T. Henry Cogswell    

T. HENRY COGSWELL. The most satisfactory administration of all grades of government, from local to national, is based on business principles, both as it relates to effective working and honesty. It has therefore long been accepted by the leaders of public polities as a truth settled beyond argument that the thorough, broad business man of unswerving integrity is far more apt to make an ideal public official than the man taken from the ranks of the professions. That, assuredly, has been the experience of the citizens of Erie county in the selection of their sheriff at the election of 1907, when they placed in office T. Henry Cogswell, for nearly twenty years one of the most extensive and successful business men of northern Pennsylvania.

Sheriff Cogswell is a native of Warren, Pennsylvania, born on the 29th of April, 1860, and is a son of Samuel M. and Mary (Beck) Cogswell. The mother, who was a native of England, died in September, 1908, while the father, a Connecticut man of an old New England family, is still a resident of Warren engaged in the oil fields as an active producer. When the boy was ten years of age, his parents located at Erie, where he received a public school education. In 1878 the family returned to Warren, and in 1888 T. Henry became a resident of Corry, this county. There, as. the senior member of the firm Cogswell, Eaton and Gay, he engaged in the wholesale meat business, whose transactions developed into the most extensive of any similar establishment in that section of Pennsylvania, reaching an annual figure of one million dollars. In 1907, as stated, Mr. Cogswell was returned by the Republicans to the shrievalty of Erie county, and the public has since been more than satisfied with the nature of his administration. The sheriff’s personal character is naturally social and fraternal, and he is an active member of numerous secret and benevolent orders, including the Odd Fellows, Knights of Pythias, Elks, Royal Arcanum, Maccabees and Moose. His wife was formerly Miss Cora A. Lane, a native of Randolph, New York.

A twentieth century history of Erie County, Pennsylvania : a narrative account of its historical progress, its people and its principal interests, Chicago: Lewis Pub. Co., 1909, pages 483-484.. More Erie County History Books   Search Hundreds of 1880s-1890s Pennsylvania County History Books for biographies and historical information on your ancestors.  View the book page images on line and print them out for your genealogy file!   Free Access to the old history books - plus birth & death records, census images and ALL other records at ancestry.com.