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Henry D. Cogswell Time Capsule Collection, 1847-1879, 1979 (bulk
1855-1879)
MS 559
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Title: Henry D. Cogswell time capsule collection
Collection Number: MS 559
Dates: 1847-1879, 1979 (bulk
1855-1879)
Creator:
Cogswell, Henry D. (Henry Daniel),
1820-1900
Extent:
4 boxes, 2 cartons, 1 oversize box
(5.0 linear feet)
Repository:
California Historical Society
678 Mission Street
San Francisco, CA, 94105
415-357-1848
reference@calhist.org
URL: http://www.californiahistoricalsociety.org/
Language of Materials: The bulk of the material is in
English. Also includes newspapers in
German, French,
Norwegian, Italian, and Chinese.
Abstract: Consists of material removed from the time
capsule placed under the Benjamin Franklin statue in Washington Square, San
Francisco, California, in 1879, to be opened in 1979. Contains personal business
papers of Henry Daniel Cogswell, including indentures and other papers concerning
the proposed Cogswell Dental College, inventory of his property, copies of his will,
papers concerning his proposition to erect a drinking fountain and establish the
Women's Pioneer Hotel, and other miscellaneous material; also includes printed
publications, consisting primarily of San Francisco Bay Area (with some New York)
newspapers and periodicals, along with almanacs, merchandise catalogs, business
cards, advertisements, directories, pamphlets, Christian publications, railroad
timetables, business reports, ephemera, and books. Contributors include Sarah B.
Cooper, John S. Hittell, Thomas Harmonson Holt, and Charles Otto.
CHS is not taking appointments for research at this time. Please check the Library's website updates:
https://californiahistoricalsociety.org/collections/north-baker-research-library/
Copyright has not been assigned to the California Historical Society. All requests
for permission to publish or quote from manuscripts must be submitted in writing to
the Director of Research Collections. Permission for publication is given on behalf
of the California Historical Society as the owner of the physical items and is not
intended to include or imply permission of the copyright holder, which must also be
obtained by the reader.
[Identification of item], Cogswell Time Capsule Collection, MS 559, California
Historical Society.
Biography of Henry Daniel Cogswell
Dr. Henry Daniel Cogswell, dentist and temperance advocate, was born in Tolland,
Connecticut, on March 3, 1820. While working in a series of New England cotton mills
in his youth, he pursued his studies at night, and eventually became a teacher;
after one year, Cogswell began studying dentistry. He completed his dental training
in the early 1840s and, after earlier attempts in Providence and South Coventry, he
eventually set up a practice in Pawtucket in 1847. In 1846, Cogswell married
Caroline E. Richards, daughter of Ruel Richards, a manufacturer in Providence.
In response to the news of the discovery of gold in California, Cogswell joined the
gold rush and sailed from Philadelphia to San Francisco aboard the
Susan G. Owens, arriving on October 12, 1849. After early
success selling supplies and practicing dentistry in the gold fields in a tent in
Stockton, California, Cogswell returned to San Francisco, where he opened offices at
209 Washington Street. His accomplishments in the dental profession include credit
for both the design of the vacuum method of securing dental plates, and performing
the first dental operation using chloroform in California in 1853.
During this period, Cogswell also pursued business opportunities; his success in his
profession and his investments in real estate and mining stocks soon made him a
fortune estimated at over 2 million dollars. His wealth led him to endow a number of
philanthropic projects. In the 1870s, Cogswell donated both land and a building for
the founding of a Cogswell Dental College, and conveyed it in trust to the Regents
of the University of California. However, the college was never realized, possibly
due to the demands Cogswell made. (See Box 1 for legal documents and other papers
relating to the establishment of the dental college.) In March 19, 1887, Dr. and
Mrs. Cogswell executed a trust deed setting apart real property (valued at
approximately 1 million dollars) to establish and endow Cogswell Polytechnical
College. The school was opened in August 1888 as a high school with departments of
technical education for boys and business education for girls.
Cogswell was an avid supporter of temperance and the temperance movement, and devoted
much of his wealth to promote the cause by donating approximately fifty monuments to
cities across the United States, most with drinking fountains, from the 1870s
through the 1890s. Cogswell's hope was to construct one drinking fountain for every
100 saloons. The monuments, built at Cogswell's expense and often designed by him as
well, were donated to the cities of Washington, D.C., New York, Buffalo, Rochester,
Boston, and San Francisco, among others. Many cities, however, were not pleased with
the monuments Cogswell wished to donate; often topped by a figure that greatly
resembled Cogswell himself, the sculptures were rejected by some cities on the
grounds that they were self-promoting. Others were accepted, but later destroyed or
dismantled. San Francisco's own
statue of
Cogswell
, which originally stood on the corner of California, Market,
and Drumm Streets, was toppled by a group of writers and artists in 1894. Surviving
examples of the fountains can still be found in Washington, D.C., New York, and
other cities.
Included among the monuments donated by Cogswell to the city of San Francisco is the
statue of Benjamin Franklin, which originally stood at the corner of Montgomery and
Kearny Streets, and now stands in Washington Square. The time capsule Cogswell
created was entombed in the base of the statue, and dedicated "For our boys and
girls who will soon take our place and pass on," with the added inscription, "P O
Box with Mementos for the Historical Society in 1979 from H.D.C."
Cogswell's original intent with the creation of the time capsule is expressed in one
of his many letters to the Board of Supervisors, included within the contents of the
capsule along with designs for the fountain:
"To erect a plain polished Granit (sic) or Marble Fountain, to be of a historical
Character, dedicated 'To our Boys' who will soon succeed us, go on and give place to
others. (see plan and specification) herewith submitted. On the top to be cut a
recess for a copper box to receive the names of the present Officers of City, County
& State Government; also of the constitutional Convention now in session, Copies
of all daily and weekly City-papers, City Directory etc. Names of School Directors,
teachers and Officers of the Fire Department, Societies of California Pioneers, all
its members, Police Department also Reports of Mechanics Institute. The various
benevolent Societies also an autograph letter with the photograph of the writer to
be read before an antiquarian Society also the List of all churches and their
officers including any other interesting matter until the box is full, of such as
may be intended for persons to read 100 years from date, to be the property of any
Historical or antiquarian Society Existing at that time and to form an indisputable
connecting Link between the people of San Francisco of the day 1878 and 1978 that
they may see that there was a live people existing here at this date and tolerably
well civilized."
Cogswell died on July 8, 1900, and was buried at Mountain View Cemetery, in Oakland,
California.
Sources consulted for this biography include:
"The Intemperate Patronage of Henry D. Cogswell," by Frederick C. Moffatt. Winterthur
Portfolio, vol. 27, no. 2/3 (Summer-Autumn, 1992), pp. 123-143;
Henry D. Cogswell Biographical Research Notes, MS 690, California Historical
Society.
The Cogswell Time Capsule Collection contains personal papers of Henry Daniel
Cogswell, as well as general materials collected by Cogswell and others for
inclusion in the time capsule he assembled in 1879, housed in a 12-by-18-inch lead
box, and deposited in the pedestal of a statue of Ben Franklin originally standing
at the junction of Montgomery and Kearney Streets in San Francisco. The statue and
the time capsule were later moved to North Beach's Washington Square, where the
capsule was eventually unearthed and opened 100 years later, on April 22, 1979. In
acccordance with the wishes of Henry Daniel Cogswell, the contents were then given
to the California Historical Society.
Cogswell's personal papers include indentures and other papers concerning the
proposed Cogswell Dental College; inventories of his property; copies of his will;
papers concerning his proposition to erect a drinking fountain and establish the
Women's Pioneer Hotel; and other miscellaneous material.
General materials include local, regional, and national newspapers and periodicals in
a variety of languages; almanacs; business cards; advertisements; directories;
pamphlets; religious tracts; railroad timetables; business reports; ephemera;
by-laws; annual reports; merchandise catalogs; and a small number of books. The
collection also contains materials related to the practice of dentistry in the
United States in the 1870s. Contributors include Sarah B. Cooper, John S. Hittell,
Thomas Harmonson Holt, and Charles Otto.
The contents of the time capsule provide a glimpse into the economic, political, and
cultural life of San Francisco in the 1860s and 1870s. Often annotated in Cogswell's
hand, the contents of the time capsule document, in particular, the causes and civic
organizations in which Cogswell and his wife were themselves involved. Also included
are items that reflect some of the social controversies of the day in San Francisco,
including the women's and temperance movements. Items such as Laura De Force
Gordon's 1879 annotation in her book,
The Great Geysers of
California
-- "If this little book should see the light after its
hundred years of entombment, I would like its readers to know that the author was a
lover of her own sex and devoted the best years of her life in striving for the
Political, equal, and social and moral education of woman" -- show a growing
political movement and its efforts to secure equality for women. The materials also
provide some insight into daily life in the 1870s; literature and popular culture
are well represented in the many magazines and newspapers, as are the various
political and charitable causes that Cogswell aligned himself with, such as the
Cogswell Contingent Fund and his Dental College.
Henry D. Cogswell Biographical Research Notes, [1959?], MS 690, California Historical
Society
Henry D. Cogswell
Papers, BANC MSS 84/61 c,
The Bancroft Library, University of
California, Berkeley
Photographs have been removed and shelved under MSP 559.
Artifacts have been removed and transferred to the fine arts collection. See box 3
for an inventory of these objects.
Langley's Oakland-Alameda directory, 1878-1879, and
Langley's San Francisco directory, 1878-1879,
have been removed and shelved with directories.
Alta California almanac, 1879, has been removed and
shelved with pamphlets (PAM 3249).
Two identical cabinet cards, 4 x 6 inches, of Henry D. Cogswell and his wife,
Caroline Elizabeth Cogswell, by I.W. Taber & Company, San Francisco, have been
removed and shelved in GS Box 057 under General Subjects--Photographers--San
Francisco--I.W. Taber & Co.
Carte-de-Viste of Pauline Gerkhardt by V. Wolfenstein, Los Angeles, has been removed
and shelved in GS Box 046 under General Subjects--Photographers--Los
Angeles--Wolfenstein, Valentin.
The following items have not been located:
Central Pacific Railroad. Timetable, 1876.
Great Western Railroad. Menu, 1876.
United Carriage Company. Rates, 1877.
The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the
library's online public access catalog.
Cooper, Sarah B.
Hittell, John S. , (John Shertzer),
1825-1901
Holt, Thomas Harmonson
Otto, Charles
Dental schools--California--San Francisco.
Dentistry--United States--History--19th century.
Dentists--California--San Francisco.
San Francisco (Calif.)--Social life and customs--19th
century.
Alternative publications.
Deeds.
Ephemera.
Periodicals.
Sales catalogs.
Time capsules.