OBITUARIES, AMERICAN. (COGHLAN COLE.) 



589 



John Stratton. His own adaptation of Giaco- 

 inetti's Morte Civile, made famous by Salvini, 

 was produced at the Prince of Wales's, Dec. 8, 

 1880, with himself in the part of Conrad. Another 

 play, Good Fortune, arranged by him in this 

 year from Octave Feuillet's Romance of a Poor 

 Young Man, had been produced by the same com- 

 pany without Mr. Coghlan in the cast, Dec. 4. 

 The Colonel was produced at the same theater 

 on Feb. 2, 1881, Mr. Coghlan playing the part 

 of Col. Wood, U. S. A., with very great success. 

 This play was an adaptation from Le Mari a la 

 Campagne, the same from which The Serious Fam- 

 ily was written. At the Court Theater, Dec. 16, 



1882, he made a thrilling portrayal of Capt. Dar- 

 leigh, V. C., in Comrades. The first performance 

 of Fedora at the Hay market, May 5, 1883, pre- 

 sented him as the original Loris Spanoff in Eng- 

 lish. A stock company for the Fifth Avenue 

 Theater, New York, was organized by John Stet- 

 son, of Boston, in the spring of 1883, and Mr. 

 Coghlan was engaged as the leading man. He 

 first appeared as Alfred Evelyn in Money, Oct. 8, 



1883, and he played also Jean Renaud in The 

 Celebrated Case and Henri de Lagadere in The 

 Duke's Motto. Mr. Stetson suddenly closed the 

 company, on account of which Mr. Coghlan sub- 

 sequently recovered judgment from Mr. Stetson 

 for salary at the rate of $700 a week. He .played 

 a special engagement with Mrs. Langtry in A 

 Wife's Peril, and, having been engaged as lead- 

 ing man for the Union Square Theater, opened 

 there as Barton Blair in Separation, Jan. 28, 1884. 

 At the close of the season he went again to Eng- 

 land, and was engaged by Mrs. Langtry as her 

 principal support. Jan. 20, 1885, he played Prince 

 De Birac to the Severine of Mrs. Langtry in his 

 own adaptation of La Princesse Georges of the 

 younger Dumas. This was followed by The 

 School for Scandal, Mrs. Langtry as Lady Teazle 

 and Mr. Coghlan as Charles Surface, and by 

 Peril, in which he was the Captain Bradford. 

 This was the beginning of an artistic association 

 which continued between them without much in- 

 terruption until 1891. Enemies, a dramatization 

 by Mr. Coghlan of Georges Ohnet's La Grande 

 Marniere, was produced by them at the Prince's 

 Theater, London, Jan. 28, 1886. In the autumn 

 of 1888 he prepared his sister's (Rose Coghlan) 

 company for her tour as a star in his play Joce- 

 lyn, and rejoined Mrs. Langtry, who was pre- 

 paring an elaborate production of Macbeth for 

 New York city. This play was presented at the 

 Fifth Avenue Theater, Jan. 21, 1889, with Mr. 

 Coghlan as Macbeth. Mr. Coghlan spent about 

 a year in retirement at his farm on Prince Ed- 

 ward's Island, and in the autumn of 1890 again 

 joined Mrs. Langtry in London in a magnificent 

 production of Antony and Cleopatra. In the part 

 of Antony he added another to his London tri- 

 umphs. On Feb. 28, 1891, his play Lady Barter 

 was produced, with himself as Colonel Pearce. 

 In the autumn of 1891 he joined his sister in a 

 starring tour. They played principally his Lady 

 Barter. During this engagement they revived 

 Diplomacy, which they played at the Star Thea- 

 ter, New York. Mr. Coghlan's superb perform- 

 ance of Henri Beauclerc astonished and charmed 

 a succession of crowded houses, and the play was 

 taken to the Fifth Avenue Theater, where it had 

 a long run. At the close of this season he retired 

 again, but returned finally to London, where he 

 played Mercutio with Forbes-Robertson's produc- 

 tion of Romeo and Juliet. He was engaged by 

 Mrs. Minnie Maddern Fiske for her production 

 of Tess of the D'Urbervilles, and gave an ad- 

 mirable rendition of Alec D'Urberville in that 



play throughout the season of 1897-'98 in the 

 United States, beginning at the Fifth Avenue 

 Theater, March 2, 1897. On Dec. 2, 1898, he 

 began his most successful venture in the United 

 States by presenting his own adaptation of the 

 elder Dumas's Edmond Kean, called The Royal 

 Box, in which he played the part of the actor 

 Clarence, at the Fifth Avenue Theater. He made 

 more money, fame, and friends than ever until 

 he offered, April 11, 1899, his play of Citizen 

 Pierre, which was a failure. His last appearance 

 in New York was on April 16. His last appear- 

 ance on the stage was at Houston, Texas, Oct. 

 28, 1899, as Clarence in The Royal Box. The 

 words that were written in 1790 of his kinsman, 

 the MacCoghlan, last Lord of Delvin-Ara, well 

 describe Charles Coghlan: " He was a remarkably 

 handsome man, gallant, eccentric, proud, satirical, 

 hospitable in the extreme, and of expensive hab- 

 its." A contemporary American critic thus 

 summed up his excellence as an actor in 1879: 

 " It is to the complete and perfect forgetting of 

 self in his performance that the high esteem in 

 which Mr. Coghlan is held by the thinking audi- 

 ence is due. He never descends to the cheap 

 creating of effects; he plays his part for all it is 

 worth; he does not play Charles Coghlan, with 

 the kind assistance of somebody's text, for the 

 amusement of his friends and admirers." He 

 was the author or adapter of these plays: Lady 

 Flora, Jocelyn, The Checkbook, Her Ladyship, 

 Lady Barter, Citizen Pierre, The Royal Box, Good 

 as Gold, The Brothers, A Quiet Rubber, For Life 

 (Morte Civile), and The House of Darnley. 



Cole, Edmund Whiteford, manufacturer, born 

 in Giles County, Tennessee, in 1832; died in New 

 York city, May 25, 1899. He removed to Nashville 

 when a young man, and was actively identified 

 with the coal and iron and railroad industries 

 of the South for forty years. He began his busi- 

 ness life as a clerk in the employment of the 

 Nashville, Chattanooga and St. Louis Railroad 

 Company, of which he subsequently became presi- 

 dent. In the early part of the civil war the roll- 

 ing stock of this railroad was impressed by the 

 Confederate authorities, and to secure his serv- 

 ices to manage it he was commissioned a colonel 

 and assigned to the quartermaster's department. 

 Col. Cole was chief owner of three large blast 

 furnaces in Sheffield, Ala., and had extensive hold- 

 ings in valuable coal and iron properties. He 

 was a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 

 South, a director in its Book Concern, and presi- 

 dent of its missionary society. The Tennessee 

 Industrial School, one of the largest and most 

 successful institutions in the State, was founded 

 by him. An auditorium which he erected for the 

 school at a cost of $10,000 was completed a few 

 weeks before his death. 



Cole, Nelson, military officer, born in Dutchess 

 County, New York,Nov.*18, 1833; died in St. Louis, 

 Mo., July 31, 1899. He removed in 1854 to what 

 was then called the far West, and ultimately 

 settled in St. Louis. There he was engaged in 

 the lumber business and manufacturing till April, 

 1861, when he organized and uniformed a com- 

 pany of volunteers for the National army. He 

 reported with his company to Gen. Nathaniel 

 Lyon, in St. Louis, April 17, and was at once 

 ordered to protect the arsenal from an anticipated 

 attack. Afterward he served under Gen. Lyon 

 in the battles of Boonville, Dug Springs, and 

 Wilson's Creek, in the last of which he was se- 

 verely wounded. In 1862 and the spring of 1863 

 he was attached to the staff of Gen. John M. 

 Schofield as chief of artillery. In Gen. Grant's 

 campaign against Vicksburg he commanded a 



