St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1886-02-25
JOHN b. COUGH.

John b. Cough died last Thursday
afternoon at the private residence in
FrankfOrd, to which he was hastily re-
moved after his apOplectic stroke in
the middle of his lecture last week
Monday evening. He was to have adj
dressed an immense audience at the
Philadelphia Academy of Music the
following night.
| John Bartholomew Cough was born
at the quaint and picturesque village
of Sandgate in Kent, on the shores of
the English channel, August %, 1917.
His father was a private soldier in the
British army and fought through the
Peni msular war, his mother had been
school mistress of the village for 30
years They were God fearing people.
Young Coughs schooling ended when
| he was 10 years old, and when he was
IL the circumstances of his parents
compelled them to bind him to fami-
ly of the place emigrating to America,
who were to teach him trade and
provide for him until he was 81. He
lived with this family only about two
years, on farm i'm Oneida county, N.
Y. He joined Methodist church on
probation while living on the farm.
At IA years of age Cough went to New
York and learned book binding in the
Methodist Book Concerns house. He
sent for his father, mother and sister
to join him; the mother and sister
did come over, and the 16- years-Old
boy supported them until he was thrown
out of work i'm the ''hard times" that
killed his mother in the course of a
hn ia1 he
ter's field. His sister took care of her
places, in New York, Providence and
Boston, at his trade, alternating it with
acting i'll small theatres and travelling
more dissipated i'm his habits. Through
unnecessary to follow him, thousands
have heard his story, or parts of it from
his own lips, and he has published IL
frank and full account of it in his auto
biography, a very unsparing book
of authorizations.
1t was in Worcester that John B.
Cough signed the pledge, in October,
1912, and in the hight of the Washing
tOnian movement, and his simple and
natural OratOry was at once press
Gu iutO OHO SOihlCO Vi tiC CtluSc. Ills
W ife and her new born child had died
as a consequence of his evil habits, but
he was taken in hand by good friends,
worthy men like the late Joel ID. STRAIT
ton, Jesse Goodrich and Ginery Twich-
ell, who were faithful to him when he
fell. He spoke in all the neighboring
towns, then in places eastward, in Yer
mont, New Hampshire and Rhode ISL
and, in the first year of his work he
had given :}S3 addresses and received
from them $I059, out of which he had
paid all his expenses, and he had OBJ
tanned 1928 signatures to the total
abstinence pledge. He married again
in 1S43, and to his wife he ascribes all
credit for the making of him. When
he spoke i'm fremont temple, Boston,
beside Gov. Briggs in May, 1874, lie |
had become famous. Coughs second
and last fall from faithfulness occurred |
in New York in the fall of 1915; it was |
the occasion of great trouble to him,
then and after but there was never |
any doubt i'm the minds of those who |
knew him that he was as he declared, |
entrapped by enemies into taking a |
glass of drugged soda, aud in that con-
dition inveigled into a bad resort,
whence his friends rescued him after a
weeks disappearance. The Mount
Vernon church, to which he and his
wife belonged, publicly exonerated
him from blame. There can be no
doubt but that the friends of rum in