It is true that when an individual is endowed by nature with the valuable traits of determination and perseverence their success in life is usually a foregone conclusion. These characteristics were dominant in the character of the late Franklin Cogswell, veteran of the Civil War and pioneer of Pomona Valley. He was born in Connecticut, November 14, 1838, and brought up in his native state. He served with the Thirteenth Connecticut Regiment throughout the Civil War with distinction and was advanced to the rank of captain. After the war closed he saved up $3000, with which he went South, bought mules and hired eight negroes, intending to raise cotton. The negroes died of cholera and he lost all of his money in the venture, having nothing left of value but his shotgun.
His brother and father came to California in 1854 via Cape Horn and located in Lake County. Franklin wrote them of his misfortune and the brother sent him money with which he joined them in Lake County. After spending six months there he located at Sacramento and taught school for eleven months. With the money thus saved he went to Montana and invested in a band of sheep, but ill-fortune still pursued him, and in three months' time he lost all of the sheep by death. He realized $300 from the wool that he picked from the dead sheep, and with this money came to Pomona Valley in 1874. Despite the reverses that he had experienced, he was determined to succeed, and perseverence and determination won the day. He passed through the Valley to Chino (and once remarked that he would not have given fifty cents per acre for the land at that time), and engaged in sheep raising. This time he met with success. In the early days there were few houses in the Valley and they were far apart, and he herded his sheep all over the Valley. From that time he prospered and increased in store. After a few years he sold his sheep and located in Pomona, where he became a stockholder in the First National Bank, of which he was also director. In the meantime, he bought thirteen acres of land south of Pomona, which he planted to alfalfa and later set to walnuts. This was the family home for more than twenty-five years, or until the children were ready to enter Pomona College, when he sold this property and moved to Claremont, where he built a home and passed the rest of his days in retirement from the active duties of life.
He was married in Pomona, March 24, 1886, to Miss Mary Florena Vultee, a native of New York, who came to California in 1885. Two children were born of their union, a son and a daughter. Theresa, a very talented young woman, graduated from the Pomona High School and from Pomona College, after which she attended the Emerson College of Oratory, Boston, Mass., and was teacher of reading and dramatics in the Los Angeles Normal School for three years. During the World War she went to Camp Kearny in Y.M.C.A. work, and later went to France as a canteen worker in the Y.M.C.A.; still later, she was with the Army of Occupation in Germany. The only son, Franklin, Jr., attended the Pomona High School and is a graduate of Pomona College, supplementing this with a business course in Harvard College. He entered the One Hundred Forty-fourth Field Artillery at San Francisco and was with them at Camp Kearny. Later he was transferred to Battery E, Seventh Field Artillery, U.S.A. and sent to France in June, 1918. He took part in the late battles of the war, was at the front in active service up to the close of the war, then became a member of the Army of Occupation in Germany. After his discharge, in Germany, he engaged in Y.M.C.A. work there, where he now is.
Fraternally, Mr. Cogswell, Sr., was a Master Mason, and in his religious associations was a member of the Unitarian Church. He died at Pomona in 1911. Mrs. Cogswell is a member of the First Baptist Church at Pomona and also a member of the Order of Eastern Star, and active in Red Cross work.
History of Pomona Valley, California, with Biographical Sketches
of The Leading Men and Women of the Valley Who Have Been
Identified With Its Growth and Development from the Early Days
to the Present
Published in Los Angeles, Cal., by the Historic Record Company
1920
Transcribed by Linda Jackson 9/3/08, Pages 328-330
Los Angeles County Biographies ~ Archive Biography Index ~ Archive Index
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