San
Joaquin County
Biographies
ADELBERT M. COWELL
A resident of Stockton since 1886, Adelbert M. Cowell is so well informed on local conditions
and affairs that he is among the most sanguine in his hopefulness for the
future of central California, and especially of Stockton and the San Joaquin
Valley. He was born in Auburn, New York,
on June 29, 1844. He is a son of Myron
and Melvina (Sanders) Cowell,
natives of New York, where the father was a grain merchant and stock
buyer. Adelbert
M. is second oldest of their six children.
His opportunities for schooling were extremely meager and while still a
young lad he learned the stone and brickmason and plasterer’s trade; he then
removed to Washington, D. C., where an older brother, Albert, resided who was a
brick contractor, and our subject worked with his brother on the construction
of buildings after the close of the Civil War, during the administration of
President Grant. Then going south to
Richmond, Virginia, he found employment with the Richmond & Alleghany
Railroad on construction work at Lynchburg, Virginia, and also on similar work
for the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad in West Virginia; he also did work for
the U. S. Government at Memphis, Tennessee.
He then returned to his native city of Auburn, New York, and remained
there for one year, when he went to Wichita, Kansas, and engaged in contract brick
work. During the year of 1885 he arrived
in California and located in San Diego, where he did contract construction work
for the San Diego Flume Company. The
following year, in 1886, he arrived in Stockton, where he has since made his
home. Among the more notable buildings
on which he did the brick work, are the H. C. Shaw Company building; the
Central Methodist Church; the John Jury building on Weber Avenue; the brickwork
on all the principal buildings on Main, Market, Center, Weber Avenue and other
business streets; he also constructed a number of ovens for bakeries throughout
the city. His construction work has not
been confined to Stockton alone, but has extended to other counties; he erected
two school houses in Fresno; a schoolhouse and business block in Porterville; a
paper mill and twenty houses and one hotel in Floriston,
above Truckee in the high Sierras; has built furnaces and set boilers in mining
towns through northern California, and was in charge of the construction work
of the dam and reclamation project at Six Mile Bar, near Knights Ferry. Mr. Cowell erected two modern residences of
his own on North Stanislaus Street, in one of which he makes his home.
The marriage of Mr. Cowell united
him with Miss Sarah Hollingsworth, a native of England, and they are the
parents of ten children, nine of whom are living. An unusual condition exists in his family, a
death not having occurred for fifty-two years.
Their children are as follows: a
daughter, Frances, died in infancy; Arthur W. is a brick contractor in
Stockton; Ernest; J. Eugene and Myron are bricklayers; George is an actor;
Esther is the wife of E. W. Butters of Stockton; Anna is at home; Mrs. Eva Peek
resides on a ranch near Stockton; Mrs. Maude Weber resides in San Francisco. Mr. Cowell is now living retired from active
business cares. He and his family are
members of the Central Methodist Church and for many years Mr. Cowell served as
trustee. He joined the Methodist Church
at Auburn, New York, in 1860, and has been a member ever since; he has always
taken an active part in its benevolences and has served as class leader, while
Mrs. Cowell has been a member since ten years of age, and has been active in
the work of the church, also as class leader, and in foreign and home mission
work. She was the first woman to speak
to the prisoners at the San Joaquin County Jail, caring for and looking after
the families of the men in jail, visiting the homes of the destitute and buying
food and clothes for the needy. Mr. and
Mrs. Cowell are highly esteemed in the community.
Transcribed by Gerald Iaquinta.
Source: Tinkham, George
H., History of San Joaquin County, California , Pages
920-923. Los Angeles, Calif.: Historic
Record Co., 1923.
© 2011 Gerald Iaquinta.
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