Coulby initially applied for a job as a deckhand aboard the Onoko, the first iron hulled lake freighter and one of the biggest ships on the Great Lakes.
Lacking experience, he was rejected.
Coulby instead received work pushing wheelbarrows for a construction company.
He enrolled in night school, where he learned to use the typewriter and to take shorthand.
In the fall, he won a job as a $40-a-month stenographer's job with the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway.

Amasa Stone, founder of the railroad, had two daughters, and John Hay, President Abraham Lincoln's former private secretary, had married one of them (Clara).
Hay and John George Nicolay, another of Lincoln's private secretaries, had been working on a biography of Lincoln since 1874, but by 1884 Hay needed in help in making further progress.
Sources differ as to whether Coulby met Hay by chance in the railroad office or whether Coulby answered a newspaper advertisement placed by Hay.
But by the end of 1884, Coulby was working for Hay, transcribing notes, taking dictation, and checking facts against the extensive documents and correspondence Hay had amassed.
The work left him with a lifelong admiration for Lincoln.

With work on the biography largely finished by 1886, Hay decided to move to Washington, D.C.  Coulby did not want to leave Cleveland.
Hay found him an $1,800-a-year government job as a stenographer, a position would have left Coulby financially secure for the rest of his life.
But Coulby was ambitious and the job held no prospect for advancement, so he turned the offer down.
Amasa Stone's other daughter, Flora, had married Samuel Mather, heir to the Cleveland Iron Mining Company fortune and (in 1883) founder of the rapidly expanding mining concern Pickands Mather & Co. Hay recommended Coulby to Mather, who hired Coulby as a secretary for $50 a month on April 10, 1886.
Coulby initially applied for a job as a deckhand aboard the Onoko, the first iron hulled lake freighter and one of the biggest ships on the Great Lakes. Lacking experience, he was rejected. Coulby instead received work pushing wheelbarrows for a construction company. He enrolled in night school, where he learned to use the typewriter and to take shorthand. In the fall, he won a job as a $40-a-month stenographer's job with the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway.
Amasa Stone, founder of the railroad, had two daughters, and John Hay, President Abraham Lincoln's former private secretary, had married one of them (Clara). Hay and John George Nicolay, another of Lincoln's private secretaries, had been working on a biography of Lincoln since 1874, but by 1884 Hay needed in help in making further progress. Sources differ as to whether Coulby met Hay by chance in the railroad office or whether Coulby answered a newspaper advertisement placed by Hay. But by the end of 1884, Coulby was working for Hay, transcribing notes, taking dictation, and checking facts against the extensive documents and correspondence Hay had amassed. The work left him with a lifelong admiration for Lincoln.
With work on the biography largely finished by 1886, Hay decided to move to Washington, D.C.  Coulby did not want to leave Cleveland. Hay found him an $1,800-a-year government job as a stenographer, a position would have left Coulby financially secure for the rest of his life. But Coulby was ambitious and the job held no prospect for advancement, so he turned the offer down. Amasa Stone's other daughter, Flora, had married Samuel Mather, heir to the Cleveland Iron Mining Company fortune and (in 1883) founder of the rapidly expanding mining concern Pickands Mather & Co. Hay recommended Coulby to Mather, who hired Coulby as a secretary for $50 a month on April 10, 1886.
Harry Coulby