"Early in life, Mr. Cossitt went LaGrange, Tenn., under the care of his uncle, George C. Cossitt, and there became an active, energetic and successful business man. He was also for many years, a planter, and in 1863, during the Rebellion, he removed to Chicago and engaged in a wholesale business, which he carried on for many year. He suffered much by the Great Fire of 1871, but his energy was unimpaired and he layed out the beautiful suburban town of LaGrange on the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad, where he and all his family resided until his death July 9, 1900, in LaGrange, Ill. He is buried Graceland Cemetery, Chicago, Ill. He was a man of wonderful activity, enterprise and judgment." [Pearl Steele Cossitt and continued to 1925 by Frederic Henry White and Frederick Briggs Stebbins, The Cossitt Family, A Genealogical History of Rene Cossitt, a Frenchman who Settled in Granby, Conn. A.D. 1717, and his Descendants, (Passadena, California, 1925), p. 45.]