David Coe, Jr.

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/23070917/david-coe

John W. Coe - - His grandfather, David Coe, of Middletown, Conn., went to Kirkland, Oneida County, in 1796, taking with him his son, also David Coe, who was born in Middletown, Conn., in 1784, and was then but twelve years of age. The family, consisting of the parents and four children, travelled, as had all the other pioneers of that region, with an ox-team and large covered wagon, in which they lived until the timber was cut out of the dense forests and the log cabin with its earthen floor constructed, to shelter them and make their first home in the wilderness. This was in the region near where the beautiful city of Utica, N.Y., now stands; and one lonely log house occupied the site where Bagg's Hotel now opens its hospitable doors to the weary traveller. At that time even the turnpike from Albany to Buffalo, which is ninety years old, was not even projected. In 18o6 the father of our subject was married to Orra Ellenwood, daughter of Reuben Ellenwood, who came from Brimfield, Hampden County, Mass., about 1797. He became a wealthy farmer of Smithfield; in fact, the wealthiest in Madison County.
Our subject's parents went to Peterboro when there was but one white family (the Greggs) within ten miles east of where they located. Mr. Coe made a permanent home in this place, buying one hundred and fifty-six acres in the midst of heavy forest land, having many large trees of white pine and hard wood. He built a saw-mill, and turned out quantities of lumber, becoming, as the town increased, a prominent factor, loaning money to the settlers, from whom he would only take the legal interest. He was a leading man also in the county, holding several offices. He was not a church member, but was upright in all things, taking the Golden Rule as his guide. His wife was a consistent and true believer in the Baptist faith. They reared six sons and three daughters, of whom John Wesley was the sixth son and eighth child. All arrived at adult age, the first to die being the youngest daughter, Henrietta, a lovely girl of twenty-one years. Of that large family, only three sons and one daughter are now living, namely: Eli A., a farmer residing at Kirkville, Onondaga County, aged seventy-three years; Mary C., widow of Seth Roberts, living at Oneida, aged seventy years; George Whitfield, a retired farmer of Peterboro, sixty-eight years old; and John W.