COBB, Freeman (Brewster, MA)

FREEMAN COBB

Identification on photo: "Yours very truly, Freeman Cobb"
Photo taken: Whipple Studio, 96 Washington Street, Boston, circa 1885
Purchased: not recorded

With this post, a milestone has been reached - - this is my 400th photo researched and posted to this blog. Of these 400, 159 have been claimed and sent home.

FREEMAN COBB, born 10 Oct 1930 in Brewster Massachusetts to parents Freeman Cobb (1805-1833) and Hannah Snow Crosby (1808-1848). He was a grandson of Captain Elijah Cobb.

This bio was found at Find-a-Grave:

Freeman Cobb 1830-1878

Freeman Cobb was a businessman and coach line proprietor whose career began in California and Central America. In 1853 he along with three other Americans established a coach line known as Cobb & Co in Melbourne, Australia to service the Victorian goldfields using the latest Concord thorough-brace coaches Cobb had brought with him from America. Cobb sold the business in 1856 and returned to the US where he married his cousin Annette Cobb. In 1871 he took his family to South Africa and settled at Port Elizabeth. Along with another American who had also operated coaches in Australia and New Zealand he set up Cobb & Co. Ltd. and operated coaches between Port Elizabeth and the Kimberley diamond fields. Cobb died in 1878 in South Africa. The following year his widow returned to Brewster, Massachusetts where she died in 1921. In Australia Cobb's name was sought after by many companies and the coaching business he began spread from Victoria through New South Wales and Queensland. Today the Cobb & Co Coaches business name is still in use on long distance busses and the name stands as an icon in the history of transportation in Australia.

bio contributed by-Diane Wright

Freeman was married to Annette Theresa Cobb-Cobb. And they had children:
 1860 - Walter Freeman Cobb (d. 1895)
 1862 - Augusta Dinsmore Cobb (d. 1865, age 3)
 1865 - Emily Cobb (d. 1941) m. Henry Allen
          - 1893 - Roland Edgarton Allen (d.1970) m. Mildred L Foster
                    - 1922 - Henry Allen (d. 2011)
                    - 1927 - Douglas C. Allen (d. 1995)
                    - other child

For two years (1864-1865) Freeman Cobb was a member of the Massachusetts State Senate, at the same time as Henry Barstow. I only mention that because the photos of Barstow and Cobb were acquired at the same time; the photos being clipped together. Their membership in the same Senate is the only commonality I find for these two men. 

Freeman died in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, 24 May 1878.

Thank you to Corey Cruise for enhancing the photo and giving it some life and color!