George W. Cable

CABLE, HENRY, BALDWIN

Posted By: Annette Lucas (email)
Date: 7/12/2021 at 17:23:28

SOURCE: Biographical History and Portrait Gallery of Scott County, Iowa. American Biographical Publishing Company, H. C. Cooper, Jr., & Co. Proprietors. 1895

GEORGE W. CABLE

GEORGE WYATT CABLE , son of Hiram and Rachel Cable, née Henry, was born in Athens County, Ohio, on the seventeenth of June, 1831. His father was a native of Jefferson County, New York, and his mother, of Washington County, Ohio . The grandfather of our subject, James Cable, emigrated from England about 1770 and settled in Massachusetts, whence his descendants branched off to other States. Rachel ( Henry ) Cable was the daughter of Scotch - Irish parents, a most excellent Christian lady, to whose influence the better traits in the moral character of our subject are largely due.

Hiram Cable was a man of considerable local note in the State of Ohio, having been, in the early part of the century, extensively engaged in merchandising, and later in life actively connected with public improvements and enterprises. He was one of the projectors of the Piqua & Indianapolis Railroad, now a branch of the Pennsylvania Central , one of the largest contractors for the construction of the same, and for nine years a director of the company. He was also the founder of the thriving and picturesque town of Cable, situated in Champaign County, seven miles from Urbana, which was owned entirely by him self and his brother, P. L. Cable. He represented the County in the Legislature for a number of years, and was a man of great public spirit and energy, highly esteemed and honored by all who knew him .

George W. Cable received a fair English and mathematical education in the excellent public schools of Urbana, Ohio, and commenced life as a farmer in Champaign County, and continued that occupation for two years with success . Following the example of his father, however, he sold out in 1857 and moved to Scott County, Iowa, where for nine years he steadily pursued the business of husbandry. In 1866 he moved to Davenport and engaged with his father in the coal and lumber trade, to which was afterward added an extensive lumber manufactory, which has since been conducted with marked success. In 1874 Hiram Cable retired to private life, and in 1876 our subject associated with him in business Mr. John Flomby, and the business was carried on under the firm name of Homby & Cable until 1879, when Mr. Homby died. In that year the business was conducted by Mr. Cable individually, and in the following year the Cable Lumber Company was organized , with Mr. Cable as president. The capital stock, which originally was sixty thousand dollars, has been increased to three hundred thousand dollars out of the surplus profits.

Mr. Cable has from time to time become interested in various enterprises, most of which have been very successful. He is now interested in southern mill enterprises that are largely remunerative. He is also interested in the Iowa Union Telephone Company, and is also a director of the First National Bank, of the Burlington, Cedar Rapids & Northern Railroad Company, and of the Rock Island & Peoria Railroad .

He is an active member of the Presbyterian Church and is consistent in all of his church work. He is benevolent and charitable and devoid entirely of ostentation. In all the relations he has sustained to his fellow - citizens his name has been unsullied and his integrity and honesty unassailed. On the eighteenth of October, 1854, he married Miss Eliza E. Baldwin , daughter of Richard Baldwin, Esq ., an extensive farmer of Champaign County, Ohio . They have had six children, five of whom are living.