ANTHONY W. COURSON

COURSON, THOMPSON, STOKES, BAHLMAN, COLEMAN

Posted By: Cindy Bray Lovell (email)
Date: 2/18/2007 at 11:56:03

ANTHONY W. COURSON.

Anthony W.Courson, a well known and extensive rancher and stockman, formerly of the Horseshoe Bend vicinity, where he still owns a ranch of six hundred acres, hut has teen a resident of the Boise valley since 1917, was born in Warren county, Pennsylvania, August 3, 1847. He is a son of Samuel and Esther Elizabeth (Thompson) Courson, also natives of Pennsylvania, the former of Holland-Dutch descent and the latter of Irish extraction. Samuel Courson was born in 1818 and his wife in 1820. They were married in Pennsylvania and moved to northeastern Iowa in 1854, at which time the son, Anthony W. Courson, was seven years old. The parents spent the remainder of their lives in Iowa and both died at the age of seventy-six, Mrs. Courson surviving her husband by two years. They celebrated their golden wedding in 1888, their marriage having taken place in 1838 in Pennsylvania. They were the parents of five children, three boys and two girls, of whom Anthony W. was the second in order of birth. All are living but W. W. Courson, a younger brother, who died at Long Beach, California, February 12, 1920, aged sixty-six years. His old home was at Clarion, Iowa, in the vicinity of which place he owned several good farms at the time of his death.
Anthony W. Courson was reared on his father's place in northeastern Iowa and received a common school and commercial education. His father was the pioneer breeder of registered shorthorn cattle in that state, bringing his first lot of stock from Illinois. Anthony W. Courson has been engaged in farming and the handling of live stock for the greater part of his active life. In his young manhood, and while yet single, he left the Iowa farm and removed to Cincinnati, Ohio, where he lived for several years, while representing a large Cincinnati carriage manufacturing concern, for which he did business on the road as a traveling salesman for fourteen years, covering the north and south. On quitting the road, Mr. Courson removed to Postville, Iowa, where he engaged in business as a merchant for several years. In 1908 he came to Idaho and resided for nearly four years on a ranch near the Maple Grove school. In 1911 he located in the vicinity of the Horseshoe Bend and took a homestead of one hundred and sixty acres, while his son Harold also took a homestead adjoining it, which he later relinquished to his father. Subsequently, Mr. Courson bought an additional three hundred and twenty acres, his entire acreage now amounting to six hundred acres. He has been very successful in his farming operations and in his live stock business and is now quite independent. In consequence of two sons going to France during the World war, Mr. Courson was obliged to rent his ranch in 1918 and he took up his residence just west of Boise, near the fair grounds, but recently he removed to his present home north of Perkins.
Mr. Courson was married June 25, 1875, to Elizabeth Stokes, who died in 1885, leaving three sons, namely: Samuel, William and Theodore, the eldest of whom was accidentally killed by a train in Chicago in 1912, where he was employed in the train yards as assistant yardmaster. In 1890 Mr. Courson married Elizabeth Bahlman, who was born in Marietta, Ohio, and they have become the parents of three sons and two daughters namely: Harold D., who was born February 5, 1893, and served seventeen months in France during the World war; Wayne C. who was born February 5, 1897, and also served in France for seventeen months, being only twenty years of age at that time; John Kenneth born May 12, 1900; Dorothea, born February 7, 1902, and Esther M., born March 8 1905. The daughters are attending Boise high school. Mr. Courson is a member of the Masonic Cruder, and in political affairs he supports the republican party. Mrs Elizabeth (Bahlman) Courson was born in Marietta, Ohio, February 17, 1869, a daughter of Henry and Dorothea (Coleman) Bahlman, both of whom were Germans. She takes a warm interest in much of the social activities of the community in which she resides, and supports all movements designed to advance the welfare of the people in her neighborhood.

From "History Of Idaho. The Gem Of The Mountains" Vol. 3 - 1920