My Genealogy Hound

ALBERT S. COBB, a wholesale and retail liquor dealer of Dunkirk, was born in the town of Gorham, Cumberland county, Maine, June 21, 1815, and is a son of David and Sallie (Watson) Cobb. In the latter part of the last century three brothers, David, Ebenezer and Jonathan Cobb came from Scotland to this country, where David located in Ohio, Ebenezer in New York, and Jonathan in Massachusetts. Jonathan Cobb, who was the grandfather of Albert S. Cobb, resided in Massachusetts until his death. His son, David Cobb, was born in Barnstable, that State, and removed to Gorham, Maine, when that State was a part of Massachusetts. He was a tanner and currier which trade he left to engage in the mercantile business in Gorham and died in 1837, at the age of sixty-three years. He was an old-line whig, served as town collector for seven years besides filling other offices, and while energetic yet was a modest and unassuming man whose generosity and kindness to the poor were distinguishing traits of his character. He married Sallie Watson, who was a native of Gorham, where she died in 1843, when in the sixty-fifth year of her age.

Albert S. Cobb was reared in Gorham where he received a common school and academic education and where he was engaged in the general mercantile business for two years. In 1840 he went to Great Falls, New Hampshire, and was employed for nine years and six months in doing all of the painting of the Great Falls Cotton Manufacturing company. At the end of this time, in 1850, he came to Hornellsville, this State, and run for one year as a brakesman on the Erie railroad from Hornellsville to Cuba. In 1851 he was a brakesman on the first train that ran into Dunkirk and was afterwards employed by the New York & Erie railroad, as a brakesman and freight and passenger conductor for twenty-one years and ten months. As a passenger conductor he run for seven years from Hornellsville to Dunkirk and for five years from Dunkirk to Oswego. From 1864 to 1868 he was a member of the wholesale and retail liquor firm of Cobb & Smith, of Dunkirk, then for two years was in that business by himself and in 1870 became a member of the liquor firm of Cobb & Gifford which lasted two years, when Mr. Cobb established his present wholesale and retail liquor house. He removed to Dunkirk in 1861 and resigned as passenger conductor in 1871. He is a democrat, cast his first vote for Martin Van Buren and has been a trustee of his city for six years. He served as a store-keeper in the State Arsenal at Dunkirk when John T. Hoffman was governor and in 1860 was interested in the oil production of New York and Pennsylvania.

In the year 1840, he married Abby G. Libby, of the town of Gorham, Maine, and they have had with them for thirty-five years as a domestic Barbara Hiller, a native of Germany. A. S. Cobb has in his possession three silver dollars which he prizes very highly. “The first one is a Spanish milled dollar of 1797, received for driving a widow’s cow and was the first dollar which he ever earned. The next one is a Mexican dollar of 1829 and was the first money he ever earned after becoming of age, while the third one is of the United States issue of 1844, and was the first dollar which he received as a railroad employee.