Ogden & Hannah H. (Hawkins) Cole

Ogden Cole & his family moved to Seattle,WA sometime after 1810.Does anyone know anything more about them?


Portrait and biographical album of Lenawee County, Michigan.
Chicago: Chapman Bros., 1888.
pp. 594-5

OGDEN COLE, one of the leading cattle raisers of Rollin Township, deals largely in
throughbred registered Holstein stock, keeping upon his finely appointed farm a herd of
from twenty to thirty head, and shipping principally to the States of Illinois, Missouri and
Kansas.Many of these animals are for dairy purposes, and comprise some of the finest
blood of this kind of cattle in the West.Mr. Cole takes pride in his stock operations and
being ambitious to excel, is fully entitled to the enviable reputation which he has attained.
He secured the first premium in the late Fat Stock Show at Chicago, and is in the habit of
carrying off the blue ribbons at the State and county fairs on butter.He is engaged largely
in the diary business, shipping annually large quantities of butter to Chicago, where he
finds a ready market at a good price.
Our subject is a native to this county, and was born at the homestead of his father in
Rollin Township, March 16, 1844.His parents, Elmer and Lucretia (Smith) Cole, were
natives of New York, the father a twin brother of Elvin C. Cole, a sketch of whom will be
found elsewhere in this work in connection with the biography of Elvin D. Cole.The
mother was born in Delaware County, Dec. 4, 1812, and was the daughter of a New York
farmer of modest means; she taught school prior to her marriage.Grandfather Sled served
as a soldier in the Revolutionary War, and spent his last years in Connecticut.
Young Cole attended first the district school and completed his studies at Raisin Valley
Seminary.From this time he and his brother farmed the home place, his father having died
when our subject was about ten years old.When about twenty-eight years of age he went
as a brakeman on the Lake Shore & Michigan Southern Railroad, where he continued for
about two years and a half.He then returned and operated the home place, together with
fifty-eight acres inherited from his father, for about three years, when he rented the old
Hawkins place, and remained there six years, after which he again assumed the
management of his father’s old home place, and in connection with his own land has since
that time cultivated the soil and carried on his stock operations with unqualified success.
Mr. Ogden Cole, for his wife, selected one of the most estimable young ladies of his
native township, Miss Hannah H. Hawkins, to whom he was married at the home of the
bride, Oct. 10, 1863.Mrs. Cole is the daughter of John R. and Hannah T. (Hayward)
Hawkins, and was born at the old homestead of her father, in Rollin Township, May 14,
1845.Mr. Hawkins was born in Oxford, England, and came to this county at a very early
day, taking up a tract of Government land in 1834, from which he built up a good farm
and became one of the important men of the county.The Hawkins family were prominent
in England, where they were largely represented, although having but one boy in two
generations.One of Mrs. Cole’s great-aunts was the mother of twenty-two children.
They were people mostly devoted to agricultural pursuits, and almost without exception
the possessors of good property.
After their marriage Mr. and Mrs. Cole settled upon the farm where they now reside.
They are the parents of three children:Elmer E., who was born April 9, 1865, and
completed his education in the schools of Hudson; he is now teaching in Woodstock
Township, and drives back and forth five miles each morning and night.Rosa A., who
was born Aug. 22, 1876, and makes her home with her parents, is pursuing her studies in
the school at Addison; Mina E. was born March 6, 1883, and was the first child born in
Grandfather Hawkins’ stone house.Mrs. Cole was graduated at Raisin Valley Seminary,
and is warmly interested in the temprance work and is an active member of the W.C.T.U.
Mr. Cole, politically, voted with the Republican party before the agitation of the
temperance question, but now supports the Prohibitionists.The family have been deeply
religious as far back as the record is preserved, being mostly adherents to the Baptist
Church.