American politician
Jabez Franklin Cowdery (11 August 1834–1914) was an American lawyer and politician who represented San Francisco in the 1873-74 and 1880 sessions of the California State Assembly, serving as Speaker in 1880.[1]
Early life
A 1911 book by Mary Bryant Alverson Mehling gives a picaresque account of Cowdery's early life. According to Mehling, Cowdery was born in Rochester, New York, the sixth and youngest child of Benjamin Franklin Cowdery (1790–1867), a Massachusetts printer, and his first wife, Amanda Munger (1799–1842) of Vermont.[2] After his mother's death, Jabez' father placed him in a Rochester orphanage.[3] When he was 10 the orphanage indentured him until the age of 21 at a nearby seed garden, but after two years he ran away, travelling by barge and steamboat to New York City, where he became a sailor on oceangoing merchant vessels.[4] In 1850 he came ashore at Sacramento.[5] He briefly joined the Booth family as a supernumerary on their 1852 theatre tour of California,[6] before running away to Downieville to join the California gold rush.[7] He studied at the private library of a man named Langton and qualified as a lawyer in 1859.[8]
Political and legal career
Cowdery was district attorney of Sierra County, California from 1861 to 1864, and a school director.[8] In the Civil War he worked for the Internal Revenue Service and as a court commissioner in California's then 14th district (covering Placer and Nevada counties).[8]
After the war Cowdery moved to San Francisco as an attorney in private practice.[8] He was elected as an independent to the 1873-74 session of the California State Assembly,[8] and as a Republican to the 1880 session, in which he was Speaker.[8] He was City Attorney of San Francisco for two year from 1881.[9] He also wrote several legal manuals.[9][10] His law library was damaged in the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, after which he was on the commission to rebuild San Francisco City Hall.[11]
Family
Cowdery married twice: in 1862 to Mary Buerer of Canton, Ohio (1840–1877) and in 1878 to Lulu M. Chesley.[11] He had two daughters with each wife; the first two died young. The second two were Alice May Cowdery, who wrote for newspapers and magazines,[11][12] and Ina Louisa Cowdery, a musician.[11]
Sources
Citations
