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Jacob(2) COLEMAN
Jacob(2) COLEMAN, was born in Miami Township, Hamilton County, Ohio, on 13 Dec. 1828, the son of Jacob(1) and his fourth wife, Nancy By the time he was 10 years old, he was completely orphaned. His mother probably died around 1833, leaving his father enough time to marry twice more (and be widowed twice more) before he died in 1838. Because the courthouse in Hamilton County, Ohio was burned several times, no records of adoption or guardianship have been found. Jacob could also have been raised by one of his mother's kin or one of his older brothers, Benjamin or John. By 1850, he was found in Rush County, Indiana, listed as a farmer, living with a man named John Wood and his family. The area was designated as #97. Nearby was the family of Purnell DALE. Purnell DALE had a daughter they called Frances. Actually, her name was Barbara Frances. Jacob fell in love and married her on 11 Dec. 1852. The newlyweds promptly moved to Jasper County, Illinois, where, on June 11th and 17th of 1853, he purchased land. The 1860 Census finds him and his family in Willow Hills Township. His children were listed as Pernel D. (7), Elvira (5), John (3) and Nancy (1). (Apparently Jacob William, who would have been 6, had already died.) On 23 Apr. 1862 they bought more land in Jasper County. Jacob's brother, James COLEMAN, and his new wife, the former Riller WELLMAN, had come to live next to Jacob in 1859. By the 1870 Census, Jacob had moved his family northward and was living in Union Township, P.O. Casey, Cumberland County, Illinois. (His son, John, later said they lived on the William Steers homestead in Clark County, 3 miles northwest of Casey.) It was actually in Union Township of Cumberland County that his son, James Uriah, was born, while his previous children had been born in Jasper, where several of them had died. (Purnell, at age 14, and Jacob William and Nancy Ann, each before they were 6 years old.) Jacob's great grandson, Roy COLEMAN, says, "In Illinois, before they moved to Missouri, he [James Uriah] said they lived kind of on the plains, and cyclones or tornadoes would come through there. He said they had a big cellar dug with a trap door on it and it had a cable on it and they'd pull it shut and they'd tie that cable down, wrap it around a deal there so the wind couldn't blow it. He said, 'Three or four times that's all that saved our lives.' He said they had an old house that was there on the ranch when they went there. And he said it just tore that house all to pieces until there was nothing left. And he said the furniture was scattered for two miles."
Clearing Land in Illinois James Uriah remembered his family spending years clearing timber, rolling logs in huge piles for burning. They ended up with a nice farm and harvested good crops for several years. But then the rain kept coming earlier and lasting longer and increased to the point crops could not be grown. After three years of living in "a bog" Jacob decided to move his family on, perhaps to find land to homestead. Discouraged and blue, Jacob Coleman packed up his pregnant wife and five remaining children and loaded up on wagons and began moving westward. As heavy storms caught them, they rented a place to spend the winter at a farm belonging to Alice Appleby, in Polk County, Missouri. That February 17th, their last child, Perry Alonzo was born. It is interesting here to note that the family of Holland SWEET took a similar path around the same time, leaving Illinois to move into Polk County, Missouri for several years, then down to Cowley County Kansas. Jacob left his brother, James, behind in Illinois. In fact, descendants of James are still found in the area. In the spring of 1872, the Jacob COLEMAN family rented another farm in the same county and harvested a crop there. Then, in the spring of 1873, they moved on into Cowley County, Kansas, where they homesteaded 160 acres of land for 8 years.
Windy Kansas When they got to Kansas, they built a house out of "stable circles," (buffalo chips.) They began mowing and stacking wild hay, which grew abundantly there. Only having one mowing machine, it ran day and night. The hay rake also ran continuously. Then came the stacking. The work was not limited to boys; they all took turns at all the jobs. His sister, Elvira, was now the oldest, at 17. John Henry was 15, Martha Alice was 11, James Uriah was 5, Mary Elizabeth was 3 and Perry Alonzo was 1. James Uriah wrote that the "snow held off until mid winter." "Everyone was well and happy." Christmas came. There was no snow in Kansas that year, but Santa Claus came anyway. The next year there was 3 feet of snow by New Year's Day. They turned the equipment used for hauling hay into bobsleds. In the spring of 1875, Jacob, went into the livestock business. He went to Kansas City to buy some sheep, and later some calves. They found more success in animals than in growing crops in windy Kansas. Unfortunately there was no school in that part of Kansas, which James Uriah said, "was..." MORE
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