Wilson Shannon Coe

COE, STEVENSON

Posted By: Carl Robert Coe (email)
Date: 1/10/2004 at 08:47:57

63. WILSON SHANNON7 COE (Benjamin6 (38), Benjamin5, Avery4, Daniel3, Timothy2, Timothy1) was born July 5, 1840, at Bourneville, Ross County, OH. Named after famed Ohio Governor Wilson Shannon, governor at the time of his birth and the first native Ohioan to serve in the office, Shannon, as he was commonly known, first appears on record in the 1840 census of Ross County when he was listed as a male 0-5 years of age. He grew up in the area of Bainbridge and Bourneville, where he was later a schoolteacher.

A private with Company G, 33rd Regiment, Ohio Volunteer Infantry, Union Army, during the Civil War, he enlisted February 22, 1864, at Bourneville. Sent to Columbus, OH, he reported for duty March 4, 1864. At the time of enlistment, he stood 5 feet, 10 inches tall, had blue eyes and dark hair. Sent with his company to Tennessee, because of ill health, he was confined to a hospital in Chattanooga, June 1, 1864. He remained in the hospital until August 22, 1864. The muster rolls of Company G from September 1864 to July 12, 1865, when the company was mustered out at Louisville, KY, listed him as "absent; sick in hospital at Chattanooga."

After the war he went to Iowa, settling first at Onawa and then on what later became known as the Charles Ross farm, in Lincoln Township, Monona County. In 1895 he lived with his brother- in-law George Stevenson, in Lincoln Township, where he and his son Ralph worked as farmhands. In 1900 he was living at Whiting, IA, where he was a harness maker, a trade he apparently learned from his father. Interestingly, Albert and Allen Coe, formerly of the Bourneville, OH, area were living nearby.

After 1900 he moved to Beresford, SD, where he and his family operated the Commercial House Hotel, current site of the Beresford telephone building. A member of the Woodman Lodge there, he died June 11, 1909, from kidney inflammation. He had been suffering with dropsy since coming to Beresford "... Thoroughly incapacitated to enjoy the blessings of life, death came as a sweet relief." Members of his lodge returned his body to Onawa, IA, where he was buried June 12.

He married August 9, 1862, at Red Rock, IA, Nancy Jane Stevenson, born 1843 in Pennsylvania. William Blame, Justice of the Peace, performed the ceremony. After Shannon’s death she returned to Monona County, IA, where her mailing address was Box 327, Onawa. In 1920 she was living at 313 Curtis Street, Council Bluffs, IA. In 1925 she lived at 307 W Sixth Street, Council Bluffs. She applied for a widow’s pension for Shannon’s Civil War service, March 15, 1917.