Introduction

Biography

William was the son of Sam­uel Cos­ner and Ma­ry Anne Idle­man, and hus­band of Sar­ah Hines.

There were no pub­lic schools in Vir­gin­ia un­til long af­ter his child­hood, so he had few op­por­tu­ni­ties for his ear­ly edu­ca­tion.

His par­ents taught him to read and write, and he then at­tend­ed two pay schools. Each of these schools last­ed about three months and were called Quar­ter Schools.

After he had fi­nished the se­cond quar­ter, his fa­ther died, and Cos­ner was obliged to re­main at home and work to sup­port his mo­ther and sis­ters. Dur­ing this pe­ri­od, he spent his spare time stu­dy­ing and writ­ing po­et­ry.

Cosner had a deep­ly re­li­gious na­ture and though quite young, worked in the first Sun­day School or­gan­ized at Mount Storm.

After a time, he left Mount Storm with his mo­ther and sis­ters and lo­cat­ed in Ca­naan Val­ley where he or­gan­ized a Sun­day School in a log school house where he was ne­ver ab­sent from ser­vice save once.

While liv­ing in Ca­naan, he rode on horse back to Moore­field, a dis­tance of 50 miles, to join the Pres­by­ter­ian Church of which his mo­ther was an ar­dent memb­er. When asked by the pastor, Re­ver­end George W. White, his grounds of hope he re­plied by hand­ing him a po­em he had writ­ten be­gin­ning, Je­sus is my full sal­va­tion.

This so pleased Dr. White that he car­ried it be­fore the next ses­sion of the Pres­by­te­ry, where it was una­ni­mous­ly de­cid­ed to of­fer to edu­cate him for the min­is­try.

Dr. White was im­me­di­ate­ly sent to Ca­naan Val­ley to make the ar­range­ments. Will­iam glad­ly ac­cept­ed the of­fer and pur­su­ant to the plan moved his fa­mi­ly back to a home among re­la­tives at Mount Storm. He then at­tend­ed school two years at Moore­field.

Cosner then en­tered Wash­ing­ton and Lee Uni­ver­si­ty in Lex­ing­ton, Vir­gin­ia, where he stayed three years. Dur­ing that time, he and a class­mate, by in­vi­ta­tion, called up­on for­mer Con­fed­er­ate ge­ne­ral Ro­bert E. Lee. It was a short time be­fore Lee’s death, and he was quite fee­ble.

At the close of their vi­sit Lee asked them to kneel be­side him while he prayed God to bless them. Will­iam was so im­pressed by Lee’s gra­cious and dig­ni­fied bear­ing that he ex­claimed to his school­mate that he was the most per­fect gen­tle­man he had ev­er met.

After leav­ing Washing­ton and Lee, Cos­ner en­tered the Uni­ver­si­ty of Hamp­den Sid­ney, Vir­gin­ia, where he com­plet­ed his course and was or­dained. He had gained a year’s time on the sche­duled course, and gra­du­at­ed with the high­est hon­ors of a class of twen­ty-six stu­dents.

At the re­quest of his neigh­bors and friends at home he was in­stalled by Dr. White as a Home Mis­sion­ary in the Al­le­ghe­ny Field, of which he was the found­er. He la­bored in­dus­tri­ous­ly there ov­er a large field for about two years un­til his death.