When Columbus Penn Evans was age 9 his father died in Doylestown, Pennsylvania. Two years later he traveled to West Chester with his sister(s) and their widowed mother. Henry S. Evans took his brother on as an apprentice at his newspaper the "Village Record" on Church Street, in West Chester. Columbus was in his teens when he went to work for his brother, giving him a similar start in life as that of Henry. Men who apprenticed at the Village Record with whom Columbus worked, matured, and associated were to become the who's who of writers, and newspapermen of the Delaware Valley. Such men as Judge William Butler, (District Attorney of Harrisburg 1856-1859 / U.S. Federal Judge, 1879) Bayard Taylor, (World renown writer & poet) Fredrick E. Foster, (who with Taylor later owned "the Phoenixville Pioneer") Hiram Brower, (of the "Fairfax News" of Virginia and later owned "Newtown Journal" in Bucks County) Enos Prizer, (later owned "Bucks County Intelligencer" with Henry T. Darlington) Charles Cook, ("Danville Democrat") and George W. Vernon, who 1845 partnered with Columbus' brother Henry in the Wilmington, Delaware newspaper enterprise of the "Daily Republican".
Columbus soon moved to Wilmington, Delaware to edit the "Daily Republican" the newspaper his brother had purchased in 1844. He made Wilmington, his home even becoming its mayor near the end of his life.
During the Mexican-American War (1846-1848) he was commissioned the rank of second Lieutenant, and was later promoted to first Lieutenant. By 1848 he had been recognized for "gallant and meritorious conduct" in the battles of Contreras and Cherubusco. He also fought at Molino Del Rey and again with merit at the culmination battle of Chapultepec. Near the end of February of 1848 then Captain Evans was presented by the legislature of Delaware, his adopted
State with a handsome sword. The sword was accompanied by a letter from Governor Tharp in recognition of his service to the Nation during the war with Mexico, in the Eleventh Regiment, United States Infantry, in a brigade under General Cadwallader.

In 1851 while his brother Henry was taking office as a Pennsylvania State Senator, Columbus was elected as Mayor of Wilmington but did not choose to seek re-election. He died three years later of consumption at his sister's home in West Chester. Columbus Penn Evans is buried at Oakland's Cemetery, close to his brother, at the bottom of cemetery hill, in West Chester. There is a four sided monument there, placed by the citizens of Delaware to honor him. His interment was done with full military honors.