Jedediah Cole
Jedediah Cole, civil engineer and County Surveyor, Garrettsville, was born in Nelson Township, this county, May 26, 1830; son of Jedediah and Elizabeth (Noah) Cole, the former a native of Vermont, born in 1797, the latter of Chester County, Penn., born in 1802. They were parents of four children, three of whom are still living: Rebecca J., wife of Uriah Craig, of Kidder, Mo.; William C, a farmer, also in Missouri, and our subject. Jedediah Cole, Sr. , was a carpenter in early life. He came to this county in 1816. and for a year or two worked at his trade, but for the balance of his life he was engaged in farming. He was a prominent man in religious circles, being one of the few to organize the Disciples Church. His death occurred May 10, 1850. His wife died August 5, 1834. Our subject in early life was employed in attending the neighboring schools and rendering what assistance he could to his parents on the homestead farm. He was married, September 6, 1855, to Miss Katie M. Dickens, who was born March 18, 1833, at Jacksonville, Ill., by whom he had five children: Augustus S. (an attorney at Ravenna, Ohio), Helen (deceased), James D., Katie E. and Paul H. Mr. Cole entered upon his career in life as a school teacher at Salem, Ill., where he remained until 1856; then for two years was in northern Iowa engaged in different enterprises, such as merchandising, contracting and land surveying, and while there he did his first work as land surveyor. From this point he went to Prairie du Chien, Wis., where he was employed principally in building and teaching. While there the war broke out, and he responded to the first call for men in 1862, enlisting in Company A., Thirty-first Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry, and was mustered out in November, 1864, for promotion to Captaincy in the One Hundred and Twenty-third U. S. C. I., and was honorably discharged as such at the close of the Rebellion, after which he retired to his home in Ohio and embarked in lumbering, in which he continued till the fall of 1869, when he was elected to the ofiice of County Surveyor, a position he still retains. He has served one term as Justice of the Peace, and has held the same ofiice in Iowa and Wisconsin. Has also served as Clerk of the Board of Education two terms. In addition to his labors as County Surveyor he is engaged in collecting and in real estate business. Mr. Cole is a F. & A. M.
From History of Portage County, Ohio, Warner, Beers & Co., Chicago, 1885