Coe, Daniel A. (1852-1929)

COE

Posted By: Karon Velau (email)
Date: 9/16/2019 at 15:58:59

Daniel Asbury Coe
Mar 4, 1852 - Sep 27, 1929

(From the 1891 Biographical History of Pottawattamie County, Iowa, p.570)
D. A. COE, section 3, Waveland Township, Pottawattamie County, is an old settler and popular citizen of this neighborhood, having been identified with its best interests for the past thirty years. He was born in Muscatine County, Iowa, March 4, 1852, son of Samuel COE, who for many years was a prominent citizen of Montgomery County, Iowa. He settled there in April 1853, and twenty years later, in 1873, removed to Jewell County, Kansas, where he still resides and, at this writing, is seventy-eight years of age. He was born in Brown County, Ohio, the son of a Revolutionary soldier, John COE, also a native of Ohio, of Irish Ancestry. Samuel COE was married in Indiana to Ruth BECKNELL, who was born in that State, near Albany. Her father, William BECKNELL, was born in Ohio and was of German origin. Some time after marriage Mr. and Mrs. COE removed to Muscatine County, Iowa, and settled near Davenport. In the fall of 1852 they went to Lewis, Cass County, and soon afterward moved to Montgomery County, where as above stated Mr. COE lived many years. His wife died when her son, D. A., the subject of this sketch, was fifteen years old. The father is a Democrat and has served in most of the township offices where he has lived. He is a believer in universal salvation. The five children born to this worthy couple are: D. A., William, a resident of Lancaster, Jewell County, Nebraska; James B., who lives in Waveland Township, Pottawattamie County; S. E., also of Waveland Township; and Elvira Elizabeth, wife of William WILDS, a conductor on the railroad, lives in Stuart, Guthrie County, Iowa.
The subject of our sketch was reared in Montgomery County, and the first school he ever entered was in a log cabin with slab seats in Waveland Township. He lived at home until nineteen years old, when he engaged in the hotel business at Avoca, remaining thus employed for three years. Then he spent one year in Jewell County, Kansas, after which he returned to Iowa and worked as an overseer on a farm for John JONES, near Avoca. His next enterprise was to rent land south of Griswold, in Cass County, Iowa, which he cultivated four years. In 1880 he bought 120 acres of land in section 23, Waveland Township, Pottawattamie County, forty acres of which were broken. He built a house on the land, and two years later sold the property. Then he bought 100 acres of land in section 4, all of which had been plowed. He put up a house and other buildings on this place and after remaining there five years sold it. Mr. COE bought his present farm of Thomas McCULLA. It consists of 125 acres, and had been improved by James PIERCE, who owned it before Mr. McCULLA. On this farm is a good frame house, 14 x 22 feet, with an L, 12 x 14 feet. It is pleasantly situated and is surrounded by a grove and orchard of one acre. Other improvements on the place are a barn, sheds, yards, feed lots and a wind-mill. Mr. COE's attention is divided between stock-raising and cultivating the soil.
He was married, May 16, 1873, at Avoca, Iowa, to Flora A. WINSBY, a native of Nova Scotia and a daughter of Robert C. WINSBY, who was born in Nova Scotia of English ancestry. Her mother, nee Ruby A. GRIFFIN, was also a native of Nova Scotia. Mr. WINSBY is now a resident of Avoca. Mr. and Mrs. COE have seven children, viz.: Robert Guy, Mark P., Clarence G., Clara E., Elmer A., Eddie E. and Roy A. Mr. COE is one of the leading Democrats of this neighborhood. For the past six years he has been a Justice of the Peace. He is in the full vigor of manhood, is genial and affable, and is regarded as one of the most popular citizens of Waveland Township. Mrs. Coe is a member of the Christian Church.