Calvin J. Cowles

Calvin Josiah Cowles (January 6, 1821 – April 1, 1907) was an American merchant and politician. Born in Hamptonville, North Carolina, he was educated in local schools. In 1846, at the behest of his father, he established a general store in Elkville, a community at the edge of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Initially trading in skins and furs, Cowles rapidly expanded his business into medicinal plants, which he sourced from local customers and storekeepers and shipped to drug manufacturers in the North and Midwest. He moved his store to Wilkesboro in 1858 and remained in operation there until 1869. He also took an interest in land speculation and mining, acquiring vast acreages in North Carolina and other states, and devoted significant energy towards the development of a mine in Ashe County.

Like his father, Cowles was initially active in Whig politics. He served as a U.S. postmaster in Elkville and Wilkesboro and remained a Unionist during the American Civil War. During the Reconstruction era, he supported the creation of the North Carolina Republican Party and presided over the state's 1868 constitutional convention. Through his political connections, Cowles was appointed superintendent of the U.S. Assay Office in Charlotte in January 1869. He resigned in 1885 and returned to Wilkesboro to focus on his land investments. He also compiled reports on local weather and agricultural affairs and harvested and sent specimens to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. He died following an illness in 1907.

Early life Calvin Josiah Cowles was born on January 6, 1821, in Hamptonville, North Carolina to Deborah Sanford and Josiah Cowles. The couple moved to the community from Connecticut in 1815. Josiah Cowles was a successful merchant and tinsmith. An active member of the Whig Party, he at times chaired the Surry County court and served on the governor's council during the tenure of William Alexander Graham. Following the birth of two other children, Sanford died in 1827. Josiah Cowles married Nancy Carson Duvall in 1828 and she brought three of her own children into the family.

Calvin Cowles was educated in local schools in Hamptonville and acquired further education through home study and business pursuits. He married his stepsister, Martha Duvall, on September 19, 1844. Pursuant to the federal Reconstruction Acts, military authorities ordered North Carolina to organize elections for delegates to a new constitutional convention in November 1867. A Republican convention in Taylorsville nominated Cowles as a candidate for the seat representing Wilkes County, which he won. On January 16, Cowles appointed a 16-member committee to consider "the best method of proceeding to form a Constitution." The following day, the convention adopted a permanent rules of order and approved a plan offered by the 16-member committee to have 13 different issues of constitutional concern drafted out by different 13-member committees. Cowles announced his appointments to the committees on January 20. During the day session on March 12, Cowles ordered the sergeant-at-arms to detain delegate Albion W. Tourgée for violating the rules of order, though his action was countermanded by a vote of the convention. Following the convention, Cowles lingered in Raleigh to ensure the constitution was printed He returned to Wilkesboro in December.

Cowles campaigned and gave speeches on behalf of the Republican Party in Wilkes County during the state elections of 1896.

Later life and death After returning to Wilkesboro in 1885, Cowles nurtured several hobbies, including collecting weather and agronomical data and forwarding it to state and federal agencies. He also collected specimens and sent them to the U.S. Department of Agriculture for identification. Cowles also began writing a family genealogical history which was finished and published by one of his sons posthumously. dying on April 1, 1907. According to his last wishes, Cowles was buried in Elmwood Cemetery alongside three of his late children. A specimen of Ustilago zeae collected by Cowles was divided in 1921 and is held at the University of North Carolina Herbarium, Cornell University, the New York Botanical Garden, the U.S. National Fungus Collections, and the University of Arizona. A specimen of Leucothoe fontanesiana harvested by him is held at the University of Nebraska.