Fayette County PA Archives Biographies.....Cochran, James January 15, 1823 - ????
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Marta Burns marta43@juno.com August 26, 2024, 1:46 pm

Source: Gresham and Wiley, 1889: Biographical & Portrait Cyclopedia, Fayette Co, PA, pg 323
Author: John H. Gresham & Samuel T. Wiley

    James Cochran, of Scotch Irish descent, and one of the 
prominent and substantial businessmen of Fayette county, is 
a son of Isaac Cochran and Rosanna Sample Cochran, and was 
born in what is now Lower Tyrone township, Fayette county, 
Penna, January 15, 1823.  
    His grandfather, Samuel Cochran, was a Revolutionary 
soldier and came from Chester county to Fayette county in 
1789.  He purchased a large tract of land in Lower Tyrone 
township of Captain Joseph Huston.  He reared a family of 
seven children: Samuel Cochran; James Cochran, died at 
ninety four years of age; Thomas Cochran; John Cochran; 
Isaac Cochran; Mordica Cochran and Esther Cochran.  
    His father, Isaac Cochran, born in Chester county, 
Penna, was a prominent farmer and a member of the 
Presbyterian church.  In 1822 he helped drill on Dickerson's 
Run, the first salt well in Fayette county.  
    Isaac Cochran died in 1862 at seventy years of age.  His 
wife was Rosanna Sample, whose father, Eziel Sample, was a 
Westmoreland county farmer of Scotch Irish descent and a 
native of Scotland.  
    James Cochran remained on the farm until he became 
sixteen years of age, when he left home and engaged on 
boating on the Monongahela river, carrying sand, rock, 
cinders and such like, to Pittsburgh.  In 1842 he with his 
brother and uncle manufactured and boated to Cincinnati 
12,000 bushels of twenty four hour coke, made at what is now 
the Fayette Works.  It was the first Connellsville coke ever 
sold for money.  
    Since 1842 Mr Cochran has continued in the manufacture 
of coke, has a large interest in the Spring Grove Works and 
the Fayette Works.  He is interested in the Jackson, 
Franklin and Clinton mines, and is also member of a company 
owning over 1,200 acres of bituminous coal lands in Dunbar 
township.  
    On February 24, 1848, he married Miss Clarissa Huston, 
daughter of Joseph Huston and Mary A Hazen Huston.  They 
have had eleven children, of whom six sons and one daughter 
are living.  
    James Cochran for over twenty five years safely piloted 
boats down the dangerous channel of the Youghiogheny river.  
One writer has said of him that he "is one of the most 
remarkable of the self-made men of Fayette county, a man of 
clear understanding, of great energy, indomitable will, but 
of a generous nature, tender-hearted withal, and in short a 
fine example of hearty, robust manhood." 

Additional Comments:
Originally submitted 2000.

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