Cowles, Charles Holden

16 July 1875–2 Oct. 1957

Charles Holden Cowles, editor, deputy clerk of U.S. District Court, state legislator, and congressman, was born in Charlotte, the son of Calvin J. and Ida Augusta Holden Cowles. His father was at that time director of the U.S. assay office in Charlotte, and his mother was the daughter of former Governor William W. Holden.

Cowles moved with his parents in 1885 to Wilkesboro, where he received his early education and completed a commercial college course. Because of family tradition and close political ties, young Cowles was destined to lead an active life in the Republican party. Shortly after his twenty-first birthday he was elected to the board of aldermen in Wilkesboro (1897); he then was appointed deputy clerk, U.S. Court, Statesville and Charlotte, serving from 1899 to 1901. He was private secretary to Congressman Edmond Spencer Blackburn in 1901–3. He won election to the lower house of the state legislature in 1904 and was reelected in 1906, 1920, 1922, 1924, 1926, 1928, and 1932. In 1908 he was elected to the Sixty-first Congress (4 Mar. 1909–3 Mar. 1911), and in 1912 he was nominated for the U.S. Senate by the Progressive Republican (Bull Moose) party, though he declined to enter the race. He also served as a North Carolina delegate to the national Republican conventions from 1904 through 1916.

Cowles was founder, editor, and publisher of the Wilkes Patriot of Wilkesboro for many years but sold his interests in 1920. Like his newspaperman grandfather, W. W. Holden, he was a fearless and energetic reporter and always worked for the economic advancement of his section of the state, as well as the good of the Republican party. During World War I, he served as a member of the Council of Defense for Wilkes County and was chairman of the Wilkes County War Savings Committee; during World War II he was chairman of War Price and Rationing Board No. 1 for Wilkes. On 6 Sept. 1916 he married Louise S. Lunn, a teacher in the Wilkesboro High School and a daughter of L. L. and Lula Haliburton Lunn of Winston-Salem. The Cowleses had one daughter, Carolyn Louise. Cowles was buried in the St. Paul's Episcopal Church cemetery, Wilkesboro.