and he began to publish in Waltham, Massachusetts, The Christian Freeman and Family Visiter in 1839. In religion it stood for the Universalist faith and also for total abstinence and anti-slavery. Both were unpopular causes. He was accused of mixing politics and religion, as he had been accused in his pulpit. Already he had served two terms each in the Maine and Massachusetts legislatures, and in politics and reform he was always found with the advanced liberals. He became champion and confessor of the Universalist faith, and carried on his polemics with earnestness and ability. He reviewed in his paper Dr. Edward Beecher's Conflict of the Ages. Two great debates were also conducted in the Freeman, one with the orthodox Calvinist, Dr. Nehemiah Adams, on "The Scripturalness of Future Endless Punishment," and the other on "Human Destiny" with Reverend C. F. Hudson who supported the annihilationist theory. These were republished in book form. After twenty-three years he sold out the Freeman, which soon became the property of the Universalist Publishing House. While editing the paper he had also preached in Universalist churches in Waltham and East Boston. One of his constructive contributions was his Compend of Divinity (1846), a thorough and concise epitome of the Universalist doctrine, while his New Testament of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ: with explanatory notes and practical observations (1864) shows his ability as a theologian. Standing well over six feet in height, broad shouldered, full chested, he had a commanding presence and a massive head. He had not the characteristics of a popular preacher, but rather strength and solidity of thought, closely knit and logical. Weight of argument was his chief weapon instead of brilliance or elegance of style. Severe in denunciation and condemnation of error or evil, he was kind of heart and of large charity. The last years of his life were spent in Boston where he died. He was married on September 10, 1822 to Eunice Hale Waite of Hallowell, Maine, by whom he had nine children, one of whom, Sylvanus Cobb [q.v.], was his father's biographer.

[The chief source is The Autobiography of the First Forty-One Years of the Life of Sylvanus Cobb, D.D.; to which is added a Memoir by his eldest son, Sylvanus Cobb, Jr. (1867). The Christian Freeman and Family Visiter also has much autobiographical material.]

T. C. R.


COBB, Sylvanus, 1798-1866, Norway, Maine, clergyman, newspaper editor, temperance and anti-slavery leader.  Editor of the Christian Freeman for 20 years.  

(Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume I, p.668; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 2, Pt. 2, p. 245)

Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume I, p. 668:

COBB, Sylvanus, clergyman, born in Norway, Maine, in July, 1799; died in East Boston, 31 October, 1866. In 1828 he was settled over Universalist churches at Malden and Waltham, Massachusetts, and in 1838 took charge of the “Christian Freeman,” which he edited for more than twenty years. He was for many years a leader in the anti-slavery and temperance movements. Dr. Cobb's published works include “The New Testament, with Explanatory Notes” (Boston, 1864); “Compend of Divinity” and “Discussions.” Appletons’ Cylcopædia of American Biography, 1888.


COBURN, John P., 1811-1873, African American, abolitionist, businessman.

(Gates, Henry Louis, Jr., & Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, eds. African American National Biography. Oxford University Press, 2013, Volume 3, p. 146)


COCHRANE, Clark B., 1817-1867, New Boston, New Hampshire. He was one of the primitive barnburners, supported Van Buren and Adams in 1848, and in 1854 vigorously opposed the Kansas-Nebraska bill, after which he acted with the republican party. In 1856 he was elected to congress from the Schenectady district, and in 1858 was re-elected.

Appletons’ Cylcopædia of American Biography, 1888:

COCHRANE, Clark B., lawyer, born in New Boston. New Hampshire, in 1817; died in Albany, New York, 5 March, 1867. He was graduated at Union, and devoted himself to the study of law. In 1844 he was chosen a member of the assembly, on the democratic ticket, from Montgomery county. He was one of the primitive barnburners, supported Van Buren and Adams in 1848, and in 1854 vigorously opposed the Kansas-Nebraska bill, after which he acted with the republican party. In 1856 he was elected to congress from the Schenectady district, and in 1858 was re-elected. The following year, his health becoming affected by the excitement of congressional life, he was obliged to return home for temporary rest, and after the expiration of his term resided in Albany, devoting himself to his profession. In 1865 he accepted a nomination for the legislature. He was the acknowledged leader of the house, and his tact in quieting angry debate gave him the title of “The Great Pacificator.” Appletons’ Cylcopædia of American Biography, 1888.


COCKE, John Hartwell, 1780-1866, reformer, soldier, temperance advocate, member of the American Colonization Party. Vice President, 1833-1841, of the American Colonization Party (ACS).  Life member and supporter of the ACS.  President of two ACS auxiliaries in Albemarle and Fluvanna counties in Virginia.   

(Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume I, p. 672; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 2, p. 253)

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 2, p. 253:

COCKE, JOHN HARTWELL (September 19, 1780-July 1, 1866), planter, publicist, was born in Surry County, Virginia, son of John Hartwell and Elizabeth (Kennon) Cocke, and sixth in descent from Richard Cocke, who first appeared in Virginia from southern England in 1628. He inherited a fortune as well as refinement and native ability from his forebears, and after attending William and Mary College (1794-99), he chose the life of a country gentleman at "Bremo" in Fluvanna County, to which he removed about 1803. He married on December 25, 1802, Ann Blaus Barraud of Norfolk, by whom he had several children, among them Philip St. George Cocke [q.v.]. Progressive and prescient in all things, he promoted new agricultural methods, the founding of agricultural societies, the developing of waterways and steam navigation, and various public improvements. He attacked the practise of making tobacco the principal crop and published a monograph, Tobacco (1860), to prove it ethically and economically "the bane of Virginia husbandry." During the War of 1812 he rose in eighteen months from captain to brigadier- general, commanding the Virginia soldiery guarding Richmond, 1814-15, at Camps Carter and Holley on the Chickahominy River. "I find General Cocke universally respected," wrote his secretary, "and looked up to by the officers under his command-a striking instance of the triumph of talents and perseverance in the cause of duty" (A. C. Gordon, William Fitzhugh Gordon, 1909, p. 82). His conduct as a soldier brought him such reputation that his name was canvassed for governor in the General Assembly of 1814 until Cocke positively forbade its use (Bruce, post, I, 158). In religious and social movements his activities were unceasing and influential. He abetted Bible, Tract, and Sunday school societies, and served on the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. Slavery he denounced as a curse to commonwealth and nation, predicting that Virginia would make no progress toward prosperity until it and tobacco tillage should be ended. From its organization in 1819 until his death he was senior vice-president of the American Colonization Society, formed to settle the slavery problem peaceably by colonizing the negroes of the South in Africa. He favored federal intervention and a constitutional amendment providing funds for this purpose; and in 1831 wrote of slavery as "the great cause of all the great evils of our land." Duelling and intemperance he likewise detested and warred against with cogent reasoning or acid satire. In a drinking age, his was the most insistent voice in his state demanding nation-wide prohibition; and when the American Temperance Union succeeded the United States Temperance Union in 1836, Cocke was elected president of the new society. A friend to popular education, he sponsored sounder primary and secondary school systems, but his greatest service lay in his efforts toward a state university, his share in its physical development, and his thirty-three years (1819-52) on its Board of Visitors. Without playing so conspicuous a part in founding the University of Virginia as did Jefferson and Joseph C. Cabell, Cocke's contribution was subordinate only to theirs. He cooperated with Jefferson on the important building committee, and, though disapproving of various particulars of Jefferson's architectural plan which contravened his economical an3 conservative bent, never interposed his objections; his suggestions were uniformly constructive, and his experience and practical counsel during the institution's infancy proved invaluable. His inordinate modesty and refusal to hold political office have helped undeservedly to obliterate his name from public memory. Although in his day he was widely known and though his erect figure and impressively determined countenance compelled respectful consideration, few realized the solidity of his talents and even enlightened contemporaries considered his attitude toward slavery, tobacco, and temperance extreme. Conscientious, tenacious of opinion, boldly independent, and devoid of partisanship, sectarian or sectional, he was impervious to the derision and contempt which his convictions occasionally provoked: he formed conclusions deliberately, and before his death saw established many of the causes which he had upheld against incisive opposition. Without being either a prig or a Puritan, he was a zealous reformer; yet even those who impugned his principles admired his sincerity, catholic benevolence, and alertness to civic responsibility. The causes which he supported indicate him to have been one of the most remarkable Virginians of his generation in power of foresight, a pioneer oi modern social reform.

[Little has been written about John Hartwell Cocke, the only adequate sketch of him being that in Philip A. Bruce, History of the University of Virginia (1920-22), I, 157-64. His correspondence in MSS., now in possession of the Cocke family of University, Virginia; the correspondence in MSS. of Wm. Cabell Rives, his aide-de-camp in the War of 1812, in the possession of the Rives family of Washington, D. C.; the correspondence in MSS. of Jos. C. Cabell, in the University of Virginia Library; and the reports and minutes of the University's Board of Visitors are the most fertile sources of information about him. For the Cocke genealogy, see Jas. C. Southall, "A Memoir of the Cocke Family," in the Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, volumes III, IV, and V. An editorial notice of Cocke was published in the Richmond Whig, July 4, 1866.]

A.C. G., Jr.

Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume I, p. 672:

COCKE, John Hartwell, born in Surry county, Virginia, 19 September, 1780; died in Fluvanna county, Virginia, 1 July, 1866. He was graduated at William and Mary in 1798, and was general commanding the Virginia troops at Camp Carter and Camp Holly, on the Chickahominy, in 1812 and 1813, in defence of the city of Richmond. He was vice-president of the American temperance society and of the American colonization society, and a member of the first board of visitors of the University of Virginia. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume I. pp. 672.


CODDING, Ichabod, 1811-1866, born in Bristol, New York, anti-slavery agent, commissioned in 1836.  Lectured against slavery.  He traveled on anti-slavery lecture tour from 1838-1843, in New England.  He helped co-found and edit anti-slavery newspapers.  He organized state organizations for the anti-slavery Liberty Party.  After 1843, he lectured in Illinois.  He was active in the Anti-Nebraska Convention, Connecticut, in 1843.  He worked with anti-slavery leaders Owen Lovejoy, William Allan, and others. 

(Blue, Frederick J. No Taint of Compromise: Crusaders in Antislavery Politics. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2005, pp. 119, 120; Dumond, Dwight Lowell, Antislavery: The Crusade for Freedom in America, University of Michigan Press, 1961, p. 186; Filler, Louis. The Crusade Against Slavery, 1830-1860. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1960, pp. 152, 232, 247; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume I, p. 673)


COFFIN, Addison, Indiana, North Carolina, Society of Friends, Quaker, radical abolitionist, manager of North Carolina Underground Railroad, 1836-1852.

(Drake, Thomas. Quakers and Slavery in America. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1950, pp. 162, 185)


COFFIN, Alfred, Indiana, North Carolina, Society of Friends, Quaker, radical abolitionist, manager of North Carolina Underground Railroad, 1836-1852

(Drake, Thomas. Quakers and Slavery in America. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1950, p. 185)


COFFIN, Joshua, 1792-1864, Tyngborough, PA, educator, author, ardent abolitionist, founder of the New England Anti-Slavery Society in 1832.  He was its co-founder and first recording secretary.  Manager of the American Anti-Slavery Society, 1834-1837.

(Coffin, 1860; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume I, 675, He published “The History of Ancient Newbury” (Boston, 1845), genealogies of the Woodman, Little, and Toppan families, and magazine articles.

Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume I, 675:

COFFIN, Joshua, antiquary, born in Newbury, Massachusetts, 12 October, 1792; died there, 24 June, 1864. He was graduated at Dartmouth in 1817, and taught for many years, numbering among his pupils the poet Whittier, who addressed to him a poem entitled “To My Old School-Master.” Mr. Coffin was ardent in the cause of emancipation, and was one of the founders of the New England anti-slavery society in 1832, being its first recording secretary. He published “The History of Ancient Newbury” (Boston, 1845), genealogies of the Woodman, Little, and Toppan families, and magazine articles. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume I. pp. 675.


COFFIN, Levi, 1798-1877, Newport, Indiana, philanthropist, Society of Friends, Quaker, abolitionist, conductor Underground Railroad, established Indiana Yearly Meeting of Anti-Slavery Friends.  Active in Free Labor Movement, which encouraged people not to trade in goods produced by slave labor.  Helped start the Western Freedman’s Aid Commission.  Wrote Reminiscences of Levi Coffin, Reputed President of the Underground Railroad, Cincinnati, OH: Western Tract Society.  Helped three thousands slaves to freedom.  Coffin was a manager of the American Anti-Slavery Society (AASS). 

(Drake, Thomas. Quakers and Slavery in America. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1950, pp. 162, 165, 186, 187, 197; Dumond, Dwight Lowell, Antislavery: The Crusade for Freedom in America, University of Michigan Press, 1961, pp. 90, 92; Mabee, Carleton. Black Freedom: The Nonviolent Abolitionists from 1830 Through the Civil War. London: Macmillan, 1970, pp. 141, 225, 273, 280, 283; Rodriguez, Junius P., Slavery in the United States: A Social, Political, and Historical Encyclopedia, ABC-CLIO, 2007, pp. 75, 231-232, 488, 489; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume I, p. 675; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936; pp. 268-269, American Reformers: An H.W. Wilson Biographical Dictionary, New York, 1985, pp. 177-178; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Volume 5, p. 148)The story of his life is told in “Reminiscences of Levi Coffin, the Reputed President of the Underground Railroad” (Cincinnati, 1876). Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume I. pp. 675.

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936; pp. 268-269:

COFFIN, LEVI (October 28, 1789-September 16, 1877), a leader in operations of the "Underground Railroad," was descended from Tristram Coffyn, who came to New England in 1642 and was one of the nine original purchasers from the Indians of the Island of Nantucket. Levi was born on a farm at New Garden, North Carolina, the youngest of the seven children of Levi and Prudence (Williams) Coffin. His mother's family was of Welsh descent. Both of his parents were Quakers. The boy, who was the only son, could not be spared from necessary work on the farm except for short intervals at the district school. He was mainly taught by his father at home. When he was twenty-one, he left for a session at a distant school. He then taught for a winter, attended school the following year, and taught at intervals for several years thereafter. In 1821, together with his cousin Vestal Coffin, he organized at New Garden a Sunday-school for negroes. This succeeded for a time but eventually the masters, becoming alarmed at Coffin's methods, kept their slaves at home, and the school was closed. On October 28, 1824, Coffin was married to Catharine White, a Quaker. Two years later, he moved to Newport (now Fountain City), Wayne County, Ind. a village of about twenty families where he was to live for more than twenty years. Here Coffin opened a store. Very soon after he came to Newport, he found that he was on a line of the Underground Railroad through which slaves often passed. Coffin let it be known that his house would be a depot and immediately fugitives began to arrive. When his neighbors saw his fearlessness and success, they began to help in clothing and sending the negroes on their way, but they would not take the risk of sheltering them. The Railroad was attended with heavy expenses. These Coffin could not have borne had he not been prosperous. He kept a team and wagon always ready to carry slaves. Sometimes one or two other wagons and teams were required. Journeys had to be made at night, often through deep mud and bad roads and along seldom traveled by-ways. A week seldom passed without his receiving passengers. Coffin was also at this time a member of a Committee on Concerns of People of Color to look after their educational interests, treasurer of a fund raised to sustain schools and aid the poor and destitute, and an active participant in the temperance movement. Almost twenty years after he had gone to Newport to live, he became interested in the free labor question. In 1847, he agreed to go experimentally to Cincinnati for five years and open a wholesale free-labor goods store. A Quaker Convention at Salem, Ind., had voted in 1846 to raise $3,000 to begin such a project. A year after the outbreak of the Civil War, Coffin began his work for the freedmen and devoted his entire time to this for the rest of his life. In May 1864 he went to England for this purpose, and an English Freedmen's Aid Society was formed. Over $100,000 in money, clothing, and other articles was forwarded in one year from England and the Continent. In 1867, Coffin was appointed delegate to the International Anti-Slavery Conference in Paris, which was held on August 26 and 27. The last ten years of his life were passed in retirement.

[Reminisces of Levi Coffin, Reputed President of the Underground R. R. (1876, 2nd ed., 1880); S. B. Weeks, Southern Quakers and Slavery (1896); W. H. Siebert, The Underground R. R. from Slavery to Freedom (1898); A Woman's Life-Work: Labors and Experiences of Laura S. Haviland (1882); History Magazine, September 1868; New England History and Geneal. Register, October 1848, April, July 1870; American History Rec., January 1872, January, February 1873; Internal. Review, August 1880; Cincinnati Daily Gazette, September 17, 20, 1877; Cincinnati Enquirer, September 18, 1877.]

M. A.K.

Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume I, p. 675:

COFFIN, Levi, philanthropist, born near New Garden, North Carolina, 28 October, 1798; died in Avondale, Ohio, 16 September, 1877. His ancestors were natives of Nantucket. He assisted on his father's farm and had but little schooling, yet he became a teacher. The cruel treatment of the negroes, and the Quakers principles under which he was reared, enlisted his sympathies in favor of the oppressed race, and at the age of fifteen he began to aid in the escape of slaves. Subsequently he organized a Sunday-school for negroes, and in 1822 opened his first school. In 1826 he settled in Wayne county, Ind., where he kept a country store. Being prosperous in this undertaking, he soon enlarged his business in various lines, including also the curing of pork. In 1836 he built an oil-mill and began the manufacture of linseed-oil. Meanwhile his interest in the slaves continued, and he was active in the “underground railroad,” a secret organization, whose purpose was the transportation of slaves from member to member until a place was reached where the negro was free. Thousands of escaping slaves were aided on their way to Canada by him, including Eliza Harris, who subsequently became known through “Uncle Tom's Cabin.” The question of using only “free-labor goods” had been for some time agitated throughout the United States, and in 1846 a convention was held in Salem, Ind., at which Mr. Coffin was chosen to open such a store in Cincinnati. Accordingly he moved to that city in April, 1847. The undertaking proved successful, and he continued to be so occupied for many years. His relations with the “underground railroad” were also continued, and he became its president. In 1863 he was associated in the establishment of the freedmen's bureau, and during the following year was sent to Europe as agent for the Western freedmen's aid commission. He held meetings in all of the prominent cities in Great Britain, enlisted much sympathy, and secured funds. Again in 1867 he visited Europe in the same capacity. When the colored people of Cincinnati celebrated the adoption of the fifteenth amendment to the United States constitution, he formally resigned his office of president of the “underground railroad,” which he had held for more than thirty years. The story of his life is told in “Reminiscences of Levi Coffin, the Reputed President of the Underground Railroad” (Cincinnati, 1876). Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume I. pp. 675.


COFFIN, Vestal, Society of Friends, Quaker, Guilford, established station of the Underground Railroad

(Drake, Thomas. Quakers and Slavery in America. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1950, p. 119)


COFFROTH, Alex, Member of the U.S. House of Representatives, voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery

(Biographical Dictionary of the U.S. Congress 1774-1927 (1928); Congressional Globe)


COGSWELL, Daniel, abolitionist, New Hampshire, American Anti-Slavery Society, Manager, 1840-1842, 1844-1845.


COGSWELL, Mason Fitch, Dr., 1731-1830, Hartford, Connecticut, physician.  Member of the Hartford Committee of the American Colonization Society.  (Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume I, pp. 679-680; Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961, p. 86)

Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume I, pp. 679-680:

COGSWELL, Mason Fitch, physician, born in Canterbury, Connecticut, 28 September, 1761; died in Hartford, Connecticut, 10 December, 1830. His mother died while he was young, and he was adopted by Samuel Huntington, president of the Continental congress and governor of Connecticut, who sent him to Yale, where he was graduated in 1780 as valedictorian of his class, and its youngest member. He studied with his brother James, a surgeon in the Revolutionary army, at the soldiers’ hospital in New York, and became one of the most distinguished surgeons in the country. He married Mary Austin Ledyard, and settled in Hartford, Connecticut. He was the first to introduce in the United States the operation of removing a cataract from the eye, and also the first to tie the carotid artery (1803). His daughter, Alice, became deaf and dumb from severe illness at an early age, and her father's attention was thus called to the possibility of educating deaf-mutes. Mainly through his influence the first deaf-and-dumb asylum in the country, that at Hartford, was established in 1820, and Alice became its first pupil. He was also one of the founders of the Connecticut retreat for the insane at Hartford. He was for ten years president of the Connecticut medical society, one of the last survivors of the “old school,” and persisted in wearing knee-breeches and silk stockings, which he held to be the only proper dress for a gentleman. Appletons’ Cyclopædia of American Biography, 1888.


COLBY, Isaac, abolitionist.  Ohio Anti-Slavery Society, Vice-President, 1835-36, Manager, 1836-39.


COLDEN, Cadwallader David, 1769-1834, New York, lawyer, soldier, opponent of slavery, 54th Mayor of New York City, U.S. Congressman.  President of the New York Manumission Society (established 1785).  Helped pass law in New York in 1817 freeing slaves in the state by July 4, 1827. 

(Biographical Dictionary of the U.S. Congress; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 2, Pt. 2, p. 287; Sinha, 1026, pp. 174, 176, 182)


COLE, Cornelius, born 1822, lawyer.  Member of the National Republican Committee, 1856-1860.  Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from California, 1863-1865.  U.S. Senator, 1867-1873.  Voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery.

(Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume I, p. 685; Biographical Dictionary of the U.S. Congress 1774-1927 (1928); Congressional Globe)

Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography,, 1888, Volume I, p. 685:

COLE, Cornelius, senator, born in Lodi, New York, 17 September, 1822. He was graduated at Wesleyan university, Middletown, Connecticut, in 1847, and, after studying law in the office of William H. Seward, was admitted to the bar. In 1849 he crossed the plains to California, and, after working a year in the gold mines, began the practice of law. He was district attorney of Sacramento city and county from 1859 till 1862, was a member of the National republican committee from 1856 till 1860, and during the latter year edited a newspaper. He then removed to Santa Cruz, and was a representative from California in the 38th congress as a union republican, serving from 7 December, 1863, till 3 March, 1865. He was elected U. S. senator to succeed James A. McDougall, democrat, serving from 4 March, 1867, till 3 March, 1873. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume I. pp. 685.


COLEMAN, Elihu, died 1789, Nantucket, carpenter, Society of Friends, Quaker.  Early Quaker opponent of slavery.  Wrote pamphlet, “A Testimony Against that Anti-Christian Practice of Making Slaves of Men.”  Cole believed that slavery was un-Christian and against the precepts of the Golden Rule.

(Bruns, Roger, ed. Am I Not a Man and a Brother: The Antislavery Crusade of Revolutionary America, 1688-1788. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1977, pp. 39-45; Drake, Thomas. Quakers and Slavery in America. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1950, pp. 34, 37-39, 49, 63; Locke, Mary Stoughton. Anti-Slavery in America from the Introduction of African Slaves to the Prohibition of the Slave Trade (1619-1808). Boston: Ginn & Co., 1901, pp. 24, 25, 33; Rodriguez, Junius P., Slavery in the United States: A Social, Political, and Historical Encyclopedia, ABC-CLIO, 2007, p. 12)


COLES, Edward, 1786-1868, statesman, abolitionist, Governor of Illinois (elected 1822), member American Colonization Society.  Private secretary to President James Madison, 1809-1815.  Manumitted his slaves in 1819.  Worked with fellow abolitionist James Lemen to keep Illinois a free state.  Opposed pro-slavery group in Illinois state legislature.

(Dumond, Dwight Lowell, Antislavery: The Crusade for Freedom in America, University of Michigan Press, 1961, pp. 90, 92, 100-101; Locke, Mary Stoughton. Anti-Slavery in America from the Introduction of African Slaves to the Prohibition of the Slave Trade (1619-1808). Boston: Ginn & Co., 1901, pp. 24, 25, 33; Ress, 2006; Rodriguez, Junius P., Slavery in the United States: A Social, Political, and Historical Encyclopedia, ABC-CLIO, 2007, pp. 37, 233-234; Ress, 2006; Washburne, 1882; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume I, p. 687; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 2, Pt. 2, p. 296; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Volume 5, p. 226)

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 2, Pt. 2, p. 296:

COLES, EDWARD (December 15, 1786-July 7, 1868), abolitionist, governor of Illinois, was born on a plantation, "Enniscorthy," in Albemarle County, Virginia. His father, Colonel John Coles, who was a slaveholder and of good family, had served in the Revolution and enjoyed the friendship of many of the foremost Virginia statesmen of the time. Edward was given an exceptional education and training, even for an aristocratic Virginian of that period. After being prepared by private tutors, he first attended Hampden Sidney College, and later William and Mary, where he failed to graduate, however, owing to a physical injury. From 1809 to 1815 he served as private secretary to President Madison and in 1816 he was sent by the President to Russia on a diplomatic mission. His European journey also afforded him opportunity for travel in Germany, France, and the British Isles. The trend of Coles's later career was determined by a strain of idealism in his character which led him early in life to champion the anti-slavery cause, on moral and humanitarian grounds. Upon the death of his father in 1808, he had fallen heir to a plantation and a number of slaves, but this did not alter his attitude. In 1814 he corresponded with Jefferson on the subject of slavery and a letter of Jefferson's, dated August 25, 1814, has become famous as one statement of the anti-slavery view-point (Washburne, Coles, Alvord ed., pp. 24-27). Being, as one of his friends expressed it, "an experimental philosopher," Coles determined to remove to free soil and emancipate his slaves. He had made two preliminary journeys to the Northwest, first in 1815 and again in 1818, and had decided to settle at Edwardsville, Illinois, the state having been admitted to the Union in 1818.

He set out in the spring of 1819, carrying his negroes with him. With an instinct for the dramatic, he informed them of their emancipation during the journey down the Ohio River. Upon arriving in Illinois, he executed for  deeds of emancipation and assisted his former slaves to make a new start in life. On March 5, 1819, he was appointed register of the Land Office at Edwardsville, a position which enabled him to extend his acquaintance among the people of the state. He is described at this time as "a young man of handsome, but somewhat awkward personal appearance, genteelly dressed, and of kind and agreeable manners" (Ibid., p. 49). In 1822, only three years after his arrival in the state, Coles was elected governor, though by a very narrow margin. His success may be attributed in part to the appearance of slavery in Illinois politics. Though nominally free territory, slavery virtually existed, and there was evidence of a desire to extend the institution. Coles naturally represented the forces opposed to this movement. In his first message to the Assembly, he urged the adoption of measures which would abolish slavery in fact as well as in name. The challenge was taken up by the pro-slavery faction, which passed a resolution calling for a referendum upon the question of holding a convention to amend the constitution. It was understood that one purpose of this move was to legalize slavery. A bitter struggle ensued, with Coles leading the anti-convention forces. In a letter to a friend he wrote at this time, "I assure you, I never before felt so deep an interest in any political question. It preys upon me to such a degree, that I shall not be happy or feel at ease until it is settled" (Ibid., p. 122). The convention project was decisively defeated at the polls in August of 1824, and the menace of slavery was averted. As governor, Coles was greatly interested in the furthering of internal improvements and in the promotion of agriculture. As early as 1819 he had taken the initiative in organizing the first state agricultural society. In national politics he was at first a Republican. In 1824 he favored Crawford for the presidency, but later he became an opponent of Jackson. Aside from his career as governor he met with little success in state politics, being defeated for the United States Senate in 1824 and for Congress in 1831. Apparently he did not find life in a frontier state congenial, for a few years after retiring from the governorship in 1826, he removed to Philadelphia, probably in the fall of 1832. There he passed the remainder of his life, years which were happy, prosperous, but uneventful from a political standpoint. On November 28, 1833, he was married to Sally Logan Roberts. He died in 1868 at the age of eighty-two, having witnessed the fulfilment of his life-long hope, though at the cost of civil war. In helping to prevent the extension of slavery into the Northwest, it is evident that he himself played no small part in the emancipation movement.

[The best account of Coles's life is Elihu B. Washburne's Sketch of Edward Coles (1882). It includes a full history of the convention struggle of 1824 and is valuable for the documents which it contains. This Sketch has been reprinted. along with additional documentary material, under the title "Governor Edward Coles," as Volume XV (1920) of the Colls. of the Illinois State Historical Library, edited by C. W. Alvord. Some of Coles's correspondence as governor is contained in E. B. Greene and C. W. Alvord, Governors' Letter Books, 1818-1834 (1909), Volume IV of the Illinois Historical Colls. See also Solon J. Buck, Illinois in 1818 (1917), and Theodore C. Pease. The Frontier State, 1818-1848 (1918), the latter being Volume II of the Centennial History of Illinois. In the absence of any considerable body of manuscript material, early Illinois newspapers constitute one of the most valuable sources regarding his political activities.]

W. E. S-s.

Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume I, p. 687:

COLES, Edward, governor of Illinois, born in Albemarle county, Virginia, 15 December, 1786; died in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 7 July, 1868. He was educated at Hampden-Sidney college, and at William and Mary, where he was graduated in 1807. He was private secretary to President Madison from 1810 till 1816, and in 1817 sent on a confidential diplomatic mission to Russia. He returned in 1818, and in 1819 removed to Edwardsville, Illinois, and freed all the slaves that had been left him by his father, giving to each head of a family 160 acres of land. He was appointed registrar of the U. S. land-office at Edwardsville, and in 1822 was nominated for governor on account of his well-known anti-slavery sentiments. He served from 1823 till 1826, and during his term of office prevented the pro-slavery party from obtaining control of the state after a bitter and desperate conflict. The history of this remarkable struggle has been written by Elihu B. Washburne (Chicago, 1882). Governor Coles removed to Philadelphia in 1833, and in 1856 read before the Pennsylvania historical society a “History of the Ordinance of 1787” (Philadelphia, 1856). Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume I. pp. 687.


COLFAX, Schuyler, 1823-1885, Vice President of the United States, statesman, newspaper editor.  Member of Congress, 1854-1869.  Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives from Indiana.  Secretary of State.  Opposed slavery as a Republican Member of Congress. Voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery. 

(Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume I, pp. 687-688; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 2, Pt. 2, p. 297; Biographical Dictionary of the U.S. Congress 1774-1927 (1928); Congressional Globe; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Volume 5, p. 97 See “Life of Colfax” by O. J. Hollister (New York, 1886).

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 2, Pt. 2, p. 297:

COLFAX, SCHUYLER (March 23, 1823-January 13, 1885), vice-president of the United States, was born in New York City. His paternal grandfather, William Colfax, was commander of Washington's body-guard during the Revolutionary War (William Nelson, in the Proceedings of the New Jersey Historical Society, 2 series, IV, 145-52). His maternal grandmother, Hester Schuyler, was a cousin of General Philip Schuyler [q.v.]. His father, Schuyler Colfax, who married (April 15, 1820) Hannah Stryker of New York, died October 30, 1822, and in 1834 his mother married George W. Matthews of Baltimore. In 1836 the family removed to New Carlisle, Ind., where Matthews, who became auditor of St. Joseph County in 1841, appointed his stepson deputy auditor at South Bend, an office which he held for eight years. Colfax found time to serve as assistant enrolling clerk of the state Senate (1842-44) and as correspondent of the Indiana State Journal (Indianapolis), and also studied law, but was never admitted to the bar. Having bought an interest in the South Bend Free Press in 1845, he changed the name of the paper to St. Joseph Valley Register, made it the Whig organ of northern Indiana, and retained his interest in it until shortly after he became speaker of the House of Representatives. His political activities began early. He made campaign speeches for Clay in 1844, was secretary of the Chicago Rivers and Harbors Convention in 1847, delegate to the Whig national convention of 1848, and sat in the state constitutional convention of 1850. In 1851 he was defeated as a Whig candidate for Congress, notwithstanding a unanimous nomination, but was a delegate to the Whig national convention of 1852. When the Republican party was formed he joined it, and took an active part in organizing the new party in Indiana. In December 1855, he entered the House of Representatives of the Thirty-fourth Congress (1855-57) as a Republican, and served continuously until the end of the Fortieth Congress (March 3, 1869). From the Thirty-eighth to the Fortieth Congress, inclusive (1863-69), he was speaker of the House. On June 21, 1856, he made a speech, of which more than a million copies were said to have been circulated, opposing the use of the army in Kansas until the laws of the Territory should have received congressional approval. His longest and most important service, prior to the speakership, was as chairman of the Committee on Post Offices and Post Roads, in which capacity he directed the reorganization and extension of the overland mail service to California. He was strongly urged for postmaster-general under Lincoln, but was passed over on the ground, as Lincoln wrote, that he was "a young man, is already in position, is running a brilliant career, and is sure of a bright future in any event" (Hollister, post, p. 175). On April 8, 1864, he left the speaker's chair to move the expulsion of Alexander Long of Ohio, who had spoken in favor of recognizing the Confederacy. The resolution was later changed to one of censure.

His position as speaker, together with his "advanced ideas on Negro suffrage" (W. A. Dunning, Reconstruction Political and Economic, 1907, p. 129), commended Colfax as a candidate for vice-president in 1868, and at the Chicago convention, after the fifth ballot, when he received 541 votes, his nomination was made unanimous (E. Stanwood, History of the Presidency, l, 321), and he was later elected. An offer of the secretaryship of state in August 1871 was declined. Consideration of his availability as a presidential candidate by the Liberal Republicans in 1872 aroused the opposition of administration leaders, and at the Philadelphia convention he was defeated for renomination on the first ballot, the vote standing 321½ for Colfax and 364½ for Henry Wilson (Ibid., I, 348). Shortly thereafter he declined an offer of the editorship of the New York Tribune. He was implicated in the Credit Mobilier scandal, the investigation showing that he had agreed to accept twenty shares of stock in the company and had received a considerable sum in dividends. His denial of the charge was not convincing, and in his examination before the committee "it is impossible to believe that he told the truth" (Rhodes, VII, 13-15). He escaped formal censure on the ground that his misconduct, if any, had been committed before he became vice-president, but although he claimed to have been "fully exonerated" (Biographical Directory of the American Congress, 1928, p. 834), his political standing was ruined. His part in the Credit Mobilier affair was somewhat overshadowed by the disclosure that he had received in 1868 a campaign gift of $4,000 from a contractor who had supplied envelopes to the government while Colfax was chairman of the Committee on Post Offices and Post Roads. He continued after his retirement to be in demand as a lecturer, and devoted much time to the Odd Fellows, of which order he had been a member since 1846. He died suddenly at Mankato, Minnesota, and was buried at South Bend. His first wife, Evelyn Clark of New York, whom he married October 10, 1844, died at Newport, Rhode Island, July 10, 1863. On November 18, 1868, he married Ellen W. Wade, a niece of Benjamin F. Wade of Ohio [q.v.].

[The chief authority, aside from the Journal of the House of Representatives, the Congressional Globe, and the reports of House committees, is O. J. Hollister, Life of Schuyler Colfax (1886), able and thorough but overfriendly. A. Y. Moore, The Life of Schuyler Colfax (1868), a campaign biography, is valuable for the texts of speeches, letters, newspaper comment, etc. The Poland and Wilson reports on the Credit Mobilier scandal form House Report No. 77, 42 Congress, 3 Session; their facts and findings are judiciously summarized and appraised in J. F. Rhodes, History of the U.S., VII (1906), ch. 40.)

W. M.

Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume I, pp. 687-688:

COLFAX, Schuyler, statesman, born in New York city, 23 March, 1823; died in Mankato, Minn., 13 January, 1885. His grandfather was General William Colfax, who commanded the life-guards of Washington throughout the Revolutionary war. His father died a short time before the son's birth, and in 1834 his mother married George W. Matthews. After attending the public schools till he was ten years of age, and serving three years as clerk in his step-father's store, Schuyler went with the family to Indiana in 1836, and settled in New Carlisle, St. Joseph county, where Mr. Matthews soon became postmaster. The boy continued to serve as his clerk, and began a journal to aid himself in composition, contributing at the same time to the county paper. His step-father retired from business in 1839, and Colfax then began to study law, but afterward gave it up. In 1841 Mr. Matthews was elected county auditor, and removed to South Bend, making his step-son his deputy, which office Colfax held for eight years. In 1842 he was active in organizing a temperance society in South Bend, and continued a total abstainer throughout his life. At this time he reported the proceedings of the state senate for the Indianapolis “Journal” for two years. In 1844 he made campaign speeches for Henry Clay. He had acted as editor of the South Bend ”Free Press” for about a year when, in company with A. W. West, he bought the paper in September, 1845, and changed its name to the “St. Joseph Valley Register.” Under his management, despite numerous mishaps and business losses, the “Register” quadrupled its subscription in a few years, and became the most influential journal, in support of whig politics, in that part of Indiana: Mr. Colfax was secretary of the Chicago harbor and river convention of July, 1847, and also of the Baltimore whig convention of 1848, which nominated Taylor for president. The next year he was elected a member of the convention to revise the constitution of the state of Indiana, and in his place, both by voice and vote, opposed the clause that prohibited free colored men from settling in that state. He was also offered a nomination for the state senate, but declined it. In 1851 he was a candidate for congress, and came near being elected in a district that was strongly democratic. He accepted his opponent's challenge to a joint canvass, travelled a thousand miles, and spoke seventy times. He was again a delegate to the whig national convention in 1852, and, having joined the newly formed republican party, was its successful candidate for congress in 1854, serving by successive re-elections till 1869. In 1856 he supported Fremont for president, and during the canvass made a speech in congress on the extension of slavery and the aggressions of the slave-power. This speech was used as a campaign document, and more than half a million copies were circulated. He was chairman of several important committees of congress, especially that on post-offices and post-roads, and introduced many reforms, including a bill providing for a daily overland mail-route from St. Louis to San Francisco, reaching mining-camps where letters had previously been delivered by express at five dollars an ounce. Mr. Colfax favored Edward Bates as the republican candidate for the presidency in 1860. His name was widely mentioned for the office of postmaster - general in Lincoln's cabinet, but the president selected C. B. Smith, of Indiana, on the ground, as he afterward wrote Colfax, that the latter was “a young man running a brilliant career, and sure of a bright future in any event.” In the latter part of 1861 he ably defended Fremont in the house against the attack of Frank P. Blair. In 1862 he introduced a bill, which became a law, to punish fraudulent contractors as felons, and continued his efforts for reform in the postal service. He was elected speaker of the house on 7 December, 1863, and on 8 April, 1864, descended from the chair to move the expulsion of Mr. Long, of Ohio, who had made a speech favoring the recognition of the southern confederacy. The resolution was afterward changed to one of censure, and Mr. Colfax's action was widely commented on, but generally sustained by Union men. On 7 May, 1864, he was presented by citizens of Indiana then in Washington with a service of silver, largely on account of his course in this matter. He was twice re-elected as speaker, each time by an increased majority, and gained the applause of both friends and opponents by his skill as a presiding officer, often shown under very trying circumstances. In May, 1868, the republican national convention at Chicago nominated him on the first ballot for vice-president, General Grant being the nominee for president, and, the republican ticket having been successful, he took his seat as president of the senate on 4 March, 1869. On 4 August, 1871, President Grant offered him the place of secretary of state for the remainder of his term, but he declined. In 1872 he was prominently mentioned as a presidential candidate, especially by those who, later in the year, were leaders in the liberal republican movement, and, although he refused to join them, this was sufficient to make administration men oppose his renomination for the vice-presidency, and he was defeated in the Philadelphia convention of 1872. In December, 1872; he was offered the chief editorship of the New York “Tribune,” but declined it. In 1873 Mr. Colfax was implicated in the charger of corruption brought against members of congress who had received shares of stock in the credit mobilier of America. The house judiciary committee reported that there was no ground for his impeachment, as the alleged offence, if committed at all, had been committed before he became vice-president. These charges cast a shadow over the latter part of Mr. Colfax's life. He denied their truth, and his friends have always regarded his character as irreproachable. His later years were spent mostly in retirement in his home at South Bend, Ind., and in delivering public lectures, which he did frequently before large audiences. His first success in this field had been in 1865 with a lecture entitled “Across the Continent,” written after his return from an excursion to California. The most popular of his later lectures was that on “Lincoln and Garfield.” Mr. Colfax was twice married. After his death, which was the result of heart disease, public honors were paid to his memory both in congress and in Indiana. See “Life of Colfax” by O. J. Hollister (New York, 1886). Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume I. pp. 687-688.


COLGATE, William, 1783-1857, New York, merchant, prominent philanthropist.  Officer in the New York auxiliary of the American Colonization Society. 

(Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume I, pp. 688-689; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 2, Pt. 2, p. 299; Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961, pp. 40, 84)

Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume I, pp. 688-689:

COLGATE, William, manufacturer, born in the county of Kent, England, 25 January, 1783; died in New York city. Constrained by political considerations, his family emigrated to this country in 1798, and settled in Harford county, Maryland. Young Colgate came to New York in 1804, and became apprentice to a soap-boiler, whose business he subsequently followed with an intelligence and industry that commanded the largest success. In 1808 he united with a Baptist church, and was soon recognized as one of the leading Christian men of New York. In all the missionary and educational enterprises of his denomination he was distinguished for zeal and liberality. He was a member of the board of managers of the American Bible society, but felt constrained by his religious convictions to withdraw from it, and to unite in the formation of the American and foreign Bible society, of which he was made treasurer. In 1850 he joined twelve others, laymen and clergymen, in the organization of the American Bible union, and of this society he remained treasurer until his death. Appletons’ Cyclopædia of American Biography, 1888.


COLLAMER, Jacob, 1791-1865, lawyer, jurist.  U.S. Senator from Vermont.  U.S. Senator, 1854-1865.  Supported the Free Soil-Part and the non-extension of slavery into the new territories. Voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery

(Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume I, p. 689; Raybeck, 1970 p. 248 Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 2, Pt. 2, p. 300; Biographical Dictionary of the U.S. Congress 1774-1927 (1928); Congressional Globe)

Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 2, Pt. 2, p. 300:

COLLAMER, JACOB (January 8, 1791-November 9, 1865), judge, United States senator, postmaster-general, was born in Troy, New York, third of the eight children of Samuel Collamer, member of an early Massachusetts family, and Elizabeth Van Ornum, of colonial Dutch descent. The family moved to Burlington, Vermont, when Jacob was about four. Here he prepared for college under members of the faculty, and graduated from the University of Vermont in 1810. At once he began the study of law at St. Albans, Vermont, under Mr. Langworthy and later under Benjamin Swift, afterward senator. His studies were interrupted by his being drafted into the detailed militia service in 1812. He served as lieutenant of artillery and as aide to General French, with whom he went to Plattsburg, arriving in the evening after the battle was over. Admitted to the bar in 1813 he practised at Randolph Center until he removed to Royalton in 1816. He married Mary N. Stone of St. Albans, daughter of Abijah Stone, on July 15, 1817. He served four terms in the legislature as representative of Royalton, and was one of the assistant judges of the supreme court of Vermont from 1833 until 1842 when he declined reelection. As delegate to the Vermont constitutional convention (1836) he actively supported the movement to substitute a state Senate for the old Governor's Council. "That amendment has been largely attributed to the ability and zeal with which he urged it" (Barrett, post). This year he moved to Woodstock, Vermont, his home for the rest of his life. His national career began in 1842 when, after a close and hotly contested election, he was chosen member of the House of Representatives for the 2nd Congressional District. Reelected in 1844 and 1846, he declined a fourth election. As representative he made speeches on the annexation of Texas, the Mexican War, and the tariff, his address on "Wools and Woolens" attracting most attention. Recommended for a cabinet position by a legislative caucus, he became postmaster-general in the cabinet of President Taylor (1849). His service was short, for upon the death of President Taylor in July 1850 he resigned with the rest of the cabinet.

A few months after his return home, the Vermont legislature elected him, under the recently remodeled judicial system, circuit judge for the 2nd judicial circuit. In 1854, a candidate of the young Republican party as an anti-slavery Whig, he was elected senator. As a Republican he belonged to the conservative wing. In the Thirty-fourth Congress he served on the Committee on Territories under the chairmanship of Senator Douglas, and on March 12, 1856 made a vigorous minority report on the disorders in Kansas, defending the character of the free state leaders. He was one of three New England senators to vote against the tariff bill of 1857. In 1860 Vermont presented his name to the Republican convention for the presidential nomination, but after the first ballot, on which he received ten votes, his name was withdrawn. In the same year he was reelected to the Senate "with almost unprecedented unanimity." He and Fessenden refused to vote against the Crittenden compromise of the winter of 1861, though they did not vote for it. He drafted the bill, enacted July 13, 1861, which, according to Senator Sumner gave to the war for the suppression of the rebellion its first congressional sanction and invested the President with new powers" (Address of Senator Charles Sumner, December 14, 1865). On the problems of Reconstruction he held that Congress should control. While not an orator, and rarely speaking in the Senate, he was always listened to with attention, the logic of his arguments commanding respect. From June 1855 to October 1862 he was president the last-of the Vermont Medical College at Woodstock, in which he had lectured on medical law. He died at his home in Woodstock after a brief illness. Judge James Barrett, long his law partner, said of Collamer, "His mind was made up of a clear and ready perception, acuteness of discrimination, a facile faculty of analysis, an aptness and ease in rigid and simple logic, excellent commonsense, and withal a most tenacious memory of facts." [The chief source is the Memorial Address read by Judge Jas. Barrett before the Vermont Historical Society, October 20, 1868 (Rutland, 1868; Woodstock, 1868). Consult also Addresses on the Death of Hon. Jacob Collamer delivered in the Senate and House of Representatives, December 14, 1865 (1866) and Addresses on the Presentation of the Statue of Jacob Collamer of Vermont, by Jas. M. Tyler, Geo. B. Long, and Alexander H. Stephens, delivered in the House of Representatives February 15, 1881 (1881); and Henry Swan Dana, History of Woodstock, Vermont (1889).]

C.R.W.

Appletons’ Cyclopædia of American Biography, 1888,Volume I, p. 689:

COLLAMER, Jacob, senator, born in Troy, New York, 8 January, 1791; died in Woodstock, Vt., 9 November, 1865. In childhood he removed with his father to Burlington, and, earning his own support, was graduated at the University of Vermont in 1810, studied law at St. Albans, made the frontier campaign as a lieutenant of artillery in the militia, and was admitted to the bar at St. Albans in 1813. Until 1833 he practised law in Washington, Orange, and Windsor counties, Vt., and in 1821-'2 and 1827-'8 represented the town of Royalton in the assembly. In 1833 he was elected an associate justice of the supreme court of Vermont, and continued on the bench until 1842, when he declined a re-election. In 1843 he was chosen as a whig to represent the 2d district in congress, was re-elected in 1844 and 1846, but in 1848 declined to be again a candidate. In March, 1849, he was appointed postmaster-general by President Taylor, but on the death of the president resigned with the rest of the cabinet. He was soon afterward again elected judge of the supreme court of Vermont, holding that office until 1854, when he was chosen U. S. senator, which office he held at the time of his death. He served as chairman of the committee on post-offices and post-roads, and was also chairman of that on the library. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume I. pp. 689. 


COLLIN, Nicholas, abolitionist, Pennsylvania Society for the Abolition of Slavery (PAS), Committee of Twenty-Four

(Nash, Gary B., & Soderlund, Jean R. Freedom by Degrees: Emancipation in Pennsylvania and Its Aftermath. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991, p. 129)


COLLINS, Amos M., abolitionist, Hartford, Connecticut, American Anti-Slavery Society, Manager, 1835-1837.


COLLINS, Isaac, 1746-1817, born Delaware, Society of Friends, Quaker, printer, published anti-slavery literature in 1770’s.

(Basker, James G., gen. ed. Early American Abolitionists: A Collection of Anti-Slavery Writings, 1760-1820. New York: Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, 2005, pp. 55-56; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume I, pp. 691-692)

Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume I, pp. 691-692:

COLLINS, Isaac, publisher, born in Delaware, 16 February, 1746; died in Burlington, New Jersey, 21 March, 1817. He was the son of an immigrant from Bristol, England, learned the printer's trade, went to Philadelphia at the age of twenty-one, where he worked as a journeyman, in 1770 was appointed public printer in New Jersey, and removed to Burlington. In 1771 he began the publication of an almanac, which he issued annually for more than twenty years. In 1778 he removed to Trenton, and there printed 5,000 copies of a family Bible that was remarkably free from typographical errors. To secure accuracy, the proofs were read eleven times. In 1796 he went to New York city, but returned to Burlington in 1808. His sons also followed the business of their father; and the house of Charles Collins is now the oldest publishing firm in the United States. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume I. pp. 691-692. 


COLLINS, Isaac, 1746-1817, born Delaware, Society of Friends, Quaker, printer, published anti-slavery literature in 1770s.

(Basker, James G., gen. ed. Early American Abolitionists: A Collection of Anti-Slavery Writings, 1760-1820. New York: Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, 2005, pp. 55-56; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume I, pp. 691-692)


COLLINS, John Anderson, 1810-1879, abolitionist, social reformer.  General Agent and Vice President, Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society.  Edited anti-slavery magazine, Monthly Garland. 

(Filler, Louis. The Crusade Against Slavery, 1830-1860. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1960, pp. 24, 110, 135; Mabee, Carleton. Black Freedom: The Nonviolent Abolitionists from 1830 Through the Civil War. London: Macmillan, 1970, pp. 76, 80, 81, 82, 88, 112, 114, 119, 120, 123, 124, 125, 212, 264, 394n30, 394n31, 398n13; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 2, Pt. 2, pp. 307-308; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Volume 5, p. 253)

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 2, Pt. 2, pp. 307-308:

COLLINS, JOHN ANDERSON (fl. 1810- 1879), abolitionist and social reformer, was born at Manchester, Vermont, attended Middlebury College in his twenty-fifth year, and left it, without graduating, to enter Andover Theological Seminary. This was the period of the rising tide of sentiment against slavery. Feeling, both bitter and warm, with regard to the question ran high at Andover. Collins is said to have played a leading part in revealing the so-called "Clerical Plot" to the abolitionists. This incident probably had an influence in his ensuing abrupt departure from the seminary and his installation as general agent of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society. The Society sent him abroad to try to rouse sympathy for its work in England and to try to raise funds for carrying on propaganda. He carried letters of introduction from William Lloyd Garrison, commending him as "a free spirit, a zealous advocate" who had made large sacrifices for the cause. But his lot was no more easy than that of the other abolitionists. A group that included one particularly virulent clergyman went to great lengths to discredit him abroad, and on his return, accused him of importing "foreign gold to destroy the government" and of "disloyal and subversive propaganda."

From July 1840 to November 1841, Collins edited the Monthly Garland, a small magazine dealing with slavery, for which he wrote most of the material. Like many others of his enthusiastic temperament he was particularly attracted to the various Utopian doctrines newly imported from Europe, and he came to feel that the abolition of physical slavery was only a small part of a greater social reformation that was to free mankind. In 1843 he planned a series of "picnics" and the "hundred conventions" that were designed to rouse the country to the cause of the abolitionists. To the dismay of his backers, he began to follow the anti-slavery meetings with "constructive meetings" at which he preached a kind of Fourieristic doctrine. For reasons both diplomatic and conservative, he was reprimanded. He then decided to resign in order to devote himself to the founding of a commune. Garrison parted from him with regret. Collins, with two or three other enthusiasts, selected a farm at Skaneateles, New York, for the experiment, and he made a large part of the cash payment on the farm, giving his note for the rest. He then issued a call in the newspapers to others "of like mind" to join him, announcing a creed in which he denied all religious doctrines, denounced individual property, and advocated a social system founded on the negation of all force, admitting marriage only if accompanied by the right of easy divorce, and prescribing universal education and vegetarianism. This creed, which was somewhat modified later, aroused the usual stormy discussion far and wide. A group gathered about Collins, composed chiefly of those who saw an opportunity for free maintenance. The colony did not prosper, and Collins's disillusionment and disappointment were keen. In May 1846, he decided to liquidate. He next appears in California in 1849. In 1852, with John Wilson, he organized a company to mine the sands of the Klamath River. Many unfortunate investors lost all they had in the scheme. J. S. Hittell (History of City of San Francisco, 1878, p. 273) gives Collins credit for honestly believing in the plan. He was living in California as late as 1879 but he seems to have abandoned his schemes of philanthropy and social improvement (Noyes, History of American Socialisms).

[See the files of the Liberator; F. J. and W. P. Garrison, William Lloyd Garrison: The Story of His Life Told by His Children, 4 volumes, 1885-89; Edmund N. Leslie, History of Skaneateles and Vicinity (1882).]

K.H.A.


COLLINS, William, abolitionist, New York, American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, Executive Committee, 1851-1852.


COLMAN, Lucy Newhall, 1817-1906, Rochester, New York, abolitionist.  Lectured against slavery in Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, and Illinois.  Helped and supported by Frederick Douglass. 

(Sernett, Milton C. North Star Country: Upstate New York and the Crusade for African American Freedom. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2002, pp. 55-56; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 2, Pt. 2, p. 313; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Volume 5, p. 260)

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 2, Pt. 2, p. 313:

COLMAN, LUCY NEWHALL (July 26, 1817-January 18, 1906), abolitionist, lecturer, descended from Nicholas Danforth, an Englishman emigrating to New England in 1634, was born at Sturbridge, Massachusetts, the second of four daughters of Erastus and Hannah (Newhall) Danforth. Her mother was a descendant of John and Priscilla Alden. Her father, a fur-trader and blacksmith, was a prominent Universalist layman and she early entered that church; later, dissatisfied with the dogmas of all Christian churches, she became a Spiritualist. Her education in public schools was scanty; at the age of twelve, thrown on her own resources, she became a teacher. When eighteen she married John Mabrey Davis, who died of tuberculosis six years later. They lived in Boston, where Mrs. Davis supplemented her education through the cultural advantages there available. After her husband's death she taught in a girls' school in Philadelphia. In 1843 she married a railroad engineer, Luther N. Coleman (he apparently spelled his name thus although his widow later used the name Colman). In 1852 Coleman was killed in a railroad accident; the circumstances following upon this tragedy were such as to embitter his widow and intensify her sympathies with the cause of woman's rights. After much effort she secured a position as teacher of "the colored school" of Rochester, New York, at a meager salary. A year later, unaided, she accomplished its abolition, thereby removing educational discrimination against, the negroes of Rochester. In another position she publicly used her influence against corporal punishment in schools. A long-standing desire to strike at slavery led her to abandon teaching and to secure through friends appointments as an anti-slavery lecturer. She spoke in New York, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio; endured various hardships in the crude homes and country hotels of ante-bellum days; attacked slavery always in vigorous, even violent language; defied social and religious conventions; exposed sham. Though encountering determined opposition-misrepresentation, insults, and grave perils-she escaped actual physical harm. She adopted a young colored woman for a time as a fellow traveler. Sometimes she mingled in her protests the wrongs of blacks and the wrongs suffered by woman. After the outbreak of the Civil War she became matron of the National Colored Orphan Asylum at Washington, where she substituted kind treatment and sanitation for mismanagement. She served as superintendent of certain colored schools supported by the New York Aid Society in the District of Columbia, instructing the pupils in morals and cleanliness. She secured interesting interviews for Sojourner Truth with Presidents Lincoln and Johnson. Later she returned to New York State, making her home after 1873 in Syracuse, where she was active in the Spiritualist Society and as a Freethinker. She joined the J. S. Mill Liberal League, becoming a contributor to the Truth Seeker. In appearance she was a small woman, whose face gave evidence of intelligence, independence, and determination. She died in Syracuse after a five years' illness, and was buried in Rochester.

[Sources for Mrs. Colman's career are her own Reminiscences (1891); John J. May, Danforth Genealogy (1902); Frances E. Willard and Mary A. Livermore, American Women (1897); Syracuse (New York) directories, 1873-1906.]

R.S.B.


COLSON, Edward, Martinsburg, Virginia.  Nephew of John Marshal, advocate of American Colonization Society and colonization.  Defended the Society against attacks. 

(Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961, p. 221)


COLVER, Nathaniel, 1794-1870, Boston, Massachusetts, abolitionist, clergyman, anti-slavery agent of the American Anti-Slavery Society (AASS).  Baptist minister.  Lectured against slavery in New York State for two years.  Counsellor, Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, 1839-1840.  Member of the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society (AFASS).  Co-founded the abolitionist Wesleyan Methodist Connection of America and the Baptist Anti-Slavery Convention. 

(Dumond, Dwight Lowell, Antislavery: The Crusade for Freedom in America, University of Michigan Press, 1961, pp. 188, 393n22; Goodell, 1852, pp. 505-506; “The Friend of Man,” March 27, 1837; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume I, p. 699; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 2, Pt. 2, p. 324)

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 2, Pt. 2, p. 324:

COLVER, NATHANIEL (May 10, 1794- September 25, 1870), Baptist clergyman, reformer, was born in Orwell, Vermont. His father and grandfather both bore the same name, and both were Baptist preachers and pioneer farmers, descendants of Edward Colver, who came to Massachusetts from England in 1635. His mother, Esther Dean, daughter of John and Thankful Dean, was also of early Colonial stock. When he was a year old his parents moved to northeastern New York, near what is now Champlain, and in 1810, to West Stockbridge, Massachusetts. The family was large and the boy was brought up under the toughening conditions of frontier life. Two winters' schooling comprised his education, and the only books in his home were the Bible, Psalm book, and speller. He learned the tanner's trade, joined the troops assembled to defend New York against the British in 1814, and, on August 27, 1815, married Sally Clark. Soon after he was converted and became a preacher. He was ordained in West Clarendon, Vermont, his first regular parish, in 1819, and for the next twenty years served small churches in Vermont and New York. His first wife died January 27, 1824, and January 26, 1825, at Plattsburg, New York, he married Mrs. Sarah A. Carter.

He had natural oratorical ability, derived probably from his mother whose family was noted for its public speakers, herself, it is said, a woman of unusual intellectual qualities. His mind was vigorous, and quick to acquire, and he possessed a ready wit and platform resourcefulness. From the start he drew large audiences. Inheriting through his paternal ancestors a restless, independent, fighting spirit, he naturally became a vigorous champion of reform. Having joined the Masons and finding that he disapproved of some of their principles and requirements, he repudiated the order in 1829, and thereafter opposed secret societies as wrong morally and dangerous politically. He was also active in the cause of temperance, and especially in behalf of abolition, to which he gave practically all his time in 1838 and a part of 1839, serving for a period as an agent of the American Anti-Slavery Society. Addresses delivered in New England brought him to the attention of certain Boston Baptists who desired to establish a church with free seats, and particularly opposed to slavery and intemperance. Such a church, the First Free Baptist, later known as Tremont Temple, was organized, with Colver as minister. Here from 1839 to 1852 he had a notable pastorate, and acquired an enviable reputation as a preacher, being regarded as one of the attractions of the city. He was recognized also as one of the ablest advocates of abolition. John Quincy Adams said he was the best off-hand speaker he had ever heard. A delegate to the World Anti-Slavery Convention at London in 1840, he attracted favorable attention there. In a sermon published in 1850, The Fugitive Slave Bill, or God's Laws Paramount to the Laws of Men, he urged disobedience to the law as a sacred duty.

Pastorates in South Abington (Whitman), Massachusetts; Detroit; Cincinnati; and Chicago followed. He kept up his attacks upon slavery, and a sermon, preached in Cincinnati, December 11, 1859, "Slavery or Freedom Must Die." The Harper's Ferry Tragedy a Symptom of Disease in the Heart of the Nation, was published in 1860. Appreciating the need of theological education in the West, both in Cincinnati and Chicago, he gathered together groups of young men contemplating the ministry and instructed them. He was active in the establishment of the Chicago Baptist Theological Institute in 1865, the object of which was the creation of a theological seminary in connection with the first University of Chicago, and pending its opening he was appointed to give instruction in doctrinal and practical theology at the University. In 1867 he established at Richmond, Virginia, the Colver Institute for the training of colored ministers, which survives in the theological department of the Virginia Union University. An oil painting of Colver hangs in one of the halls in Tremont Temple, Boston; another in the Divinity School of the University of Chicago, bearing the inscription "A Founder of the Divinity School."

[J. A. Smith, Memoir of Reverend Nathaniel Colver, D. D. (1873); F. L. Colver, Colver-Culver Genealogy (1910), from which some dates, differing from those given elsewhere, are taken; J. L. Rosenberger, Through Three Centuries (1922); T. W. Goodspeed, University of Chicago Biography Sketches, Volume I (1922).]

H.E.S.

Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume I, p. 699:

COLVER, Nathaniel, clergyman, born in Orwell, Vt., 10 May, 1794; died in Chicago, 25 December, 1870. His father, a Baptist minister, removed, while Nathaniel was a child, to Champlain, in northern New York, and thence to West Stockbridge, Massachusetts, where the son was converted and decided to enter the Baptist ministry. Though he had but slender opportunities of early education, he made himself a respectable scholar. After brief pastorates in various places he was called in 1839 to Boston, where he co-operated in organizing the church since famous as Tremont Temple. His ministry here was remarkable for its bold, uncompromising, and effective warfare upon slavery and intemperance, as well as for its directly spiritual results. On leaving Boston in 1852, Mr. Colver was pastor at South Abingdon, Massachusetts, at Detroit, at Cincinnati, and finally, in 1861, at Chicago. While in Cincinnati he received from Denison university the degree of D. D. In Chicago he was invited to take the professorship of doctrinal theology in the theological seminary in process of organization in that city. In 1867-'70 he was president of the Freedman's institute in Richmond, Virginia. Dr. Colver bore a conspicuous part in the anti-masonic, anti-slavery, and temperance movements of his day. He wrote much for the press, and published, besides occasional addresses, three lectures on Odd-fellowship (1844). Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume I. pp. 699.


COLWELL, Stephen, 1800-1872, philanthropist, author.  Director of the American Colonization Society, 1839-1841. 

(Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume I, p. 700; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 2, Pt. 2, p. 327; Director of the American Colonization Society, 1839-1841).

Concealing his identity under the name of “Jonathan B. Wise,” he published “The Relative Position in our Industry of Foreign Commerce, Domestic Production, and Internal Trade” (Philadelphia, 1850). He was the author of “New Themes for the Protestant Clergy” (1851); “Polities for American Christians” (1852); “Hints to Laymen,” and “Charity and the Clergy” (1853); “Position of Christianity in the United States, in its Relation with our Political System and Religious Instruction in the Public Schools” (1855); “The South; a Letter from a Friend in the North with Reference to the Effects of Disunion upon Slavery” (1856). The same year he edited, with notes, “List's Treatise on National Economy.” His last and most important work is “The Ways and Means of Commercial Payment” (1858). Besides these publications in book-form, he was the author of a noteworthy article in the “Merchant's Magazine,” entitled “Money of Account” (1852), and another essay on the same subject in the “Banker’s Magazine” (1855). Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume I. pp. 700.  

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 2, Pt. 2, p. 327:

COLWELL, STEPHEN (March 25, 1800-January 15, 1871), political economist, was born in Brooke County, Virginia (now West Virginia), and graduated from Jefferson College, Pennsylvania, at the age of nineteen. He studied Jaw under Judge Halleck, in Steubenville, Ohio, was admitted to the bar, and practised for seven years in St. Clairsville, Ohio, and then in Pittsburgh until 1836. In that year he gave up the practise of Jaw and became an iron manufacturer, first at Weymouth, New Jersey and later at Conshohocken on the outskirts of Philadelphia. For twenty-five years he had particular occasion to weigh the results of the tariff policy as it affected iron manufacturers, and this practical experience vitalized much of the writing on economics to which his legal training gave precision of thought and expression. In his studies pertaining to the technical side of the science, especially the treatment of the subject of money and exchanges, Colwell's view-point was that of the school of Henry C. Carey [q.v.]; he set forth always the advantage of protection to industry, and assailed the quantity theory of money. With him, however, economics was also a theory of benevolence. He was an active Presbyterian, and the close interrelation of his economics and his religion was signalized by his attacks upon current orthodoxy in both fields. His religion was infused with the guiding principle of human helpfulness; his strictures on the merely pious (in such works, for instance, as New Themes for the Protestant Clergy, 1851) drew sharp comment from his critics, though the course of years brought general acceptance of his contentions. He was a trustee of the University of Pennsylvania and of Princeton Theological Seminary. To the former institution he bequeathed his library of political economy, composed of upward of 6,000 items, almost half of them pamphlets separately bound. He coupled with this gift the condition that the University should found a chair of social science, but his family waived the condition. He secured the establishment at Princeton of a chair of Christian ethics; and was hopeful that this chair should develop and popularize the social implications of Christianity. His interests were many, and increased with his marked success in business. He was a director of the Camden and Atlantic, the Reading, and the Pennsylvania Central railroads. An active member of the Colonization Society, he strove to persuade the South that slavery was an unwise and unprofitable institution. During the Civil War he did his best to support the Union cause; he was active in the work of the Sanitary Commission and the Christian Commission, guaran, teeing funds for the relief of the wounded and sick, and himself visiting the battle-fields and hospitals. He presided over the first formal meeting which led to the organization of the Union League. Afterward he gave generously of time and money to the Freedmen's Aid Society. His life was probably shortened by intensive work on the preparation in 1865 of six reports on the subjects of trade and taxes for the United States Revenue Commission, of which he was a member. He died in Philadelphia.

[Henry C. Carey, "A Memoir of Stephen Colwell," in Proc. American Philos. Society, XVII (1871-7 2), 195-209; this contains a list of Colwell' s writings:  see also, obituary in Philadelphia Public Ledger, January 17, 1871.]

B.M.

Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume I, p. 700:

COLWELL, Stephen, author, born in Brooke county, Virginia, 25 March, 1800; died in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 15 J an., 1872. He was graduated in 1819 at Jefferson college, Pennsylvania, studied law, and was admitted to the bar of Virginia in 1821. Removing to Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, he practised law for ten years, when he became an iron merchant in Philadelphia. He devoted much of his time to the study of political economy, and soon began to write for the press. He acquired large wealth, which he devoted to charitable purposes, to the endowment of professorships, to the encouragement of scientific investigation, and to the collection of a large and valuable library, including a very complete selection of works on his favorite topics of political and social science. During the civil war Mr. Colwell was among the foremost supporters of the National government in its struggle against secession. He lent his name and his money to the cause, and strengthened the hands of the administration by every means in his power. He was one of the founders of the Union league of Philadelphia, and an associate member of the U. S. sanitary commission. After the war he was appointed a commissioner to examine the whole internal revenue system of the United States, with a view to suggesting such modifications as would distribute and lighten the necessary burdens of taxation—a problem of peculiar importance at that crisis of the nation 's history. To this work he devoted much time and study, and his advice had due weight in determining the financial policy of the government. He bequeathed his library to the University of Pennsylvania with an endowment for a professorship of social science. His first published work, under the signature of “Mr. Penn,” was entitled “Letter to Members of the Legislature of Pennsylvania on the Removal of Deposits from the Bank of the United States by Order of the President” (1834). Still concealing his identity under the name of “Jonathan B. Wise,” he published “The Relative Position in our Industry of Foreign Commerce, Domestic Production, and Internal Trade” (Philadelphia, 1850). He was the author of “New Themes for the Protestant Clergy” (1851); “Polities for American Christians” (1852); “Hints to Laymen,” and “Charity and the Clergy” (1853); “Position of Christianity in the United States, in its Relation with our Political System and Religious Instruction in the Public Schools” (1855); “The South; a Letter from a Friend in the North with Reference to the Effects of Disunion upon Slavery” (1856). The same year he edited, with notes, “List's Treatise on National Economy.” His last and most important work is “The Ways and Means of Commercial Payment” (1858). Besides these publications in book-form, he was the author of a noteworthy article in the “Merchant's Magazine,” entitled “Money of Account” (1852), and another essay on the same subject in the “Banker’s Magazine” (1855). Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume I. pp. 700.



Sources:
Dictionary of American Biography, Volumes I-X, Edited by Dumas Malone, New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1930.

Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, Volumes I-VI, Edited by James Grant Wilson & John Fiske, New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1888-1889.