Cotton, Charles T., ca. 1830-1877?

BIOGHIST REQUIRED Diarist and federal clerk in the U.S. Pension Bureau. Cotton was born in Natchez, Mississippi and taught school in nearby Pine Ridge. In 1851, he left Natchez and traveled via New Orleans and Havana to New York City and on to New Hampshire where he had relatives. By the summer of 1855 he was in St. Paul, Minnesota Territory where he clerked in a law office. At the end of 1859 he visited Natchez and Memphis, Tennessee. He moved to Washington, D.C. and in 1863 he was employed as a federal clerk in the Pension Bureau where he remained for the rest of his life. In later years he was the Recording Secretary of the Southern Republican Association.

From the guide to the Charles T. Cotton Diaries, 1850-1877., (Columbia University Rare Book and Manuscript Library, )

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