Butte County
Biographies
PETER H. COLE
PETER H. COLE.--An “old timer” who is well known as a contractor
and builder, Peter H. Cole is now engaged as a horticulturist. Mrs. Cole
is a diligent worker on the board of education to maintain a high standard of
schools, and is equally as well known as her husband.
Peter H. Cole is a son of Henry Cole, who
was born in New Jersey and went to Lorain County, Ohio, where he settled.
Grandmother Cole lived to the wonderful age of one hundred five years.
Henry Cole was an iron-worker by trade, which he followed in the rolling
mills in New Jersey and Ohio, but upon moving to Wisconsin he took up farming
near Sparta, Monroe County, continuing that occupation after he moved to
Hillsdale County, Mich. In 1877, he retired and came to California, with his
wife, who before her marriage, was Margaret Brazee. They both died in Chico. They were parents of eight
children, three now living.
Peter H. Cole was born in Lorain County,
Ohio, on April 13, 1845. He was but a baby when the family went to Wisconsin.
He attended the public schools there until he was fourteen, then
accompanied the family to Michigan, where he finished his education and worked
on the home farm. In February, 1864, he volunteered for service in the Civil
War, in Company E, Fifth Michigan Cavalry, and was mustered in at Detroit. He was
sent to the front and served with Sheridan up and down the Shenandoah until the
close of the war. One brother, Charles W. Cole, who died in the East, was in
the same company. After the war he was sent, with his regiment, to Fort
Leavenworth, Kans., and while there served in the Indian troubles on the
frontier. At this period a peculiar incident occurred. When Mr. Cole stepped up
to get his equipment, he was handed the same carbine that he had carried during
his service in the Civil War. It had been shipped with the others from the east
to Fort Leavenworth. He recognized it by the initials he had carved in the
stock. The little band started across the plains after the red men, and came
out in Utah, in the fall of 1865. The regiment returned to Fort Leavenworth,
where he was mustered out in the fall of 1865, when he returned home.
Mr. Cole then learned the trades of stone
and brick mason and plasterer, in Hillsdale and Jackson Counties, and engaged
in contracting at Hanover, Mich. In 1877, he located in Chico, Cal., then a
small town, but with wonderful possibilities, and here he began taking
contracts and later carried on business, first under the firm name of Cole and
Fordham, but later in business for himself, until 1907, when he retired. Many
of the pioneer buildings in Chico show the master hand of Mr. Cole’s
workmanship, among them the Hubbard-Earll and Bank of
Chico buildings; he did considerable work on the State Normal and other school
buildings, besides working at many places in the surrounding country, and at
Willows, Orland, Tehama, Red Bluff, Redding, Vina,
Gridley, Biggs, Durham, Oroville, Butte City and Colusa, in all of which places
he gave excellent satisfaction to his patrons. About eighteen years ago he
bought thirty acres of land two and one-half miles north of Chico and set out
peaches, prunes and almonds, now having some of the finest fruit and nuts in
this district. He has given his personal attention to the development of his
property, has erected the buildings, dry sheds, etc.; another investment he
made was at the corner of First Street and Esplanade, Chico Vecino,
improved with two residences, in one of which he now lives.
On December 19, 1901, in the Webster
district, Mr. Cole married Mrs. Edith (Bullard) Jennings. She was born in Ossian,
Iowa, a daughter of Hosea Bullard, who was born in New
York and moved to Iowa, where he was a pioneer. He married Adelia
Stevens, also a native of New York. They were prosperous farmers in Iowa, where
they spent their last days. The youngest of seven children, Edith Bullard
received a good education and afterwards engaged in teaching school in Iowa.
There she married Roscoe Jennings, a native of Maine and a telegraph operator
for the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Railway. He died in Iowa, and in 1901
Mrs. Jennings came to California and lived in Chico, Butte County, until her
marriage with Mr. Cole. In 1915, at the school election held in April, Mrs.
Cole was elected a member of the Chico Board of Education for a four-year term.
She is a member of the purchasing committee and gives liberally of her time and
attention to further the advancement of the school system and is wielding a
strong influence for the best interest of the schools. Mr. Cole is a member of
the Odd Fellows, and both he and his wife are members of Beulah Lodge, No. 60,
Daughters of Rebekah, in which Mrs. Cole is Past
Grand and Past District Deputy.
Transcribed by Marie Hassard
12 May 2008.
Source:
"History of Butte County, Cal.," by George C. Mansfield, Pages
912-913, Historic Record
Co, Los Angeles, CA, 1918.
© 2008 Marie Hassard.
Golden Nugget Library's Butte County Biographies