Cowles Miles Collier was born 10 September 1838 in Hampton, Virginia, the son of Charles Miles Collier Jr. and Sarah Ann Cowles. He grew up in coastal Virginia and received a military education at the Hampton Military Institute. In 1856 he entered the United States Military Academy at West Point but resigned from the academy the following year. After leaving West Point he pursued maritime service and by the late 1850s was serving at sea, including duty aboard the United State

Elizabeth Muhlenberg Brooke was born on April 25, 1916, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, into a family whose name already carried history. Her father, George Brooke Jr., was a banker and steel manufacturer whose family roots were embedded in Pennsylvania industry. Her mother, Lucile Stewart Polk of Baltimore, descended from President James K. Polk and had survived the sinking of the Titanic four years before Elizabeth's birth. That tragedy would shadow the family name, though E

Abraham Kingsley Macomber was born 7 March 1875 in Morristown, New Jersey, the son of Henry Kirke Macomber and Amelia Montague Collerd. While still young he moved with his family to Pasadena, Los Angeles County, California, where his father became known locally as Dr. H. K. Macomber. Kingsley grew up in a city that was expanding in the closing years of the nineteenth century, and later reminiscences recalled him as one of the boys of early Pasadena, first on El Molino Avenue

Joshua Seney Cosden was born on 8 July 1881 in Baltimore, Maryland. He was raised in modest circumstances and began working as a drugstore clerk while still a young man. In 1903 he married Ottilie Fowitz. Soon afterward he left Baltimore to seek opportunity in the oil fields of Oklahoma, arriving during the early years of rapid development that transformed small towns into centers of production. He began with manual labor, driving teams and working as a rigger, learning drill