12 LIFE OF A. N. COLE. 



younger than themselves. When the revolutionary period of 1848 was reached, and A. N. Cole 

 was but twenty-seven years of age, he was better known by, and more closely linked with, 

 Joshua R. Giddings, Gerrit Smith, James 8. Wadsworth, William H. Seward, Charles Sumner, 

 Salmon P. Chase, John P. Hale, John Van Buren and others of like political affinities, than any 

 man of his age in America. 



What made him especially a most important factor in the politics of the period was his close 

 attachment to and alliance with Horace Greeley, whose acquaintance he formed so early as 

 1843. Mr. Cole became the trusted personal, private and confidential correspondent of this 

 great journalist, and thus remained to the close of Mr. Greeley 's life in 1872. 



In the meantime Mr. Cole had, so early as 1852, assisted by General James S. Wadsworth, es- 

 tablished the GENESEE VALLEY FBEE PKESS as a Republican paper at his home in Allegany 

 County. In the columns of this, the pioneer Republican newspaper of the country, appeared 

 the first call for a convention to organize the Republican party. This convention met at 

 Friendship, N. Y., in May, 1854, and dates the birth of the Republican party, though the town 

 of Angelica, N. Y., succeeded in 1884 in establishing her birthright by showing that the first con- 

 vention called for nominating candidates convened at that place about the middle of October, 

 1854. The celebration of the birth of the party took place at Angelica just before last fall's 

 (1884) election. A. N. Cole presided, having been for years acknowledged and recognized as the 

 Father of the Republican Party. 



It Is not however, in politics or public life where Mr. Cole has won his proudest laurels. 

 He never held but one important public trust, that of readjuster or reassessor of income taxes 

 in the Second district of Brooklyn for a period of about one year of the first term of President 

 Grant, receiving his appointment from Secretary Boutwell. Mr. Cole held court in revenue 

 cases with such energy, force and knowledge of the revenue laws as to gain his admittance to 

 practice in all the courts of the state, receiving his diploma at a general term of court held at 

 Poughkeepsie in May, 1868, Before this, however, he had been waited upon by the solid New 

 York delegation of Republican Senators and Members of Congress from the State of New York 

 for appointment to the office of Internal Revenue Supervisor for the Metropolitan District, but 

 President Johnson interposing objections the Hon. Silas B. Dutcher received the appointment. 



Tip to this period Mr. Cole had only been known as a journalist of wide influence, bnt he had 

 also won laurels without number at Albany for his advocacy of measures for improvement of 

 the cities of New Yori and Brooklyn, and as early as 1877 saw carried through the experiment 

 in Greenwich Street testing the question of practicability of the elevated railroad system as 

 now in operation in the metropolis. General John A. Dix and the Hon. S. L. M. Barlow, asso- 

 ciated with others, employed Mr. Cole as advocate and attorney, breaking the powerful combi- 

 nations of opposing interests to the system of rapid transit now existing. 



The energy and earnestness of Mr. Cole up to this period had produced a marked impression 

 on the public, and he was recognized as the trusted and confidential friend of the highest officials 

 in national and state governments. He was selected to have charge of the bill reorganizing the 

 Erie Railway, which when perfected and passed saved that great work from wreck and ruin. 



Governor Cornell in 1880 signed the bill granting to a company to be organized, the aban- 

 doned Genesee Valley Canal for railroad purposes. This achievement came of seven 



