A Pine Plains Woman With Many ‘Firsts’ to Her Name

These days, there’s nothing unusual about having your prescription filled by a female pharmacist. In fact, two-thirds of the 300,000 pharmacists working in the United States today are women.  

In the early 1900s, it was an entirely different matter. Fewer than one in 10 pharmacists were women. And one of them was Clarissa Cole, the first female pharmacist in Pine Plains.  

Local historian Dyan Wapnick, who has helped preserve the stories of notable Pine Plains residents whose lives will be commemorated throughout the bicentennial year, says Cole played a number of significant roles in a lifetime that spanned the birth of modern medicine and the invention of the telephone. 

Born in 1851, Clarissa Tanner Strever grew up on her family’s farm just outside the village limits. (Strever Farm Road can still be found off Route 82.) She was the only girl among six brothers, which may have honed the independent spirit she was known for as an adult.  

Clarissa Strever married a doctor, Charles Cole, and moved in 1876 to Pine Plains. There, she was recruited by the town’s lawyer and librarian, Frank Eno, to oversee the operations of the Pine Plains Free Library – the oldest library in Dutchess Country – which was then located in his law office, which still stands, on South Main Street.  

Despite a low salary, Cole – a devoted book lover – embraced her work, and in a few years was appointed the town librarian. She was the first woman to hold the position.  

Her husband, however, was suffering from lasting ill health as a result of tuberculosis he had contracted in New York City in the early years of his practice. In 1880, he gave up his medical office in Pine Plains and instead opened a pharmacy, on East Church Street where the parking lot of Peck’s Grocery now stands.  

At that time, pharmacies were still a relatively new concept. In the early 1800s, medication was mixed and dispensed directly by doctors themselves, or by homeopaths who ran their own apothecaries. But by the end of the 19th century, medications were being produced in factories and marketed nationwide. Physicians began writing prescriptions for those medications, and the pharmacy as it is known today came into being.  

Charles Cole’s health continued to deteriorate. Four years after the pharmacy opened, he died at the age of 34, leaving behind Clarissa and a 6-year-old son, Harrie. Having observed and assisted her husband’s work, Clarissa Cole decided the best way to support her child was to become a pharmacist herself. For the next two years, she traveled regularly by train to Albany to attend pharmaceutical school, eventually receiving her degree and license to practice.  

A single mother raising a young son, Cole not only managed the pharmacy but continued to operate the library. In 1880s Pine Plains, this was not only difficult, but unheard of. Mary Netter, Cole’s great-granddaughter, who lives in Kinderhook, said Cole was unruffled by public opinion and “would do whatever it took to provide for Harrie.” 

In 1885, she began to take steps to help consolidate her work and home demands. First she moved the library into the Church Street pharmacy. Then she moved both to her own residence, on South Main Street, which had been built in 1821 and was one of the first houses in Pine Plains.  

The house – a residence, pharmacy and library in one – came to be known as the Cole Building. 

On top of her other responsibilities, Cole made time for volunteer activities to help the Pine Plains community. She was a member of the First United Presbyterian Church, and an active member in the Martha Society, which raised funds for hospitals, schools and relief for the poor. She also was the historian for the Pine Plains chapter of the Order of the Eastern Star, a Masonic organization dedicated to community service. 

In 1902, Cole moved to a new residence that she had built by the Millerton-based firm of Beers and Trafford directly next to her home. The pharmacy and library were in separate rooms on the first floor, while the upstairs space provided living quarters for Cole, Harrie – who by then had joined the business – and his wife and daughter.  

The older Cole Building was used by various businesses and served as headquarters for local suffragettes. The old home was later razed by Harrie Cole to extend his yard and gardens.  

At the age of 57, Clarissa Cole took on yet another duty – serving as a switchboard operator after the Copake Telephone Company installed a switchboard in the Cole home. The switchboard was busy all day, but went quiet at night unless there were emergencies.  

Cole died in 1932 at the age of 80, an uncommonly long life for that time. The Cole Drugstore on South Main Street remained operational another 20 years, closing in 1952 after Harrie died. Harrie’s daughter, Helen Cole Netter, continued to run the library out of the home until it moved to a different location on Main Street in 1968, to what is now known as the Old Library. The former Cole residence still stands.  

In total, the Cole pharmacy had served the community for more than seven decades. And thanks to women like Clarissa Cole, National Women Pharmacist Day is commemorated every October 12.  

“My great-grandmother didn’t realize she was doing anything noteworthy,” Netter says. “But she was a real trailblazer.”