San Joaquin County Biographies
Ref: Page 920-923
Transcribed by: Linda Diane Jackson 11/6/2009
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, N.Y., 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, Va., he found employment with the Richmond & Alleghany Railroad on construction work at Lynchburg, Va., and also on similar work for the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad in West Virginia; he also did work for the U.S. Government at Memphis, Tenn. He then returned to his native city of Auburn, N.Y., and remained there for one year, when he went to Wichita, Kans., 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 throughout 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, N.Y., in 1860, and has been a member ever since; he has always taken an active part in its benevolences and has served as classleader, while Mrs. Cowell has been a member since ten years of age, and has been active in the work of the church, also as classleader, 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.
History of
SAN JOAQUIN COUNTY
CALIFORNIA
With A
Biographical Review
of
The Leading Men and Women of the County Who Have Been
Identified with Its Growth and Development
from the Early Days to the Present
HISTORY BY
George H. Tinkham
HISTORIC RECORD COMPANY
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA
1923
San Joaquin County Biographies ~ Archive Biography Index ~ Archive Index
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