Cottleville…Where History Never Grows Old
Many, many years ago, different cultures inhabited our glorious land. Crooked Creek ebbed and flowed with a mind of its own and the Dardenne River many times over ran its boundaries, laying down fertile silt and providing an Eden for its neighbors.
Cottleville is a land of rich history and a fertile epoch. The earliest known residents came and inhabited the area around 10,000 B.C. The number of recorded sites within St. Charles County is over a thousand and Cottleville had its share of cultures. Peoples inhabited our area starting in the Emergent Mississippian Period, The Mississippi Period, The Prehistoric Period through the Historical Era.
Archaeological investigations allow us to document this rich heritage and provide us with a better understanding of the amazing accomplishments achieved by the past inhabitants. Cottleville is near the confluence of several major rivers and proved advantageous to past inhabitants. Cottleville is at the major crossroads of North America.
Cottleville was inhabited at the end of the Ice Age, by some of the first people known to have lived in the U.S. and continues today to be a region used by peoples of a pioneering spirit with pride and independence. Cottleville may be truly described as a refuse from the hectic world, with a quaint and magical feel, which is rich in the things that matter and gives way to again and again for us to enjoy.
Our past reaches up to us and we continue our heritage. We embrace our town with love and awe, pride and dreams. Our 20th century founders described it as… let us find the beauty and our own Garden of Eden in our glorious town of Cottleville.
There are traces of the surname COTTA found in Egyptian carvings. The family surname, Cottle, has persisted for centuries appearing also in the time of the Roman Empire in the Latin form, COTTA Accuracy in tracing the name begins with the French Norman period of European history. In the French form the name is COUTELLE. A branch of the family migrating to Germany during the time of Charlemagne set up the name variation COTTSCHALK, which is simply the Germanic form of the present name COTTLE. With The Norman conquest of England, the French knights of this name went to England. Seen after 1100, the name is recorded in England in the Anglo-French form COTTELL. John Cothulle, born 1277, is an example of the Middle English language period which used the suffix hulle in place of the suffix le. At this time England we find the name of Roger Cotel listed on the Hundred Rolls (tax books). The Modern Doomsday Book of England carries reference to Cottle as being of the old Middle English language period using Cothulle and Cotel.
In England the early seat of this family was at Atworth, Wiltshire. The community has been known locally as Cottles. It is near Melkham. On November 8, 1850, the family was admitted into the nobility of England by Queen Elizabeth who recognized North Taunton Cottle and possibly his brother, Samford Peverel Cottle. This coat of arms is still found in a mural on the wall of the church in Bradford on Avon. This coat of arms was displayed in several parishes, churches and manor houses in Wiltshire, Somerset and Devonshire. The Cottle coat of arms is stated by Aubrey in his “History of Wilts” and by other historians to have been a bend Gules—a shield of gold with a bend (diagonal band from the upper right to the lower left) of red. The complete blazen is: Shield; or, (gold) a bend Gules (red) crest: On a ducal crown a tiger sejant.
The first Cottle of record to come to America was William Cottle who was brought here in “The Confidence of London”—200 tons—in April, 1638. He is listed as one of four servants of a John Sanders of “Lanford” Wiltshire, England. William was twelve years old. It was not uncommon for young men to be brought to America as servants or apprentices. After becoming of age and completing his term of service, William Cottle established himself at Salisbury—named for the shire town of Wiltshire—near the mouth of the Merrimac River, in the colony of Massachusetts Bay. The founder of our branch family was Edward Cottle (1628-1710), William’s brother. Edward was two years younger than William .
Edward married Judith Osgood on his twenty- first birthday in his hometown Wiltshire, England, and announced their intentions to sail to the American colonies to make their home. He joined William at Salisbury in 1650. Edward lost both of his parents and had listened to the Gorges propaganda of the wonders of America. There was Civil War in England so Edward came to America. Edward entered the whaling business. Edward lived in Salisbury, Amesbury, Nantucket Island, Cape Cod and then at Martha’s Vineyard, at Tisbury.
Children of Edward and Judith Cottle:
Edward, born January 17, 1651; died April 15, 1653
Mary, born November 1, 1653; married Samuel Bickford
Benjamin, born March 2, 1655; probably died young
Sarah, born March, 1657; no further record
Judith, born March 5, 1659; died young
Hannah, born about 1661; married John Hillman
Elizabeth, born April 19, 1663; bound out to Thomas Barnett
Edward, born September 28, 1666; married Esther Daggett
James, born 1668; married Elizabeth Look
Judith, born April 13, 1670; no further record
Lydia, born May 17, 1672; no further record
Ann, born March 3, 1673; married Isaac Robinson
John, born September 7, 1675; married Jane Look-died 1706
Samuel, born 1676; died in 1698
Sources:
“The Washington Ancestry and Records of the McClain, Johnson, and Forty Other Colonial American Families: by C.S. Hoppin, 3 vols. Privately printed. 1932 Vol. III, pages 437-457, has a chapter on “The Cottles of Wiltshire and Martha’s Vineyard.”
“The History of Martha’s Vineyard” by Charles E. Banks. Three Volumes. Vol. II. 1911. Annals of West Tisbury, pages 42-44. Vol. III. 1925. Genealogies, pages 106-107.
“Old Families of Salisbury and Amesbury” by David Hoyt, 1897, has a very short sketch of Edward Cottle.
John Cottle married Jane Look in 1700 and built a home near his father’s house in Tisbury. Two children were born to the young couple in 1701 and 1704, but in 1705 John died, leaving his pregnant wife to care for the family. The second child in this family, Sylvanus, married Martha Hatch 1725 at the age of twenty one and became a prominent farmer and rancher in the Bay Colony.
Children of John Cottle and Jane (Look) Cottle:
Lydia Cottle, born September 14, 1702 – died December 30, 1725
Sylvanus, born May 9, 1704 - died 1785
John Cottle, born April 10, 1706 – died February 1804
Sylvanus had thirteen children, eight by Martha Hatch and five by Abigail Sherman, whom he married in 1745, one year after the death of his first wife. Abigail, a direct descendant of William Bradford, was born in Rochester, Massachusetts, on July 27, 1721, the twin of John Sherman.
Children of Sylvanus and Martha (Hatch) Cottle:
Issac, born September 7, 1726
Edward, born July 25, 1728
Benjamin, born March17, 1729
Ann, born June 6, 1732 – died November 25, 1815
Lydia, born “August 22, 1733
Jane, born February 11, 1735
Kesiah, born October 25, 1737
Mary, born June 7, 1741
Children of Sylvanus and Abigail (Sherman) Cottle:
Jabez, born February 22 1747 – died June 4, 1820
Sylvanus, born June 15 1750 – died December 1811
Joseph, born July 28 1753 - 1831
Warren, born in 1755 – died April 11, 1811
John, born in 1757 – died 1828
In 1760, Sylvanus moved his family to Rochester. In Rochester, the Cottle family signed what they believed to be valid land contracts, and prepared to move to the frontier. Three hundred eighteen families constituted the original settlers in the area, but a decade of protests and injunction by King George III kept the actual population small, because of the uncertainty of the grants’ viability. This changed when Vermont was officially recognized as a territory, separate from New York. The Cottles came to the Kendron Valley in 1772 where shortly after arriving, Sylvanus and Abigail Cottle died. They were buried behind “Cottle’s Ridge” in “Cottle Town”.
Warren Cottle was 18 years old when he moved. He married Relief Farnsworth in 1761 and had five boys and two girls. Warren Cottle trained as a minuteman in 1776, and served with the New Hampshire Regiment against Burgoyne in 1777. He was discharged from the Continental Army in 1781 with the rank of captain. He started his business by career by erecting a grist mill about 1779. He did very well through these years and in the “Grand List of 1787”, Warren listed for 29 pounds, the highest amount of any of the Cottles. He was very active in social, civic, and military life of the town. He was Constable in 1784, Overseer of Highways, Grand Juror, Selectman in 1789, 1790 and “organization of state government”.
Children of Captain Warren (1755-1811) and Relief (Farnsworth)Cottle (1762-1824):
Marshall or Martial born 1779
Ira, born 1780-died 1842
Warren, born in 1781-died June 1823
Oliver, born 1783 died 1827
Stephen, born 1784-died 1829
Letitia, born 1785 – died 1799
Olive, born 1786 – died 1795
When Vermont entered the Union as the fourteenth state, forty-seven families moved into the Kedron Valley, increasing the need for mills and stores. Warren Cottle opened a general store in 1793 and a second store in 1794 to enlarge on the first. Warren Cottle tried in vain for three years to keep his general store afloat financially. Prospects in 1793 had seemed so bright: new families were arriving in town every month, and with them came the basic needs of every frontier settlement. Citizens of South Woodstock shopped there regularly, but the profits from these purchases seemed increasingly inadequate.
Warren was forty-one when his store closed. He had been in poor health for most of his life, and had hoped even as a teenager that the move from the salty seaboard air to the fresh Vermont mountain breezes would improve his consumptive lung ailment. It had not been so, and Cottle continued to suffer.
In 1797 he made several unsuccessful attempts to start new business ventures. He worked with his brother Jabez, at his mill and became involved in land speculation. Captain Cottle began to consider other alternatives, including leaving the Kendron Valley. In conversations with merchants and French trappers who would occasionally drift through the Woodstock area, Warren learned of land opening far to the west of the along the Mississippi River. The Orleans territory, owned by Spain, sounded like Paradise to the New Englander. Rumors indicted might be cured out west so with the support of his family, and accompanied by his son Ira Cottle made his plans to leave for Orleans in the spring of 1789.
Captain Warren Cottle and his son Ira traveled from the Kedron along the Appalachian Trail south across Massachusetts, Connecticut and New York. They headed west on the Forbes Road through Pennsylvania to the Ohio River, where they booked passage to Indiana Territory. They walked the Vincennes Trail; to St. Louis, arriving there in the summer. The St. Charles District of Orleans was made up of the country west of St. Louis and the river bottomlands of the Missouri, still populated mostly by bear, bison and Sac Indians. The two men spent the summer making notes and drawing crude maps of the areas they traversed. They visited the few white men they encountered there, as well as with the authorities in St. Louis. They returned to Vermont in fall. By the time they arrived back in South Woodstock, their excitement had reached the contagious stage. They gathered family at the inn and told of the beautiful lands they had seen. Warren explained how inexpensive the tracts of land were, and of the accommodating spirit of the Spanish. A series of town meetings was called in the spring of 1799, as many of the Woodstock citizens considered the possibility of moving west with Warren Cottle.
Captain Warren Cottle and his sons, Dr. Warren Cottle, Jr. and Ira Cottle, took Spanish grants and moved in this area. Sylvanus Cottle, a brother of Captain Warren Cottle, took land in Cuivre Township. There was a large company of settlers which Captain Cottle led from Vermont to the new land. Besides his immediate family, some of his brothers and their families came, as did also some of the Farnsworth relatives of Captain Cottle’s wife. Forty families had agreed to be part of the caravan west. Including the children, there were exactly one hundred persons. “The fact that this fairly extensive number of people were willing to risk the many hazards of a journey into unknown, unsettled, and foreign country under the supervision of this one man attest to the qualities of leadership and responsibility where were apparent in the character of Captain Warren Cottle.” THE LEAD BELT NEWS, Flat River, St. Francois Co, MO, Wed. June 2, 1965.
Following the road to the Connecticut River, the caravan headed south through the river valley to the Greenwood Road, which took them west to meet the Appalachian Trail in Litchfield, Connecticut and onward to the west. The journey at the turn of the nineteenth century was not for the faint in spirit. One of the tragedies for the South Woodstock company along the way was the death of Marshall Cottle, age 18.
Thanksgiving in St. Charles that year in 1799, proved a special occasion for everyone who had made, and survived, the difficult journey west. Now before them lay the promised land that Captain Warren Cottle had seen two years earlier: the land along the Missouri. It was here where he established a temporary home. Warren Cottle made three excursions into the wilderness in search of a likely homesite. He was impressed with the beauty of the countryside, with the big trees, the game and the birds. It was dangerous country; for any trespassing on this land to the northwest was certain to be disputed by the Indians who roamed through this district.
“Warren Cottle, was a physician and a man of college education. He was a soldier in the War of 1812 and his wife and cousin Salome Cottle, was a lady of culture and refinement. Dr. Warren Cottle habits, sterling intellect and kind and generous heart.” Collins, Earl A., “The Multitudes Incorporated” in Missouri Historical Review, Vol. CXVIII, No. 4 (July, 1933), pp.308-309
Dr. Warren Cottle erected a mill; one of first to be built in the county around 1800. He died on his homestead near the mill. Some of the stone of the original mill can still be seen today in the town of Cottleville.
Children of Dr. Warren Cottle (? - 1823 and Salome Cottle (1782-1845):
Alonzo, no date of birth, died in 1885
Fidelo, no date of birth, died in 1885
Olive, born? Died in early maidenhood
Alvora, born August 7, 1809-died after 1860
Lorenzo, born September 13, 1811-died September 26, 1892
Pauline, ?
Ora, born 1818 died 1912
Otello or O’Fallon, no date of birth, died in 1885
“Lorenzo Cottle is one of the oldest living native born residents of the county, and is well known as one of the most highly respected citizens. He has served his country in two wars, but has rendered it even more valuable service as an industrious farmer and law—abiding citizen. In the years of his activity he accumulated considerable property and was the founder of the town of Cottleville. He still has a modest competence, and in the Indian summer of life is comfortably situated at his home. What is perhaps better still, a life of sobriety and good habits have preserved to him in old age, such physical vigor and his mental activity unimpaired---these, notwithstanding the hardships he entered in the pioneer days of the country and the exposures he underwent as a soldier of the republic in the swamps and everglades of Florida and in the malarial and then uninhabited regions of the upper Arkansas, the Red River and the extreme South-west.” Eaton, David W., “How Missouri Counties, Towns and Streams Were Named”, in Missouri Historical Review, Vol. XVIII, No. 1 (October, 1918).
At the age of twenty, early in 1831, Lorenzo enlisted under Captain Nathan Boone in a company of mounted rangers for the Black Hawk War. He was one of only a few survivors. He returned home and farmed until the call of Governor Boggs for volunteers in the Florida War. That was in 1837. He enlisted in Captain Jackson’s company of mounted militia and was a victor in the battle at Lake Okeechobee.
Lorenzo Cottle laid out the town of Cottleville on a tract of land he inherited from his father, Dr. Warren Cottle, about 200 acres located on both sides of the Dardenne Creek. He bought a country store and engaged in merchandising. In 1839 Lorenzo parceled into lots that part of his property lying on the south side of the stream and named the town Cottleville in honor of his father, Dr. Warren Cottle, at his home in the Dardenne Township. Lorenzo sold and gave away a number of valuable lots. He had a substantial growth and he did a good business at Cottleville.
Warren Elementary was built and opened for the 2000-2001 school year and was named in honor of Dr. Warren Cottle.
Sheryl Guffey
Descendent of the Cottle Family
3/5/08
