Edward Erswell

Edward Erswell (born July 5, 1846 on the Atlantic crossing) was a carpenter and cabinet maker in early Birmingham.

He was the son of Charles Erswell, a superintending architect who worked for the United States government. He grew up in Cleveland, Ohio and attended public schools there before going on to Baldwin University in Berea, Ohio. He left school after six months, though, to join a wagon train crossing the plains. He made it as far as Fort Kearney, Nebraska before sickness forced him to return east. He pursued a variety of activities over the next several years, including stock trading, book sales, patent medicines, and some time at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York.

Erswell settled on the trade of cabinet and furniture making and went into business in Winchester, Virginia.

References

• Dubose, John Witherspoon (1887) Jefferson County and Birmingham, Alabama: Historical and Biographical Birmingham: Teeple & Smith, Publishers; Caldwell Printing Works.