Mrs. H. L. Adams of 101 Coffman, Flat River and her son-in-law and daughter, Mr. and Mrs. John Newcomer of Elvins, were in St. Charles, Mo., May 15 for the dedication of a Revolutionary War marker at the grave of Captain Warren Cottle, great-great-grandfather of Mrs. Adams.
The St. Charles D.A.R. sponsored the event and members of V.F.W., Kohl-Jeck Post 2866, assisted in the ceremony and also set the tomb stone furnished by the government. D.A.R. State Regent, Mrs. Clarence Kemper of Clinton, officiated at the unveiling of the marker at the beginning of the dedicatory program Saturday afternoon at Oak Grove Cemetery in St. Charles. Cottle descendants from several states and cities were present for the ceremony.
Mrs. Adams' brother, Bernard Cottle of Rowaytown, Conn., read a biographical sketch prepared by Dr. Eugene Cottle of Laramie, Wyo., on the life of Captain Warren Cottle, who was born in 1755 and died in 1811.
A native of Massachusetts, Warren Cottle moved with his parents to the Vermont wilderness (then a part of the New York state territory) around 1770. The Cottles operated various business enterprises and Warren also served in local and state government posts while living in South Woodstock, Vermont. He married Relief Farnsworth of Charleston, New Hampshire, and their five sons and two daughters were all born in Vermont.
Records of the military service of Captain Warren Cottle [is] authenticated by several historical sources. It is noted that he maintained a militia enlistment from 1776 to 1783 and was a commander of a Vermont company in Peter Olcott's Regiment in 1777. He was Captain of the 4th Company Infantry in South Woodstock and was associated with the Vermont militia exploits of the well-known Allens of Vermont.
In describing the arrival of the Cottles in Missouri, the biographical sketch relates: "The great move by Captain Warren Cottle and his family to the Spanish country west of the Mississippi River demonstrates the hardy character and adventurous personality of this man. He doubtless envisioned an expanding nation and once again desired to be on the frontier, the advancing line of settlement. Records show that Captain Warren Cottle and his sons, Dr. Warren Cottle, Jr. and Ira Cottle, took Spanish grants in what was to become Dardenne Township of St. Charles County. Sylvanus Cottle, a brother of Captain Warren Cottle, took land in Cuivre Township. There was a fairly 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. 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 attests to the qualities of leadership and responsibility which were apparent in the character of Captain Warren Cottle.
"Soon after arriving in the new country, Captain Cottle built a mill on the Dardenne Creek to serve the settlers who were beginning to arrive in the region from the East. Apparently the families of this settlement prospered and evidence of their complete satisfaction in the new country appears in a letter written by Captain Cottle to relatives in New York State.
"Once more we find Captain Cottle rising to the defense of his community as a record in the United States Territorial Papers carries an account of his leading a group of twenty men in 1804 against Indian depredations in the Cuivre settlement. Capt. Cottle died at his home in Dardenne Township on April 11, 1811. He was buried in the nearby plot where others of this early group of settlers had found a burial place. This old cemetery, no longer in existence, was on land owned by the Cottle family and was adjacent to the village of Cottleville, which was founded in 1840 by Lorenzo Cottle, who was a son of Dr. Warren Cottle, Jr.
"So closed the life of this active and dynamic American whose work with that of many others of his generation helped to establish a nation."