Edwin Church Catherwood was born in November 1835 in New York to Robert and Ellen Catherwood. His parents were Irish immigrants. His father worked as a merchant and wholesale liquor dealer, and he owned $10,000 of real estate by 1860. The family settled in St. Louis, Missouri, by 1850, and Catherwood attended school there. Catherwood enlisted as a lieutenant colonel in the 6^th Missouri Militia Cavalry on March 22, 1862, and he was promoted to colonel on April 30, 1862. He became colonel of the 13^th Missouri Cavalry on November 25, 1864. He resigned on June 20, 1865, citing his design to “return to private life.”

 

Catherwood married Clara Hastings sometime after the war, and they had at least three children: Louise, born around 1869; Jennie, born around 1872; and Clinton, born around 1874. Clara’s father was a prominent lawyer who owned $700,000 of real estate and $200,000 of personal property in 1870. The family was living in New York City in 1870, and they settled in San Francisco, California, sometime in the 1870s. He died in Oconomowoc, Wisconsin, on November 7, 1897.

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