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John Lewis Cole "John L. was born June 9, 1826. He is a lawyer by study, a poet by choice and inspiration, an artist by tendency and a practical surveyor and engineer. He was a Justice of the Peace from 1855 to 1858, then County Surveyor, and in 1868-69 represented Kanawha county in the House of Delegates. From 1873 to 1875 he was State Librarian." [Geo. W. Atkins & Alvaro F. Gibbens, Prominent Men of West Virginia 537 (Wheeling: W.L. Callin, 1890)] [online text] [According to one genealogy chart, Cole was born in Kanawha County, West Virginia, and was a "surveyor" and "lawyer of Kanawha County."] Dr. John P. Hale, Charleston, West Virginia, in a commentary on Daniel Boone, posted on the West Virginia Archives and History website, identifies John L. Cole as "lawyer, surveyor, poet, artist, humorist, antiquarian." Note to a poem held in the West Virginia University, West Virginia & Regional History Center: "John Lewis Cole was a librarian in West Virginia in the late nineteenth century. Collection consists of a sixteen-page narrative poem, ‘The Old Fayette School-House,' written by J. L. Cole in December 1891. The text of the poem is typed, but it is accompanied by hand-drawn illustrations." |
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