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HARLES CLEAVES COLE, soldier, lawyer, jurist, is a native of Maine, where he was born, in Oxford county, May 22, 1841, a son of David Hammonds Cole and Ruth Eastman Cole. His education in the common schools of the county was supplemented by several years' study at Fryeburg academy, and at Maine Wesleyan seminary, Kents Hill, Maine. He began life as a teacher in the country schools of his native state and was inclined to the law at an early period, but the outbreak and the exciting public interests of the Civil war led to a temporary abandonment of his plan to enter that profession.

Instead, he entered the Union army, August 4, 1862, as a private, and served in companies I and E, 17th Maine infantry, till the close of the war. His regiment was alternately a part of the second and third army corps of the Army of the Potomac, and during his entire period of service he was not absent from duty a single day. He participated in forty-three general engagements and many skirmishes — from the battle of Fredericksburg, on December 13, 1862, to Appomattox, on April 9, 1865. Among these were included Chancellorsville, Gettysburg and the Wilderness. He came out of the army, at the close of the war, with the rank of captain.

When he returned home, he definitely chose the law, and after the matter of ways and means had been provided for he entered the law department of Harvard university and received the degree of LL.B. in 1867. In the same year, he was admitted to the bar at Portland, Maine, but immediately thereafter he took up his residence at West Union, West Virginia, where he began practice. From 1871 to 1872 he filled the office of prosecuting attorney of Doddridge county; then removing to Parkersburg, in the same state, he continued his practice there until 1879. During this period he was elected city solicitor, and was continued in that position for four years. From 1879 to 1893 he practised in Washington, District of Columbia, with his brother, Wyman L. Cole, as partner, under the firm name of Cole & Cole. He was appointed by President Harrison