Com-Cow: Comings through Cowles

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.


COMINGS, Benjamin, abolitionist, New Hampshire, American Anti-Slavery Society, Manager, 1847-48, Vice-President, 1848-54.


CONDOL, Samuel, New York, abolitionist, American Abolition Society. 

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


CONDOL, William, New York, abolitionist, American Abolition Society.

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


CONGER, Ellison, abolitionist, Newark, New Jersey, American Anti-Slavery Society, Manager, 1848-53.


CONKLING, ROSCOE (October 30, 1829-April 18, 1888), senator.
(Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 2, Pt. 2, p. 327)

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

CONKLING, ROSCOE (October 30, 1829-April 18, 1888), senator, was born at Albany, New York, but lived most of his life in Utica, New York. His father was Alfred Conkling [q.v.]; his mother, Eliza Cockburn, was of Scotch extraction and was noted for her beauty. His older brother, Frederick, was congressman for a single term, and a colonel in the Civil War. The family removed to Auburn, New York, in 1839 and in 1842 Roscoe entered the Mount Washington Collegiate Institute in New York City. He went to Utica in 1846 to study law in the office of Spencer & Kuman, was admitted to the bar in 1850, and was immediately appointed district attorney of Albany. At the close of the term he entered into partnership with Thomas H. Walker of Utica. One of the great "spread eagle" orators of his day, before he was thirty years of age he was a familiar and valued figure at the Whig conventions of his county and state. He became mayor of Utica in 1858, was elected to Congress in the autumn of the same year, and represented his district at Washington, 1859-67, except for the single term 1863-65. He married in 1855 Julia, a sister of Horatio Seymour, Democratic governor of New York in 1853 and 1863. He remained temperate in a day when strong drink was a pervasive enemy of American men, he detested tobacco, and he built up his body by systematic exercise and boxing, so that he enhanced the dignity and impressiveness of a figure of which he was inordinately proud, and which his jocose critics described as the "finest torso" in public life. On a notable occasion soon after his entry into Congress, and not long after the attack on Sumner in the Senate, he stood up beside the crippled and sharp-tongued Thaddeus Stevens as a body-guard, and discouraged interference. He not only protected Stevens, but he agreed with him, becoming a sturdy War-Republican, and an advocate of vigorous repressive measures in the Reconstruction period. His ambitions in Congress and in the Republican party collided more than once with those of James G. Blaine, and produced a biting description by the latter, who jeered at Conkling's "haughty disdain, his grandiloquent swell, his majestic, super-eminent, overpowering, turkey-gobbler strut" (Congressional Globe, April 30, 1866, p. 2299). The words could not be forgotten.

The decision of William H. Seward, leader of the New York Republicans, to remain loyal to President Andrew Johnson, and to support the latter in his Reconstruction policy, caused a break in the party and gave opportunity for the appearance of a leader among the radical Republicans of the state. Conkling was elected senator in 1867, and in the following autumn dominated the Republican convention, establishing an ascendancy over Governor Reuben E. Fenton. In the next ten years, with the support of the federal patronage and the New York City "custom-house crowd," he became the almost undisputed leader of his party in the state, and an aspirant to greater things. He was reelected to the Senate in 1873 and 1879. In 1876 he was the favorite son of New York as a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, in rivalry to James G. Blaine, but met with disappointment when Governor Rutherford B. Hayes of Ohio secured the nomination and became president in 1877. Conkling's intimacy with and support of President U. S. Grant, to which he owed much of his strength as leader of New York, had procured for him in 1873 an offer of the post of chief justice of the United States, to succeed Salmon P. Chase. He had declined the honor, recognizing that his talents were those of a partisan rather than of a judge. He was again later to be offered an appointment to the Supreme Court by his friend Chester A. Arthur, and was again to decline.

Conkling was a bitter opponent of President Hayes. He claimed to believe that the latter had no right to his position, he had reason to fear that the power of the Grant dynasty was broken, and he was outraged by Hayes's selection of a New Yorker whom he hated, William M. Evarts, as secretary of state. He regarded the New York patronage as his special preserve, and fought to defend it when the treasury department under John Sherman began to inquire into the management of the custom-house and the services therein of Chester A. Arthur and Alonzo B. Cornell [qq.v.], who were Conkling's chief assistants in the control of the party organization. He led the opposition to the desires of Hayes to separate civil service officials from the direction of party affairs, and his presence and spirit pervaded the New York Republican convention of September 1877, where the President was openly flouted. In substance he asserted the privilege of a senator to control the federal administration in his own state; and he denied to a president the right to select and direct his subordinates. The Tenure of Office Act, passed in 1867 to restrain Andrew Johnson, made it harder for the President to win his point; but eventually in 1879 Hayes had his way arid got rid of Conkling's friends. New York, however, remained loyal to its leader. Cornell was made governor, Conkling was triumphantly reelected to the Senate, and another of his lieutenants, Thomas C. Platt [q.v.], was chosen as the other senator in 1881. Arthur had meanwhile risen to greater rewards.

Disgusted with Hayes, and anxious for the return of the old order of politics, Conkling was a leader in the movement for the renomination of Grant in 1880. His success went only far enough to deadlock the Republican convention, and prevent the nomination of either Blaine or Sherman. Garfield, who was chosen after a long and destructive fight, represented the anti-Conkling or "Half-Breed" wing of the Republicans; and the selection of the "Stalwart," Arthur, for vice-president failed to heal the breach. It was only after much persuasion that Conkling ceased to sulk in the canvass of 1880, and gave any support to the ticket of Garfield and Arthur. His friends and he believed, that as the price of his final and lukewarm support, Garfield had made him sweeping promises of presidential patronage; but to this belief the selection of Blaine as secretary of state gave contradiction. Within a few days after the organization of the new administration, Conkling was again in opposition, and again over the right to control the jobs in the New York custom-house. He fought the confirmation of Garfield's appointees until defeat came to him in May 1881. He then resigned his Senate seat in protest, May 14, 1881, and induced his colleague to resign with him. He turned to the usually pliant legislature at Albany for vindication and reelection, but discovered that his power to dominate it had departed. Even the open support of Arthur, now vice-president, was in vain. For the remainder of his life, Conkling was outside of politics. He removed to New York City, and entered into the practise of his profession, where he made a large fortune and a great name. He died in the spring of 1888, as the result of over-exertion during a severe snow-storm. His personal character and integrity were never challenged; he was, said the New York Times (January 18, 1879), on the occasion of his third election to the senate, "a typical American statesman-a man by whose career and character the future will judge of the political standards of the present."

[Robt. G. Ingersoll, Memorial Address on Roscoe Conkling (1888), includes many obituary notices. There is a family biography by Conkling's nephew, Alfred R. Conkling, The Life and Letters of Roscoe Conkling, Orator, Statesman, and Advocate (1889). Many of the details of his career may be traced in De Alva S. Alexander, Political History of the State of New York (3 volumes, 1906-09), but no one has yet assembled and evaluated the material upon his public life that fills the press from 1859 to 1881.]

F.L.P-n.


CONNESS, John, born 1821.  Union Republican U.S. Senator from California.  U.S. Senator 1863-1869.  Voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery.

(Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume I, p. 708; Biographical Dictionary of the U.S. Congress 1774-1927 (1928); Congressional Globe)

Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume I, p. 708:

CONNESS, John, senator, born in Ireland, 20 September, 1821. He emigrated to the United States at the age of thirteen, learned the trade of a piano-forte maker, and worked in New York city until the discovery of gold in California. He went to that state in 1849, engaged in mining, and afterward became a merchant. He was a member of the California legislature in 1853-'4 and in 1860-'1, a candidate for lieutenant-governor in 1859, and the union democratic candidate for governor in 1861, receiving 30,944 votes, to 32,751 cast for the Breckinridge democratic candidate, and 56,036 for Leland Stanford, the successful republican candidate. He was elected as a union republican to succeed Milton S. Latham, a democrat, to the U. S. senate, and sat from 4 March, 1863, till 4 March, 1869, serving on the committees on finance and the Pacific railroad, and as chairman of the committee on mines and mining. He resided in Massachusetts after the conclusion of his term. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume I. pp. 708.


CONWAY, Daniel Moncure, 1832-1907, abolitionist, clergyman, author, women’s rights advocate. Unitarian minister.

(Drake, Thomas. Quakers and Slavery in America. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1950, p. 175; Mabee, Carleton. Black Freedom: The Nonviolent Abolitionists from 1830 Through the Civil War. London: Macmillan, 1970, pp. 322, 329, 336, 343, 363-365, 366, 369, 372; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume I, pp. 711-712; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 2, Pt. 2, p. 364)

Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume I, pp. 711-712:

CONWAY, Moncure Daniel, author, born in Stafford county, Virginia, 17 March, 1832. His father was a magistrate and a member of the Virginia legislature; his mother a daughter of Surgeon-General Daniel. He received his early education at Fredericksburg academy, and was graduated at Dickinson college, Pennsylvania, in 1849, where he united with the Methodist church. He began the study of law at Warrenton, Virginia, and while there wrote for the Richmond “Examiner,” of which his cousin, John M. Daniel, was editor, in support of extreme southern opinions. He abandoned the law to enter the Methodist ministry, joined the Baltimore conference in 1850, was appointed to the Rockville circuit, and in 1852 to Frederick circuit. He was a contributor to the “Southern Literary Messenger” and published a pamphlet entitled “Free Schools in Virginia,” in which he advocated the adoption of the New England common-school system. Having undergone a change of political and religious convictions, partly through the influence of a settlement of Quakers among whom he lived, he left the Methodist ministry and entered the divinity-school at Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he was graduated in 1854. He then returned to Virginia, in the hope of preaching his humanitarian ideas and transcendental and rationalistic doctrines; but upon reaching Falmouth, where his parents resided, was obliged by a band of neighbors to leave the state under threats because he had befriended Anthony Burns, a fugitive slave from the same district. The same year he became pastor of the Unitarian church in Washington, D. C., where he preached until he was dismissed on account of some anti-slavery discourses, especially one delivered after the assault on Senator Sumner. In 1857 he was settled over the Unitarian church in Cincinnati, Ohio. There he published, among other pamphlets, “A Defence of the Theatre” and “The Natural History of the Devil.” The publication of books on slavery and its relation to the civil war led to an invitation to lecture on this subject in New England, as he had already lectured gratuitously throughout Ohio. During the war his father's slaves escaped from Virginia and were settled by him in Yellow Springs, Ohio. He was for a time editor of the Boston “Commonwealth.” In 1863 he went to England to enlighten the British public in regard to the causes of the war, and there wrote and lectured as a representative of the anti-slavery opinions of the north. He also contributed to “Fraser's Magazine” and the “Fortnightly Review.” Toward the close of 1863 he became the minister of South Place religious society in London, remaining there until he returned to the United States in 1884. He was long the London correspondent of the Cincinnati “Commercial.” “The Rejected Stone, or Insurrection versus Resurrection in America,” first appeared under the pen-name “A Native of Virginia,” and attracted much attention before the authorship became known. “The Golden Hour” was a similar work. Mr. Conway was a frequent contributor to the daily liberal press in England, and has written extensively for magazines in that country and in the United States. A series of articles entitled “South Coast Saunterings in England” appeared in “Harper's Magazine” in 1868-'9. He has published in book form “Tracts for To-day” (Cincinnati, 1858); “The Rejected Stone” (Boston, 1861); “The Golden Hour” (1862); “Testimonies concerning Slavery” (London, 1865); “The Earthward Pilgrimage,” a moral and doctrinal allegory (London and New York, 1870); “Republican Superstitions,” a theoretical treatise on politics, in which he objects to the extensive powers conferred on the president of the United States by the Federal constitution, and advocates, with Louis Blanc, a single legislative chamber (London, 1872); “The Sacred Anthology,” a selection from the sages and sacred books of all ages (London and New York, 1873); “Idols and Ideals” (London and New York, 1877); “Demonology and Devil-Lore” (1879); “A Necklace of Stories” (London, 1880); “The Wandering Jew and the Pound of Flesh” (London and New York, 1881); “Thomas Carlyle” (1881). Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume I. pp. 711-712.

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 2, Pt. 2, p. 364:

CONWAY, MONCURE DANIEL (March 17, 1832-November 15, 1907), preacher, author, was born near Falmouth, Stafford County, Virginia, the son of Walker Peyton and Margaret E. Daniel Conway. Through his mother he was descended from the Moncures, and he was related to other distinguished Virginia families. His father was a slave-owner, but unlike most neighbors of equal prominence in the community was a devout Methodist, and Moncure was brought up in the strict traditions of that sect. After studying at Fredericksburg Academy he entered Dickinson College, Carlisle, Pennsylvania, as a sophomore at the age of fifteen, and four months later was advanced to the junior class. Here he was converted to Methodism, somewhat deliberately, as he would have us believe, since he knew that his family wished him to have the experience. After his graduation at the age of seventeen he studied law for a time, but the reading of Emerson turned his thoughts toward the ministry. He first entered a Methodist conference in Maryland and served two circuits there, travelling about with perhaps as odd a collection of books as Methodist preacher ever carried in his saddlebags: the Bible, Emerson's Essays, Watson's Theology, Carlyle's Latter Day Pamphlets, Jeremy Taylor's Holy Living and Dying, the Methodist Discipline, and Coleridge's Aids to Reflection. The young circuit rider soon grew out of sympathy with some of the doctrines of his denomination, and at the age of twenty-one, much to the disappointment of his family, he entered Harvard Divinity School. While here he saw something of Emerson, and met most of the leaders of the Concord and Cambridge intellectual groups.

On his graduation from the Divinity School he became pas tor of the Unitarian Church in Washington. His views on slavery had changed as rapidly as his theological views-in one of his early writings he had maintained that the negro is not a man-and his outspoken anti-slavery utterances in the pulpit finally led to his dismissal from the Washington church in 1856. He was at once called to the First Congregational Church of Cincinnati. On June 1, 1858 he was married to Ellen Davis Dana, of Cincinnati, to whose influence he credits much of his accomplishment to her death in 1897. During his residence in Ohio he wrote on all sorts of subjects for all sorts of periodicals, including the Atlantic Monthly. Through the year 1860 he edited The Dial, a Monthly Magazine for Literature, Philosophy, and Religion-a journal for which he secured contributions from such diverse men as Emerson and W. D. Howells. In 1862 he removed to Concord, Massachusetts, and edited the Commonwealth (Boston), an anti-slavery paper with more literary tendencies than Garrison's Liberator. He had published several books and pamphlets dealing with the slavery question, and in 1863 he went to England to lecture in behalf of the North. Early the next year he accepted the pastorate of South Place Chapel, Finsbury, London, an ultra-liberal congregation; and he maintained this connection until 1884. In these years he traveled much and wrote much, even serving as correspondent from the front for the New York World during part of the Franco-Prussian War. Among other activities were researches in demonology, a subject on which he delivered a series of lectures before the Royal Institution. Conway early rejected all supernaturalism from his theology. His religious views continued to become more free and radical, and his political ideas were individual, if not erratic. He advocated a unicameral government, seeing grave evils in a president and a second chamber. He never admitted the wisdom of Lincoln's policies, maintaining that Lincoln was something of an apostate on the slavery question, that Virginia would not have seceded if it had not been for his unwise call for troops, and that he might have ended the struggle and slavery at once, without bloodshed, if he had issued an emancipation proclamation in 1861. His Autobiography, while not written in the tone of an apologia, shows how his extreme changes of opinion and some of these erratic views came naturally to a man of his ancestry, temperament, and experiences. In 1884 he resigned his London pastorate and returned to America, though he often visited Europe, and from 1892 to 1897 was again pastor of South Chapel. His later years were spent in study, writing, and travel. He died in Paris. Perhaps his most scholarly work is his Life of Thomas Paine (2 volumes, 1892) and his edition of Paine's works (The Writings of Thomas Paine, 4 volumes, 1894- 96). Wherever he was Conway came in contact with the leading men of the day-a fact that has led some critics to accuse him of tuft-hunting; but published correspondence seems to indicate that those who knew him valued his acquaintance. Among his more than seventy separately published books and pamphlets are several on slavery, on oriental religions, on demonology, two novels, lives of Paine, Hawthorne, Carlyle, Edmund Randolph, and others, his Autobiography, Memories and Experiences (1904) and his last important work, My Pilgrimage to the Wise Men of the East (1906).

[The chief source of information concerning Conway is his Autobiography. Both the appearance of this work and the author's death called out many articles in reviews and magazines. The South Place Magazine, Volume XIII, no. IV (London, 1908?) is a Conway memorial number. See also Edwin C. Walker, A Sketch and an Appreciation of Moncure Daniel Conway (1908). Addresses and Reprints (1909), a collection of some of his shorter works, contains a bibliography of over seventy titles of books and pamphlets. No bibliography of his contributions to periodicals has been compiled.]

W.B.C.


CONWAY, Ellen Davis Dana, abolitionist, feminist wife of Daniel M. Conway.


CONWAY, Martin Franklin, 1829-1882, Hartford County, Maryland.  U.S. Congressman, diplomat, abolitionist.  Supported Kansas Free-State Movement. 

(Biographical Dictionary of the U.S. Congress; Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume I. pp. Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 2, Pt. 2, pp. 363-364).

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 2, Pt. 2, pp. 363-364:

CONWAY, MARTIN FRANKLIN (November 19, 1827-February 15, 1882), free-state leader, first congressman from Kansas, was the son of Dr. W. D. Conway and Frances, his wife, who lived in Harford County, Maryland. He left school at the age of fourteen and went to Baltimore, where he learned the printer's trade. While working as a compositor he aided in founding the National Typographical Union, studied law, and was admitted to the bar. He was married to Emily Dykes in June 1851. Three years later they removed to Kansas. As correspondent for the Baltimore Sun he reported conditions in the new territory for some time after his arrival. His letters attracted attention and he soon became one of the recognized leaders of the free-state movement. He was elected a member of the first territorial legislature but resigned without taking his seat. He took an active part in the Big Springs convention, September 5, 1855, which formulated the platform of the free-state party. A few weeks later he was elected a delegate to the Topeka constitutional convention and wrote the resolutions offered by that body. State officers were elected under this constitution, and Conway was chosen one of the supreme court justices of the territory. In 1858 he was elected a delegate to the Leavenworth constitutional convention of which he was made president. In 1859 he was nominated for representative in Congress by the Republicans and elected by a majority of 2,107 votes over John Halderman, his opponent. Kansas did not become a state until January 29, 1861, and the Congress to which he had been elected expired on March 4 following. He served during this short interval, being the first congressman from Kansas, was promptly renominated; and elected again in June 1861. Conway was dubbed "the silver tongued orator of the West" and "the Patrick Henry of Kansas" (Kansas Historical Collections, V, 45; X, 186). In the Thirty-seventh Congress he was noted for his radical utterances on the slavery question. Soon after the first session began he made a speech in which he declared that the paramount object of the federal government should be immediate and unconditional emancipation. Until such a policy should be adopted, he said, he would "not vote another dollar or man for the war." "Millions for freedom but not one cent for slavery," was one of his epigrams (Congressional Globe, 37 Congress, 2 Session, pt. 1, p. 87). Failing to be renominated at the end of his term in the Thirty-seventh Congress, he retired to private life but kept up his interest in public affairs. In the struggle between President Johnson and Congress, he strongly supported the former. The President appointed him United States consul at Marseilles, France, in June 1866. After his term of service ended he made his home in Washington, D. C., where, on October 11, 1873, he fired three shots at former Senator Pomeroy, slightly wounding him. When arrested Conway said, "He ruined myself and family." The former Senator declared that there had never been any trouble between them. Undoubtedly Conway was becoming unbalanced; later his mind gave way entirely as a result of disappointed ambition, and he was confined in St. Elizabeth's Hospital for the Insane, at Washington, where he died.

[D. W. Wilder, The Annals of Kansas (1886); Andreas, History of Kansas (1883); F. W. Blackmar, Cyclopedia of Kansas History (1912); The Congressional Globe, 37 Congress, 2 Session, pt. 1; Kansas History Coll., volumes V (1896); VI (1900); VIII (1904); X (1908); XI (1910); XIII (1915); and XVI (1925).]

T.L.H.


COOK, James, abolitionist, New Jersey, American Anti-Slavery Society, Manager, 1836-40.


COOK, William, Hamilton County, Ohio, Ohio Anti-Slavery Society, Manager, 1837-38.


COON, Jacob, Belmont County, Ohio, Ohio Anti-Slavery Society, Manager, 1835-38


COOPER, Arthur, 1789-1853, African American community leader, elder of the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) church, former slave.

(Gates, Henry Louis, Jr., & Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, eds. African American National Biography. Oxford University Press, 2013, Volume 3, p. 257)


COOPER, David, New Jersey, farmer, abolitionist, Society of Friends, pamphleteer, wrote, A Mite Cast into the Treasury: or, Observations on Slave Keeping, published 1772, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.  Petitioned Congress three times to abolish slavery, even lobbied President George Washington. Also wrote, A Serious Address to the Rulers of America, on the Inconsistency of their Conduct Respecting Slavery, Trenton, 1783. 

(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. ix, 31-77; 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. 184-191, 440, 475; Dumond, Dwight Lowell, Antislavery: The Crusade for Freedom in America, University of Michigan Press, 1961, pp. 24, 76; Rodriguez, Junius P., Slavery in the United States: A Social, Political, and Historical Encyclopedia, ABC-CLIO, 2007, p. 372; Zilversmit, Arthur. The First Emancipation: The Abolition of Slavery in the North. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1967, pp. 94, 152, 159)


COOPER, Griffith M., abolitionist, Williamson, New York, American Anti-Slavery Society, Manager, 1852-1853.


COOPER, John, anti-slavery writer.

(Bruns, 1977, pp. 440, 456-459; Zilversmit, 1967, pp. 141-143)


COOPER, Peter, 1791-1883, New York anti-slavery activist, Native American rights advocate, industrialist, inventor, philanthropist. His various addresses and speeches were collected in a volume entitled “Ideas for a Science of Good Government, in Addresses, Letters, and Articles on a Strictly National Currency, Tariff, and Civil Service” (New York, 1883).

 Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume I. pp. 730-732. Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 2, Pt. 2, pp. 409-410)       

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 2, Pt. 2, pp. 409-410:

COOPER, PETER (February 12, 1791-April 4, 1883), manufacturer, inventor, philanthropist, the son of John and Margaret (Campbell) Cooper, was born at Little Dock St., New York. The Cooper family was of English stock. Obadiah Cooper, Peter Cooper's great-great-grandfather, came to America and settled at Fishkill-on-Hudson in 1662. John Cooper, Peter's father, born about 1758, a lieutenant in the Continental Army, at the close of the war went into business, first in New York, later in Peekskill, Catskill, and Newburgh. He was successively a hatter, a brewer, a store-keeper, and a brick-maker-in all of which he was aided by his son Peter, who, by the time he was sixteen years old, was already a veteran in experience. Though the lad was lacking in formal education, for he had attended school for only a year, his varied training in affairs fitted him well for business success. At seventeen, he was apprenticed at twenty-five dollars a year and board to John Woodward, a New York coach-maker, who voluntarily paid him fifty at the end of the third year and seventy-five at the end of the fourth, and when his apprenticeship was over, offered to lend him money to start a business of his own. Peter declined the offer, and instead found employment, first in a manufactory of cloth-shearing machines, then as traveling salesman, and later as owner of a new cloth-shearing machine. He continued prosperously in this business until the close of the War of 1812, and, when peace was followed by smaller profits, he sold out and opened a retail grocery store at the corner of the Bowery and Rivington St. On December 18, 1813, being then twenty-two years of age, he married Sarah Bedell of Hempstead, a Huguenot, educated by the Moravians of Pennsylvania, with whom he lived happily for fifty-six years until her death in 1869.

Deciding that manufacturing was his field, Cooper bought a glue factory, together with a twenty-one-year lease of the ground on which it stood, near the site of the old Park Avenue Hotel. With this business he found his opportunity and was soon supplying the American market with American-made glue and isinglass which bettered the foreign imports. So complete was his success that he won a monopoly of the trade in this line, but he continued his frugal ways, and was, for many years, his own stoker, secretary, bookkeeper, executive, and salesman. Eventually the business outgrew even his energy, and he entrusted part of the direction to his son Edward and his son-in-law, Abram S. Hewitt [qq.v.]. If the glue factory was the foundation of his fortune, the bulk of the latter came originally from the iron works which he set up at Baltimore. There, in 1828, with two partners, he bought 3,000 acres of land within the city limits and erected the Canton Iron Works. The Baltimore & Ohio Railroad upon whose success much of the value of this land depended, was on the verge of failure. The route followed by the few miles of track was so twisting and hilly that Stephenson, the English engineer, declared it impossible for an engine to run on it. Cooper was not dismayed. "I'll knock an engine together in six weeks, he said, "that will pull carriages ten miles an hour." The engine-the first steam locomotive built in America-was made, and, in spite of its diminutive size which gave it the nickname of "Tom Thumb" and the "Teakettle," actually pulled a load of over forty persons at more than ten miles an hour. On September 18, 1830, it raced with a noted horse from Riley's Tavern to Baltimore and would have won but for a leak in the boiler caused by excessive pressure.

The Canton Iron Works afforded a striking example of Cooper's good judgment and good fortune in business matters. When he sold the property in 1836 he accepted in payment stock of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad at forty-five dollars a share which he soon afterward sold for two hundred and thirty dollars. His interests now expanded rapidly, until within two decades they included a wire manufactory in Trenton, New Jersey, blast furnaces in Philipsburg, Pennsylvania, a rolling mill and the old glue factory in New York, foundries at Ringwood, New Jersey, and Durham, Pennsylvania, and iron mines in northern New Jersey. In 1854, in his Trenton factory, the first structural iron for fireproof buildings was rolled-an achievement which contributed to the winning of the Bessemer Gold Medal awarded him in 1870 by the Iron and Steel Institute of Great Britain.

To Cooper belongs much of the credit for the final success of the New York, Newfoundland & London Telegraph Company, which he served as president for twenty years, during which he was the chief supporter of Cyrus Field [q.v.]. His confidence in the ultimate success of the project never weakened notwithstanding repeated failures and many deficits which it fell to him to meet when every one else drew back. He became president, likewise, of the North American Telegraph Company which at one time owned or controlled more than half of the telegraph lines of the country. As an inventor, Cooper possessed genius which might have made him an earlier Edison had it been joined to the necessary technical training. His first invention was a washing machine, followed by a machine for mortising hubs, and others for propelling ferry-boats by compressed air, for utilizing the tide for power, and for moving canal barges by an endless chain run by water-power. He made use of gravity as a source of power in an endless chain of bucket in one of his mines.

It is, however, chiefly as a philanthropist that Cooper is remembered. During his service on the Board of Aldermen of New York, he was an early advocate of paid police and fire departments, sanitary water conditions and public schools. In the broader field of national politics, he supported the Greenback party and consented to run on its ticket for president in 1876, with, it would appear, little hope of election, in order to bring before the public his views on the currency. His greatest monument is the Cooper Union or Cooper Institute at Astor Place, New York City, which he founded in 1857-59 "for the advancement of science and art." It is unique in the combination it offers of the ideal and practical in education. Free courses are given in general science, chemistry, electricity, civil, mechanical, and electrical engineering as well as in art. There are also free lectures of a very high order and the Institute maintains an excellent reading-room and library service. Cooper died on April 4, 1883, and was sincerely mourned by the city which he had so well served. At a reception given in his honor in 1874, he said: "I have always recognized that the object of business is to make money in an honourable manner. I have endeavoured to remember that the object of life is to do good." To this creed he remained faithful.

[R. W. Raymond, Peter Cooper (1901); John Celivergos Zachos, Sketch of the Life and Opinions of Peter Cooper (1876); W. Scott, Peter Cooper, the Good Citizen (1888); Howard Carroll, Twelve Americans, Their Lives and Tim es (18S3); C. Edwards Lester, Life and Character of Peter Cooper (1883).)

W. B. P.

Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume I, pp. 730-732:

COOPER, Peter, philanthropist, born in New York city, 12 February, 1791; died there, 4 April, 1883; His mother was the daughter of John Campbell, a successful potter in New York, who became an alderman of the city and was deputy quartermaster during the Revolutionary war. Mr. Campbell contributed liberally to the cause of American freedom, and received in acknowledgment a large quantity of Continental money. On his father's side Mr. Cooper was of English descent, and both his grandfather and his father served in the Continental army. The latter, who became a lieutenant during the war, was a hatter, and at the close of the war resumed his business in New York. Peter was born about this period, and he remembered the time when, as a boy, he was employed to pull hair out of rabbit-skins, his head being just above the table. He continued to assist his father until he was competent to make every part of a hat. The elder Cooper determined to live in the country, and removed to Peekskill, where he began the brewing of ale, and the son was employed in delivering the kegs. Later, Catskill became the residence of the family, and the hatter's business was resumed, to which was added the making of bricks. Peter was made useful in carrying and handling the bricks for the drying process. These occupations proved unsatisfactory, and another move was made, this time to Brooklyn, where the father and son again made hats for a time, after which they settled in Newburg and erected a brewery. Peter meanwhile acquired such knowledge as he could, for his schooling appears to have been limited to half days during a single year. In 1808 he was apprenticed to John Woodward, a carriage-maker, with whom he remained until he became of age. During this time he constructed a machine for mortising the hubs of carriages, which proved of great value to his employer, who at the expiration of his service offered to establish him in business. This, however, was declined, and Cooper settled in Hempstead, L. I., where for three years he manufactured machines for shearing cloth, and at the end of this engagement he had saved sufficient money to buy the right of the state of New York for a machine for shearing cloth. He began the manufacture of these machines on his own account, and the enterprise was thoroughly successful, largely owing to the interruption of commercial intercourse between the United States and Great Britain by the war, and also on account of an improvement devised by himself. At this time he married Sarah Bedel, of Hempstead, who proved a devoted wife during fifty-six years of married life. With the cessation of hostilities the value of this business depreciated, and he turned his shop into a factory for making cabinet-ware. Later he entered the grocery business in New York, but soon afterward the profits acquired by the sale of his machines and in the grocer's shop were invested in a glue-factory, which he purchased with all its stock and buildings then on a lease of twenty-one years. These works were situated on the “old middle road,” between 31st and 34th streets, New York city, and there the business of manufacturing glue, oil, whiting, prepared chalk, and isinglass was continued until the expiration of the lease, when he bought ten acres of ground in Maspeth avenue, Brooklyn, where the business has since been continued. In 1828 he purchased 3,000 acres of land within the city limits of Baltimore, and he erected the Canton iron-works, which was the first of his great enterprises tending toward the development of the iron industry in the United States. This purchase was made at a time when there was great commercial excitement in Baltimore on account of the building of the Baltimore and Ohio railroad. It was feared that the many short turns in the road would make it useless for locomotive purposes. The stockholders had become discouraged, and the project seemed about to be abandoned, when Peter Cooper came to the rescue and built, in 1830, from his own designs, the first locomotive engine ever constructed on this continent. By its means the possibility of building railroads in a country with little capital, and with immense stretches of very rough surface, in order to connect commercial centres, without the deep cuts, tunnelling, and levelling that short curves might avoid, was demonstrated, and the Baltimore and Ohio railroad was saved from bankruptcy. He determined to dispose of his Baltimore property, and a portion of it was purchased by Horace Abbott, which in time became the Abbott iron company. The remainder was sold to Boston capitalists, who formed the Canton iron company. He received part of his payment in stock at $44 a share, which he subsequently sold at $230. He then returned to New York and built an iron-factory, which he afterward turned into a rolling-mill, where he first successfully applied anthracite coal to the puddling of iron, and made iron wire for several years. In 1845 he built three blast-furnaces in Phillipsburg, near Easton, Pennsylvania, which were the largest then known, and, to control the manufacture completely, purchased the Andover iron-mines, and built a railroad through a rough country for eight miles, in order to bring the ore down to the furnaces at the rate of 40,000 tons a year. Later the entire plant was combined into a corporation known as the Ironton iron-works. At these works the first wrought-iron beams for fireproof buildings were made. The laying of the Atlantic cable was largely due to his persistent efforts in its behalf. He was the first and only president of the New York, Newfoundland, and London telegraph company. It became necessary to expend large sums in its construction, much of which came directly from Mr. Cooper. The banks were unwilling to trust the corporation, and invariably drew on the president as claims matured. The company was frequently in his debt to the extent of ten to twenty thousand dollars. The first cable lasted scarcely a month, and a dozen years elapsed before the original investments were recovered. In spite of public ridicule and the refusal of capitalists to risk their money, Mr. Cooper clung to the idea, until at last a cable became an assured success. The original stock, which had been placed on the market at $50 a share, was then disposed of to an English company at $90. Mr. Cooper served in both branches of the New York common council, and strongly advocated, when a member of that body, the construction of the Croton aqueduct He was a trustee in the Public school society first founded to promote public schools in New York, and when that body was merged in the board of education he became a school commissioner. But he is most widely known in connection with his interest in industrial education. His own experience early impressed him with the necessity of affording proper means for the instruction of the working classes. With this idea he secured the property at the junction of 3d and 4th avenues, between 7th and 8th streets, and from plans of his own making “The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art” was erected. In 1854 the corner-stone was laid, and five years later, on its completion, a deed was executed in fee simple transferring this property to six trustees, who were empowered to devote all rents and income from it “to the instruction and improvement of the inhabitants of the United States in practical science and art.” A scheme of education was devised which should include “instruction in branches of knowledge by which men and women earn their daily bread; in laws of health and improvement of the sanitary conditions of families as well as individuals; in social and political science, whereby communities and nations advance in virtue, wealth, and power; and finally in matters which affect the eye, the ear, and the imagination, and furnish a basis for recreation to the working classes.” Free courses of lectures on social and political science were established; also a free reading-room; and collections of works of art and science were provided, and a school for instruction of women in the art of design by which they may gain an honorable livelihood. When sufficient funds have been collected, it is proposed to establish a polytechnic school. The building with its improvements has cost thus far nearly $750,000. It has an endowment of $200,000 for the support of the free reading-room and library. The annual expense of the schools varies from $50,000 to $60,000, and is derived from the rents of such portions of the edifice as are used for business purposes. Mr. Cooper devoted much careful thought and study to questions of finance and good government. He became active in the greenback movement, and published several political pamphlets on the subject of the currency. In 1876 he was nominated by the national independent party as their candidate for president, and in the election that followed received nearly 100,000 votes. In all affairs concerning the advancement and welfare of New York city Mr. Cooper was prominent. No public gathering seemed complete without his well-known presence on the platform. He was a regular attendant of the Unitarian church, and liberal in his donations to charitable institutions, to many of which he held the relation of trustee. His various addresses and speeches were collected in a volume entitled “Ideas for a Science of Good Government, in Addresses, Letters, and Articles on a Strictly National Currency, Tariff, and Civil Service” (New York, 1883). Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume I. pp. 730-732.           


COOPER, Thomas, abolitionist.

(Dictionary of American Biography, 1936, Volume 2, p. 2)


COPELAND, John Anthony, Jr., 1834-1859, free African American man with John Brown during his raid at the U.S. Arsenal at Harpers Ferry, West Virginia; hanged with John Brown, December 1859 (see entry for John Brown). 

(Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume I, pp. 404-407; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Volume 5, p. 480; Gates, Henry Louis, Jr., & Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, eds. African American National Biography. Oxford University Press, 2013, Volume 3, p. 269)


COPELAND, Melvin, abolitionist, Hartford, Connecticut, American Anti-Slavery Society, Manager, 1837-1839.


COPELAND, Oberlinites John, Jr., free African American man with John Brown during his raid at the U.S. Arsenal at Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, October 16, 1859; hanged with John Brown, December 1859 (see entry for John Brown below). 

(Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume I, pp. 404-407)


COPPINGER, William, died 1892, lifelong employee of the American Colonization Society, starting in 1838.  Later served as its Secretary. 

(Burin, Eric. Slavery and the Peculiar Solution: A History of the American Colonization Society. Gainesville, Florida: University Press of Florida, 2005, p. 97; Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961, p. 249)


COPPOC, Barclay, Iowa, Society of Friends, Quaker, joined John Brown in his raid on the U.S. Arsenal at Harpers Ferry, (West) Virginia, in 1859.  Escaped capture.  (See entry for John Brown below). 

(Drake, Thomas. Quakers and Slavery in America. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1950, p. 192; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume I, pp. 404-407)


COPPOC, Edwin, Iowa, Society of Friends, Quaker, joined John Brown in his raid on the U.S. Arsenal at Harpers Ferry, (West) Virginia, in 1859.  Hanged with John Brown.  (See entry for John Brown). 

(Drake, Thomas. Quakers and Slavery in America. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1950, p. 192; Rodriguez, Junius P., Slavery in the United States: A Social, Political, and Historical Encyclopedia, ABC-CLIO, 2007, p. 327; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume I, pp. 404-407)


CORAM, Robert, Delaware, abolitionist, member, delegate, The Delaware Society for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery, Wilmington, Delaware, founded 1789.

(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. 224, 240n40)


CORLISS, Hiram, New York, abolitionist leader

(Sorin, Gerald. The New York Abolitionists: A Case Study of Political Radicalism. Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Corporation, 1971)


CORNING, Jasper, Charleston, South Carolina.  Supported the American Colonization Society. 

(Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961, p. 128)


CORNISH, James, abolitionist

(Yellin, Jean Fagan and John C. Van Horne (Eds). The Abolitionist Sisterhood: Women’s Political Culture in Antebellum America. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press,1994, p. 69)


CORNISH, Reverend Samuel Eli, 1795-1858, free African American, New York City and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, abolitionist leader, clergyman, publisher, editor, journalist. Presbyterian clergyman. Published The Colonization Scheme Considered and its Rejection by Colored People and A Remonstrance Against the Abuse of Blacks, 1826.  Co-editor, Freedom’s Journal, first African American newspaper.  Editor, The Colored American, 1837-1839.  Leader and founding member of the American Anti-Slavery Society (AASS), Manager, AASS, 1834-1837.  In 1840, joined the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society (AFASS).  Executive Committee, AFASS, 1840-1855.

(Dumond, Dwight Lowell, Antislavery: The Crusade for Freedom in America, University of Michigan Press, 1961, pp. 170, 328, 330; Mabee, Carleton. Black Freedom: The Nonviolent Abolitionists from 1830 Through the Civil War. London: Macmillan, 1970, pp. 51, 58, 93, 104, 129, 134, 150, 159, 190, 277, 278, 294, 398n20, 415n14, 415n15; Rodriguez, Junius P., Slavery in the United States: A Social, Political, and Historical Encyclopedia, ABC-CLIO, 2007, pp. 38-39, 47; Sorin, Gerald. The New York Abolitionists: A Case Study of Political Radicalism. Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Corporation, 1971, pp. 82, 83, 90, 92-93; Abolitionist, Volume I, No. XII, December, 1833; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Volume 5, p. 527)


CORWIN, Thomas, 1794-1865, statesman, diplomat, U.S. Congressman, Governor of Ohio, U.S. Senator, Secretary of the Treasury. Opposed extension of slavery  in the new territories.  Director of the American Colonization Society, 1833-1834. 

(Mitchell, Thomas G. Antislavery Politics in Antebellum and Civil War America. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2007, p. 33, 35, 160, 172, 173, 266n; Rodriguez, Junius P., Slavery in the United States: A Social, Political, and Historical Encyclopedia, ABC-CLIO, 2007, p. 403; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume I, p. 751; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 2, Pt. 2, p. 457; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Volume 5, p. 549).  See the “Life and Speeches” of Thomas Corwin, edited by Isaac Strohn (Dayton. 1859); Biographical Dictionary of the U.S. Congress 1774-1927 (1928)

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 2, Pt. 2, p. 457:

CORWIN, THOMAS (July 29, 1794-December 18, 1865), governor of Ohio, senator, secretary of the Treasury, traced his ancestry to Matthias Corwin who settled in Ipswich, Massachusetts, about 1634. When Matthias Corwin, a descendant of the first Matthias, settled at Lebanon, Ohio, in 1798, he had only $100 with which to buy a farm, but he possessed qualities of mind and character which brought him to the speakership of the state Assembly, and endowed his children with an excellent inheritance. His wife, Patience Halleck, is reputed to have been a person of marked intellectuality. Thomas, their fifth child, born in Bourbon County, Kentucky, early exhibited bookish tendencies which the father did little to encourage, less, it appears, through lack of sympathy than through lack of means. From his large family he selected an older son to be educated as a lawyer, leaving Thomas to acquire what learning he could by the diligent use of a scanty leisure and his brother's books. At twenty-one, Thomas began to read law and in due course was admitted to the bar. In 1822 he married Sarah Ross, daughter of a congressman, related on her mother's side to the Randolphs of Virginia. He was elected to the General Assembly in 1821, 1822, and 1829, and became a supporter, in national politics, of the Clay-Adams group, by this path passing into the Whig party. Following Jackson's election, Corwin's party put him forward in his home district, a community favorable to Jackson, as its strongest candidate for Congress, and elected him with one-fourth more votes than his opponent received. During a decade in Congress, a period of Democratic control, his speeches, although infrequent, made an excellent impression. Most notable of these was his reply to General Isaac Crary (February 15, 1840).

His canvass for governor in 1840 made him famous as a campaign orator. He won by a majority of 16,000, but was defeated in 1842, in consequence of party strife over matters for which he had slight responsibility, and he refused renomination in 1844. He campaigned actively for Clay, however, on the Texas issue. The Whigs lost the presidency, but, regaining control of the Ohio legislature, sent Corwin to the United States Senate. Here, during the Mexican War, he reached the climax of his career. Convinced that the war was waged for territory, he besought Webster and Crittenden to stand with him against further appropriations. When they failed him, he pursued his opposition alone, delivering a powerful speech on February 11, 1847, in which he denounced the war as unjust, and with prophetic vision as well as eloquence predicted the sectional conflict which would follow the acquisition of Mexican territory. A few radicals talked of him for the presidency, but most Whigs as well as Democrats regarded such sentiments uttered in actual time of war as traitorous. Petitions to the legislature, however, demanding that his resignation be required, brought forth as a committee report a resolution of confidence.

Taylor's death brought Fillmore to office and Corwin to the post of secretary of the Treasury; this he filled without distinction, retiring with his chief in 1853. As the slavery controversy developed, he reluctantly abandoned the Whig party, being elected to the House in 1858 as a Republican, although he did not wholly accept the party program. He advocated the abolition of slavery in the territories, but upheld the right of each new state to decide the slavery question for itself. After Lincoln's election, he earnestly sought means of allaying the fears of the South, and served as chairman of the House committee of thirty-three. As minister to Mexico during the critical years 1861-64, he filled acceptably his last public office. Returning to Washington, he opened a law office, but died only a few months later.

Corwin's face was remarkably expressive, and his voice, although neither deep nor powerful, was musical and far-reaching. As a lawyer he was brilliant rather than learned; politics diverted his attention from profound study. A natural wit, he came to believe that fun-making had hampered his career, but his brilliant satire seldom left a sting. Though not a church member, he was permanently influenced by the religious atmosphere in which he was reared. His speeches are saturated with Biblical allusions and quotations. His chief fault was laxity in financial affairs. He was careless in collecting fees, and during most of his life was handicapped by a burden of debt. After leaving the cabinet he was impoverished by an unfortunate investment in railway stocks. He suffered loss frequently through becoming surety. He was much loved, and nowhere more so than at home and by his neighbors, for he was kind and generous.

[See E. T. Corwin, Corwin Genealogy in the U. S. (1872); Josiah Morrow, Life and Speeches of Thos. Corwin (1896); Addison Peale Russell, Thos. Corwin, A Sketch (1882), a somewhat laudatory character study containing valuable anecdotal material. Some sidelights are provided by letters of Thos. Corwin to Wm. Greene, 1841-51, in "Selections from the Wm. Greene Papers," ed. by L. Belle Hamlin, in History and Philosophical Society of Ohio Quarterly Publication, Volume XIII (1918). See also Speeches of Thos. Corwin with a Sketch of his Life (1859), ed. by Isaac Strohm; Ohio Historical and Philosophical Society Quarterly Publication, Volume IX (1914). The Library of Congress has twelve volumes of Corwin Papers covering the years of Corwin's term as secretary of the Treasury.]

H. C.H.

Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume I, p. 751:

CORWIN, Thomas, statesman, born in Bourbon county, Kentucky, 29 July, 1794; died in Washington, D. C., 18 December, 1865. In 1798 his father, Matthias, removed to what is now Lebanon, Ohio, and for many years represented his district in the legislature. The son worked on the home farm till he was about twenty years old, and enjoyed very slender educational advantages, but began the study of law in 1815, and was admitted to the bar in May, 1818. His ability and eloquence as an advocate soon gained him an extensive practice. He was first chosen to the legislature of Ohio in 1822, serving seven years, and was chosen to congress in 1830, from the Miami district as a whig, of which party he was an enthusiastic member. His wit and eloquence made him a prominent member of the house of representatives, to which he was re-elected by the strong whig constituency that he represented for each successive term till 1840, when he resigned to become the whig candidate for governor of Ohio, and canvassed the state with General Harrison, addressing large gatherings in most of the counties. He was unsurpassed as an orator on the political platform or before a jury. At the election he was chosen by 16,000 majority, General Harrison receiving over 23,000 in the presidential election that soon followed. Two years later, Governor Corwin was defeated for governor by Wilson Shannon, whom he had so heavily beaten in 1840. In 1844 the Whigs again carried the state, giving its electoral vote to Mr. Clay, and sending Mr. Corwin to the U. S. senate, where he made in 1847 a notable speech against the war in Mexico. He served in the senate until Mr. Fillmore's accession to the presidency in July, 1850, when he was called to the head of the treasury. After the expiration of Mr. Fillmore's term he returned to private life and the practice of law at Lebanon, Ohio. In 1858 he was returned once more a representative in congress by an overwhelming majority, and was re-elected with but slight opposition in 1860. On Mr. Lincoln's accession to the presidency he was appointed minister to Mexico, where he remained until the arrival of Maximilian, when he came home on leave of absence, and did not return, remaining in Washington and practising law, but taking a warm interest in public affairs, and earnestly co-operating in every effort to restore peace. His style of oratory was captivating, and his genial and kindly nature made him a universal favorite. His intemperate speech against the Mexican war hindered his further political advancement. He was a faithful public servant, led a busy life, lived frugally, and, although he had been secretary of the U. S. treasury, failed to secure a competency for his family. See the “Life and Speeches” of Thomas Corwin, edited by Isaac Strohn (Dayton. 1859).—His brother, Moses B., born in Bourbon county, Kentucky, 5 January, 1790; died in Urbana, Ohio, 7 April, 1872, received a common-school education, studied law, was admitted to the bar in 1812, and practised at Urbana. He was a member of the legislature in 1838-'9, and was elected as a whig to congress in 1848, against his son, John A., who was nominated as a Democrat. He was again elected in 1854.  Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume I. pp. 751


COVODE, John, 1808-1871, abolitionist.  U.S. Congressman from Pennsylvania, serving 1855-1863, representing the 35th District and the Republican Party. 

(Biographical Directory of the U.S. Congress; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 2, Pt. 2, p. 470)

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 2, Pt. 2, p. 470:

COVODE, JOHN (March 18, 1808-January 11, 1871), congressman, son of Jacob Covode and -- Updegraff, was the grandson of Garrett Covode, who was kidnapped on the streets of Amsterdam by a sea-captain and brought as a child to Philadelphia where he was sold as an indentured servant. John Covode received a scanty education in the public schools of Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania. After working for several years on his father's farm and serving an apprenticeship to a blacksmith, he found employment in a wooden-mill at Lockport. Of this mill he became owner in his early manhood and continued in the business of manufacturing for the remainder of his life, although from time to time he was interested in other business enterprises, such as the Pennsylvania Canal, the Pennsylvania Railroad, and the Westmoreland Coal Company. At his death he had a considerable fortune.

Through his conduct in his first public office, that of justice of the peace, Covode gained for himself the sobriquet, "Honest John," which clung to him all his life. He served two terms as a Whig in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives and was twice a Whig candidate for the state Senate, being defeated both times. He was elected to the national House of Representatives as an anti-Masonic Whig in 1854 and reelected as a Republican in 1856. In this position he served continuously until 1863 when he declined the nomination. He reentered the House in 1867 and remained a member until his death.

In Congress he first became prominent in the spring of 1860 by reason of his chairmanship of the Covode Investigation Committee, appointed by the House on the adoption of Covode's resolution of March 5, 1860, to inquire into the alleged use of improper influence by President Buchanan in attempting to secure the passage of the Lecompton Bill (Congressional Globe, 36 Congress, I Session, p. 997). In moving this investigation Covode was probably retaliating for a charge made by the President that bribery had been used in the Congressional elections in Pennsylvania in 1858; his pretext was the charge by two members of the House that the President had attempted to bribe and coerce them in the Lecompton affair (Ibid., p. 1017). Buchanan sent to the House a protest against this investigation so far as it related to himself, but the House disregarded the protest and the investigation proceeded. It resulted in a majority and a minority report (House Report 648, 36 Congress, 1 Session), but the House took no action on either. In all probability the investigation was meant to produce nothing more serious than ammunition to be used by the Republicans in the presidential campaign of 1860; Covode was a member of the Republican Executive Congressional Committee for this campaign.

During the war Covode was a strong supporter of Lincoln. In December 1861 he was appointed a member of the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War and took an active part in its work until his retirement in 1863. In the summer of 1865 he was sent by the War Department into the South, "to look into matters connected with the interests of the government in the Mississippi valley." Upon his return President Johnson declined to accept his report, in which he urged the removal of Governor Wells of Louisiana and opposed the policy of withdrawing the troops from the South (Report of the Joint Committee on Reconstruction, 1866, pt. 4, p. 114). The President suggested that he file it with the War Department under whose authority he had been acting. From this time on Covode was an opponent of the President and upon his return to Congress steadily supported the congressional policy of reconstruction (Congressional Globe, 40 Congress, 2 Session, Appendix, p. 462). He introduced into the House the resolution calling for the impeachment of Johnson. The results of Covode's mission to the South do not appear to have been of any special importance nor does he appear to have exerted any considerable influence in Congress at any time during the Reconstruction period.

[Memorial Addresses on the Life and Character of John Covode, delivered in the  House and Senate (1871); Congressional Globe; John M. Gresham, Biography and Historical Cyclopedia of Westmoreland County (1890); J. M. Boucher, History of Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania (1906), Volume I; Biography Dir. American Congress (1928); Press (Philadelphia), January 12, 1871.]

R. S. C.


COWAN, Edgar, 1815-1885, lawyer.  U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania 1861-1867.  Voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery.

(Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume I, p. 756; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Volume 5, p. 605; Biographical Dictionary of the U.S. Congress 1774-1927 (1928); Congressional Globe).

Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume I, p. 756:

COWAN, Edgar, senator, born in Sewickley, Westmoreland county, Pennsylvania, 19 September, 1815; died in Greensburg, Pennsylvania, 29 August, 1885. He was early thrown on his own resources, becoming by turns clerk, boat-builder, school-teacher, and medical student, but finally entered Franklin college, Ohio, where he was graduated in 1839. He then studied law in Greensburg, Pennsylvania, and was admitted to the bar in 1842. In 1861 he was elected to the U. S. senate by the people's party, and served till 1867, distinguishing himself as a ready and fearless debater. He was chairman of the committees on patents, finance, and agriculture, and a member of that on the judiciary. He was a delegate to the Union convention at Philadelphia in 1866, and in January, 1867, was appointed minister to Austria, but was not confirmed by the senate. At the close of his term he resumed the practice of law in Greensburg. Senator Cowan was a man of large proportions and great physical strength, being six feet four inches in height. He published various speeches and addresses in pamphlet form. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume I. pp. 756.


COWDRY, Harris, abolitionist, Acton, Massachusetts, Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, Vice-President, 1840-1848.


COWLES, Betsy Mix, 1810-1876, educator, reformer, abolitionist.  Organized the Ashtabula County Female Anti-Slavery Society.  Worked closely with abolitionist leader Abby Kelley in the Western Anti-Slavery Society (WASS).  African American and women’s civil rights advocate. 

(American National Biography, 2002)


COWLES, Edwin (September 19, 1825-March 4, 1890), journalist. Published the Forest City Democrat, a Free-Soil Whig newspaper. In 1854, the name was changed to the Cleveland Leader. He was one of the founders of the Republican party. At the beginning of the Civil War he became an advocate of immediate emancipation of the slaves.

(Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 2, Pt. 2, p. 472) 

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 2, Pt. 2, p. 472:

COWLES, EDWIN (September 19, 1825-March 4, 1890), journalist, was born in Austinburg, Ohio. A Cowles, originally Coles or Cole, had come to Massachusetts in 1635, and a year later had joined the pioneer band that the Reverend Thomas Hooker led from Cambridge to Connecticut. In 1810, a descendant, Dr. Edwin Weed Cowles, settled at Austinburg, Ohio, among Connecticut neighbors who had been lured into the West. When Edwin, the son of Dr. Edwin Weed and Almira (Foote) Cowles, was seven years of age, the family took up its abode in Cleveland. Edwin's education was limited to a few years in the local schools and one at the Grand River Institute in Austinburg. At the age of fourteen, he entered a printer's office. Five years later (1844) he and T. H. Smead became partners in the printing business. In 1853, the partnership with Smead was dissolved and another formed with Joseph Medill and John C. Vaughn (Medill, Cowles & Company). The new organization published the Forest City Democrat, a Free-Soil Whig newspaper. In 1854, the name was changed to the Cleveland Leader. A year later Cowles became sole owner and shortly afterward editor as well. His enterprise rapidly grew to include both a morning and an evening daily newspaper.

His connection with political history was intimate. He was one of the founders of the Republican party. At the beginning of the Civil War he became an insistent advocate of coercion of the Southern states and immediate emancipation of the slaves. In 1861, Lincoln appointed him postmaster in Cleveland, an office he held five years. In 1876 and 1884, he was a delegate to the National Republican Convention. On the second occasion he was vice-president of the convention. He was a regular party man, loyal to Grant, and throughout his life a believer in Blaine. Finding that Blaine could not be nominated in 1876 and 1880, he threw his influence behind Ohio's favorite sons, Hayes and Garfield. Working all his life under a handicap of deafness that would have baffled a weaker personality, he was an editor of remarkable courage, unchangeable convictions, and relentless dogmatisms, and such qualities made his pen a power in northern Ohio for a generation.

He was married in 1849 to Elizabeth C. Hutchinson of Cayuga, New York. In his later years he aided his sons, Eugene and Alfred, in the development of new methods in electric smelting. The aluminum, carborundum, calcium carbide, and acetylene industries grew out of their work. A company was formed for the manufacture of such products and Edwin Cowles, who supplied most of the capital, was its president. His interests in this company kept him in Europe much of the last two years of his life.

[The chief sources are Cowles's newspapers, files of which are in the Western Reserve Historical Society The Cleveland Plain Dealer, the Leader, and the New York Times, March 5, 1890, each published an estimate of his work. See also the Cleveland Weekly Leader and Herald, March 8, 1890; Gertrude Van Rensselaer Wickham, The Pioneer Families of Cleveland (1914), II, 394 ff. A History of Ashtabula County, Ohio (1878), contains a sketch prepared under Cowles's direction.]

E.J. B.


COWLES, Henry, 1803-1881, Austinburgh, Ohio, clergyman, educator, anti-slavery activist, reformer.  Manager, 1834-1836, and founding member of the American Anti-Slavery Society, December 1833.

(Abolitionist, Volume I, No. XII, December, 1833; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume I, p. 757)          

Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume I, p. 757:

COWLES, Henry, clergyman, born in Norfolk, Connecticut, 24 April, 1803; died 6 September, 1881. He was graduated at Yale in 1826, and held Congregational pastorates from 1828 till 1835. He was a professor of theology at Oberlin from 1835 till 1848. He published “Notes” on the Bible (16 vols., New York, 1867-'81); “Hebrew History” (New York, 1873); and other works. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia


COWLES, Horace, Farmington, Connecticut, abolitionist. American Anti-Slavery Society (AASS), Manager, 1833-40, 1840-41.



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.