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Dossier: Samuel E. Cochran (1859 to 1933)

Joel Cochran's great-great-grandfather. Compiled 2026-10-25 from free public records only. No Ancestry, no paid sources, no paid library requests. Every claim carries its source. Anything not proven is labeled CANDIDATE or NOT FOUND, in plain words.

The short version

Samuel E. Cochran was born in Georgia in 1859, in the last years before the Civil War. Nothing free and public found so far names his Georgia county or his parents. By December 1889 he was in Fulton County, Indiana, where he married a local woman, Florence B. Carpenter, started a family at Akron, buried two young children there, and then moved his family north to South Bend. Florence died in 1912. Samuel lived on in South Bend as a widower for 21 more years and died there in September 1933, and his body was brought back to Akron and buried beside Florence and the two children. His whole documented life in Indiana survives in a marriage index line, a family gravestone plot, a city directory listing, and two newspaper obituary dates. No book found tells his story. The details, with proof, follow.

Chronological life story

1859, Georgia: birth. His gravestone gives his years as 1859 to 1933, and the census-derived family record (born about 1860 in Georgia) agrees within a year. Source: Fulton County cemetery transcription, Akron Cemetery, reading "COCHRAN, Samuel E., father, 1859-1933": http://genealogy.fulco.lib.in.us/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Cemeteries_Henry_Township.pdf

1861 to 1865, Georgia: a Civil War childhood, on paper only. Samuel was a small child in Georgia during the war. No record found places him in any specific Georgia county during or after it. This is context, not a documented fact about him personally.

1870 and 1880: NOT FOUND. No Georgia Samuel Cochran of the right age, with parents named, surfaced in any free index searched (web-indexed census transcriptions, WikiTree, the Wolfe genealogy research site, PeopleLegacy, genealogy forums). The every-name 1870 and 1880 census indexes themselves are complete and free at FamilySearch, but record search there requires a free account sign-in and could not be run signed out. His Georgia childhood is the one true blank in this dossier. See the candidates section below.

December 17, 1889, Fulton County, Indiana: marriage. The Fulton County marriage index (Jean C. and Wendell C. Tombaugh, Fulton County, Indiana, Marriage Records, 1985, hosted by the Fulton County Public Library) records, in both its groom index and its bride index: "Samuel E. Cochran, Florence B. Carpenter, Dec 17, 1889, Book E, page 337." Source: http://genealogy.fulco.lib.in.us/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Marriages_c.pdf This is the single most important origin fact found: Samuel married in Indiana, to an Indiana woman, so the Georgia-to-Indiana move happened before the wedding, and he made it as a young man, most likely alone. There is no Georgia marriage for him because the marriage was never in Georgia.

1890 to 1906, Akron, Fulton County: the family plot fills with children first. The Akron Cemetery family plot, read stone by stone in the Fulton County cemetery transcription volume for Henry Township (Akron Cemetery, Northwest Section, volume page 187), holds four Cochrans in a row:

Source: http://genealogy.fulco.lib.in.us/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Cemeteries_Henry_Township.pdf Geneva and Ralph are two children of Samuel and Florence who died young and appear in no census household list the family had before. Geneva was born the year after the wedding and died at about age 4. Ralph died at about age 15.

December 23, 1892, Akron: son Benjamin Thomas Cochran born. Benjamin Sr., Joel's great-grandfather, the grocer of 708 Sorin Street, South Bend. Proven in the main tree file from his son's SS-5/Numident and family records: ~/workspace/family-tree/FAMILY-TREE-v1.md

The other children (Marie L., Albert G., Martha V., Samuel S., Walter E., with Benjamin) come from the 1910 census household, covered by the parallel census researcher and summarized in the main tree file: ~/workspace/family-tree/FAMILY-TREE-v1.md

By 1900: the family has left Fulton County. Samuel's household does not appear anywhere in the Tombaugh transcription of the 1900 Fulton County census (both volumes searched, including the spelling variants Cochran, Cochrane, Cockran, Cochren). Sources: http://genealogy.fulco.lib.in.us/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Census_1900v1.pdf and http://genealogy.fulco.lib.in.us/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Census_1900v2.pdf The family's 1910 census household is in South Bend (main tree file), so the move north happened sometime between Ralph's 1906 burial at Akron (in the family plot, which proves nothing about where they were living by then) and 1910, and probably before 1900.

November 6, 1912, South Bend: Florence dies. Her death was noticed in the South Bend Tribune of November 7, 1912 (SJCPL Obituary Index, on file in the main tree). She was buried back at Akron, in the family plot, as "Florence B., mother, 1864-1912." Source for the stone: http://genealogy.fulco.lib.in.us/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Cemeteries_Henry_Township.pdf

1921, South Bend: the widower at 1406 Marine Street. The 1921 Polk South Bend city directory's street guide lists, on Marine Street: "1406 Samuel E Cochran." Source: Polk's South Bend, Indiana City Directory, 1921, full text at the Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/polksouthbendind00polk

September 1933, South Bend: death. Samuel died in September 1933 in South Bend; his home address at death was 1750 Twyckenham, and South Bend Tribune items ran on September 23 and 25, 1933 (SJCPL Obituary Index line, on file in the main tree: ~/workspace/family-tree/FAMILY-TREE-v1.md). The full text of those Tribune items exists only on SJCPL microfilm; Joel has declined the paid library pull, so the obituary's own words, its survivor list, and its funeral home remain unread. His body was taken back to Akron and buried in the family plot beside Florence, Geneva, and Ralph. The Fulton County death index contains no entry for him, which fits: he died in St. Joseph County, not Fulton. The only Cochran in that index is a later, unrelated Loris E. Cochran. Source: http://genealogy.fulco.lib.in.us/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Deaths.pdf A burial aggregator also lists him, as "Samuel E. Cochran, 1859-1933, aged 74," among the burials of Akron IOOF Cemetery: https://peoplelegacy.com/arlene_l_hammond_cole-0g4S3W1 Note the conflict: PeopleLegacy says Akron IOOF Cemetery; the Tombaugh stone-by-stone reading says Akron Cemetery, Northwest Section. Akron has both cemeteries. The Tombaugh reading, made from the stones themselves and listing all four family members together, is the stronger source. PeopleLegacy is an aggregator and appears to mislabel the cemetery.

His wife's name: a discrepancy to keep, not hide

Family records carried her as "Florence Dell Carpenter." Two independent records created in her lifetime and at her death, the 1889 marriage index and her 1912 gravestone, both give her as Florence B. The B may stand for Bell or Belle, and "Dell" may be a nickname, a misreading, or a family tradition, but as the records stand, Florence B. Carpenter is what the paper says, twice. Her parents are NOT identified in the marriage index (Indiana indexes of that era name no parents), and the many other Carpenter marriages in the same index volume (Albert, Daniel B., Elbridge, Francis, Frank, Hamline, Joseph, Joseph W., Nelson, Thomas, William, and more) are her likely kin cluster in Fulton County without proving which household was hers. Source: http://genealogy.fulco.lib.in.us/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Marriages_c.pdf

Georgia origins: candidates, all labeled, none chosen

No record found links Samuel to any Georgia county or parent. The honest state of the search:

CANDIDATE GEOGRAPHY, not a candidate person: Paulding and Cobb Counties, northwest Georgia. A Martha Louise Cochran was born March 28, 1859 in Paulding County, Georgia, the same year as Samuel, to a Cochran father the Wolfe genealogy researchers could not firmly identify. Paulding County also holds the Aaron Valentine Cochran line (his son Samuel Harben Cochran, 1884-1934, of Dallas, Georgia, is a full generation too young to be our Samuel and is REJECTED). A same-age Cochran girl in Paulding County proves Cochrans were raising children there in 1859; it does not prove one of them was Samuel's father. Source: https://websites.umich.edu/~bobwolfe/gen/pn/p46405.htm and https://peoplelegacy.com/samuel_harben_sam_cochran-0H21541

RULED OUT as his father: William R. Cochran (1820-1898) of Milton County, Georgia. His 1860 and 1870 census households are fully enumerated in the Wolfe research (children Ellen, William P., Jane, Elizabeth, Anodine, John L., Arie, Mary, Martha). No son Samuel appears in either. Source: https://websites.umich.edu/~bobwolfe/gen/pn/p36931.htm

RULED OUT as his father, on current evidence: Samuel M. Cochran (born about 1821) of Greene County, Georgia, son of Samuel Cochran (about 1772 to February 1850) and Sarah "Sally" Furlow, who married in Greene County on March 23, 1802. Samuel M.'s children on record are Sarah A., John R., Mary A., and Susan J. No Samuel born about 1859 is listed among them. He remains possible kin of an uncle's generation, nothing more. Source: https://www-personal.umich.edu/~bobwolfe/gen/pn/p46407.htm

REJECTED namesakes (checked, different men): Samuel Ellsworth Cochran of Ohio (1885-1964) and his son Samuel E. Cochrane Jr. (1927-1993); Samuel Cochran (1824-about 1893) of Hampshire County, Virginia, born enslaved; Samuel Cochran (1842-1898) of Georgetown, Ohio. None has any Indiana or Georgia-1859 connection.

What would settle it: (1) his Indiana death certificate, St. Joseph County, September 1933, which by law named his parents and birthplace if the informant knew them; the certificate is not in any free collection found, and the standard copy sits in Ancestry's paid Indiana Death Certificates collection, which Joel has placed off limits for now; (2) a signed-in FamilySearch search of the free 1860, 1870, and 1880 census indexes for a Georgia Samuel Cochran born 1858 to 1860, which needs the free account the main research pass already recommended Joel create; (3) the full text of his September 1933 Tribune obituary, which may name a Georgia hometown or surviving siblings, and which sits on the SJCPL microfilm Joel declined to pay to pull.

The middle initial E

NOT FOUND, anywhere. Every record that names him gives the initial only: the 1889 marriage index, his gravestone, the 1921 city directory, the census households. No death record, draft card, directory listing, or stone found expands it. His sons' names offer no pattern to borrow (Benjamin Thomas, Albert G., Samuel S., Walter E.). Edward, Ernest, Eli, and Elias are all common Georgia E names of his era, and naming any one of them here would be a guess, so none is entered. The Indiana death certificate is the record most likely to expand it, since Indiana certificates of 1933 often carried the full middle name.

The police tradition, tested for Samuel's generation

Per Joel's 2026-10-25 update, the family's South Bend Police Department link is Max Reeder, Betty Cochran's husband, a connection by marriage in a later generation, and a separate research pass covers him. For Samuel and the Cochrans, the result is a plain negative: no Cochran appears among South Bend police chiefs or on officer memorial pages in the searches run by the main pass, no Cochran officer appears in the two St. Joseph County histories searched in full (below), and nothing in Samuel's own paper trail (grocer's-family marriage, Akron years, directory listing as a householder) suggests police work. The tradition does not attach to Samuel.

Books searched, and what they actually contain

What the books do and do not say about Samuel

What the books DO say:

What the books DO NOT say:

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