Cochran, Rev. Samuel Davies 1812-1904

COCHRAN

Posted By: Marilyn Holmes
Date: 10/1/2014 at 08:58:06

The Grinnell (IA) Herald
Oct. 28, 1904

DEATH OF REV. S.D. COCHRAN D.D.

News has been received here of the death of the venerable Rev. Samuel Davies Cochran, at Lincoln, Nebr., on Wednesday, October 5. Dr. Cochran's death marks the passing of one of the few remaining real pioneers of Grinnell. He was the second regular pastor of the Congregational church in this city and as such exerted a powerful influence for good in the early days. He was a theologian in every sense of the word and delighted in the theological discussions and arguments of the old church. Of commanding presence even in his old age and possessed of a keen intellect and a strong will he was one of the men who were born to lead. In the pioneer life of this little community he was a strong figure and as a spiritual and intellectual leader, he left it an abiding blessing. His "good gray head which all men knew" will be missed by the older citizens of this city who knew what a part he played in the early days of our history.

Of him the Lincoln Journal for Oct. 9th says as follows:

The death of Dr. Samuel Davies Cochran on last Wednesday in this city marks the passing away of an historical character in the realms of theology in America. Dr. Cochran was born January 8, 1812, in Pennsylvania and was named for an uncle, Davies, the famous mathematician. In boyhood he went to Oberlin where at once he came under the influence of some of the leading thinkers of the day. After graduation he traveled through many states in the lake region, making anti-slavery speeches. In an anti-slavery movement, he worked with Owen Lovejoy, William Lord Garrison and others who said that but for him Ohio would have gone with the south.

It was Dr. Cochran who kept the Congregational church together when it threatened to divide on the slavery question. The meeting is one of the most memorable in the history of the church and Dr. Cochran was the one man who united two opposing factors.

In 1842 he spent the winter in New York city, rooming with Finney, the great evangelist, whose warm friend he always was, and with whom he conducted a long and very successful revival in the metropolis.

The doctor served churches in New York city and Brooklyn and in several places in the west. He established a college near Joplin in Missouri where he spent time and money without stint. While there he received a call to become pastor of the First church of this city but he did not accept the call. His last pastorate was at Grinnell, Ia. He was a deep student and possessed a magnetic influence which led hundreds to join the churches where he labored. In 1889 he published a learned monograph entitled "The Moral System and the Atonement." In this and his other literary labors, he drew from a wide reading of works that had been published in Europe and in America but all his work was pervaded by an intense personality of his own. In recent years he had been busily employed on another book which he had hoped to publish before his death. Dr. Cochran had a large library of valuable books. The remains were taken to Mansfield, Ohio, to be placed beside those of his wife.