Cowles, Sr., Alfred

Born: 1832-05-13 Ohio

Died: 1889-12-20 Chicago, Illinois

Born in Mantua in Portage County, Ohio, Alfred Cowles, Sr. was a clerk, bookkeeper, and business and financial manager. He attended public schools near his birthplace, followed by a prep school. He studied for a time at Michigan University in Ann Arbor, but moved to Cleveland, Ohio before completing his degree. At age nineteen he began working as a clerk and, later, a bookkeeper at the Cleveland Leader. There he met Joseph Medill. In 1855, he and Medill both relocated to Chicago, where, in July, Cowles purchased an interest in the Chicago Tribune and became its financial and business manager. By 1860 he had a personal estate valued at $10,000. That year, he married Sarah F. Hutchinson, and the couple had at least three children together. He died of apoplexy.

A. T. Andreas, History of Chicago (Chicago: A. T. Andreas, 1886), 3:696; Franklin William Scott, Newspapers and Periodicals of Illinois, 1814-1879, vol. 6 of Collections of the Illinois State Historical Library (Springfield: Illinois State Historical Library, 1910), 59; John Moses and Joseph Kirkland, eds., The History of Chicago Illinois (Chicago: Munsell, 1895), 2:47; U.S. Census Office, Eighth Census of the United States (1860), Ward 6, Chicago, Cook County, IL, 572; The Evansville Courier (IN), 21 December 1889, 1:2; Gravestone, Oak Woods Cemetery, Chicago, IL.