Source: Portrait & Biographical Album of Whiteside County, IL
Originally published 1885 Chapman Bros., Chicago, IL

Transcribed by: Becky Jones

Page 273

W. R. Cobb, Secretary and Treasurer of the Sterling Gazette Company and its managing editor, was born in Elizabeth City, N. C., Oct. 4, 1846. The greater part of his life since reaching manhood has been given to his newspaper profession. He was for four years an officer in the United States Navy. He came West in the fall of 1876; taught a country school for a year and a half; assumed editorial charge of the Fulton (Whiteside Co.) Journal in 1879; became editor and secretary of the Sterling Gazette in 1880; and upon the reorganization of that institution in 1882 was made its general business manager and editor. Although a Southern man and a slave-holder by birth, Mr. Cobb’s sympathies and “material aid” were with and for the Union during the late war. In politics he has always been a Republican. His people are among the oldest of the settlers of the “Old North State,” the old homestead having been in the possession of his family for over 200 years. His mother and brother yet live in the ancestral home.

Mr. Cobb married Laura E. John, of Elizabeth City, N. C. in 1869. There have been seven children by this marriage, three of whom, two daughters and a son, are living.