Captain J. N. Coulter, who resides on section 25 of Grant Township, is one of the early pioneers of Greene County, and a prominent citizen of both Greene and Carroll counties. He was born in Richland, now Ashland County, Ohio May 19, 1830, and when fifteen years of age removed with his father to Washington Township, where he grew to manhood, being reared to the avocation of a farmer. He was united in marriage October 24, 1848, to Elcy Ann Pollock, who died January 19, 1853. Of the three children born to this union only one survives, the youngest child, Mrs. Julia E. Wright, who now resides in Montrose County, Colorado. The eldest child, Elizabeth M., died in Richland County, Ohio, in 1850, aged one year, and the second child, Flora L., was killed by the accidental discharge of a gun in October, 1866. In the fall of 1854 Mr. Coulter came West in company with George W. Fleck and Simon P. Armstrong. Before starting on their journey they had purchased a threshing machine. They arrived at Muscatine the following December, having stopped at various points en route to thresh. At Muscatine they sold their machine, and continued their journey as far as Copeland’s Grove, near where Carrollton now is, in Carroll County. They all purchased land in Greene County, Mr. Coulter buying 120 acres in Kendrick Township. The following January they returned to Ohio. Mr. Armstrong never returned to Iowa to reside, but has been a resident of Stevenson County, Kansas, for a number of years. Mr. Fleck is now a resident of Jackson Township, Greene County, living on the land which he purchased in 1854. In May, 1855, Mr. Coulter came back to Iowa, and stopped at Monticello, in Jones County, until August of that year, when he came to Greene County and sold eighty acres of his land to the Kendrick Land Company, when he purchased eighty acres of land on section 11 of Scranton Township. In January, 1856, he again returned to Ohio, but the following March returned to Monticello, Iowa, where he was married to Elizabeth A. Skelly, whom he had met while there in 1855. She is a native of Marion County, Indiana, her father being a native of the State of New York, and her mother was a descendant of President Adams. Mr. Coulter had made up his mind to settle permanently in Greene County, but circumstances again called him to Ohio. In September, 1858, Mr. Coulter with his family, accompanied by Mr. Fleck and family, left Mansfield, Ohio, with teams and wagons; after a journey of about seven weeks arrived at Mr. Fleck’s settlement, on the 17th or 18th of November. Mr. Coulter moved into a log cabin which had been built by Nathaniel De Hart about 1853 to ’54, and occupied by various families of early settlers until they could build houses of their own, the house becoming known as the House of Refuge. While living in the House of Refuge Mr. and Mrs. Coulter had born to them their second child, March 11, 1859, whom they named Lorenzo Dow. In 1859 Mr. Coulter built a cabin on his land in Scranton Township, and the same year he broke a part of his land, which was the first breaking done in the township. He continued to reside on and improve his land until 1862, when in August of that year he resolved to respond to the call of President Lincoln for 600,000 men. The same month he, in company with N. P. Wright, raised a company, and on its organization Mr. Coulter was appointed First Lieutenant. This company was mustered in to the United States service November 25, following as Company E, of the Thirty-ninth Iowa Infantry. Mr. Coulter served as Lieutenant until October 31, 1863, when he was promoted to Captain on account of the death of Captain R. M. Rippey. Captain Coulter commanded his company until January 6, 1865, when he resigned at Savannah, Georgia. He was with his company during his term of service with the exception of two intervals of a few months, being for a time Quartermaster of his regiment, and for a time was Adjutant of a detachment of the Third Division of the Sixteenth Army Corps. The Thirty-ninth Regiment was a part of the Sixteenth Corps until the fall of 1864, when it became a part of the Fifteenth Corps, and with the latter marched with Sherman to the sea. On leaving the service Captain Coulter returned to his farm near Scranton. For his services in the army he received half of a First Lieutenant’s pension. From August, 1868, until February, 1869, Mr. Coulter kept the hotel known as the Western House, at Jefferson, when he exchanged his hotel for a farm in Kendrick Township, Greene County, to which he removed, living there until 1875. He then sold his farm and removed to Glidden, and in the summer of 1876 began dealing in real estate. In the fall of the same year he engaged in the mercantile business at Glidden, which he continued for a time. He was in Colorado in 1878-’79 and’80 engaged in mining and prospecting. From 1881 until 1884 he conducted a creamery for A. J. Heaton. In 1883 he bought his present farm of fifty acres. Captain Coulter cast his first presidential vote for Franklin Pierce in 1852, but since 1856 has cast his suffrage with the Republican party. By his second marriage he has had four children—Olive Viola, who died in 1862, in her sixth year; Lorenzo Dow, living at Onray, Colorado, engaged in mining; Mrs. Rosella Rice Waldren, who was the first child born in Scranton Township, the date of her birth being January 2, 1862, and George B. F., who was born July 3, 1876. Captain Coulter is a member of N. P. Wright Post at Glidden. Both he and his wife are members of the Methodist Episcopal church. Captain Coulter is a son of John and Elizabeth (Rice) Coulter, the father a native of Washington County, Pennsylvania, born September 13, 1790, and the mother a native of Massachusetts, born January 27, 1797. In 1810, when but twenty years of age, the father immigrated to Richland County, Ohio, where he lived till reaching the age of eighty-three years, dying in 1873 near the place where he had settled sixty-three years before. In his old age he could stand at his door and look off on the hillside that he had cleared of timber more than sixty years before. The mother of our subject was taken by her parents when quite young to Montpelier, Vermont, where she received her education. From Montpelier her family removed to New York State, and thence to Richland, now Ashland County, Ohio, in 1811. She was one of the pioneer teachers of that county, teaching the first school in Greene Township in that county. She died December 14, 1884. John and Elizabeth Coulter were the parents of five sons and five daughters, our subject being the fourth son and sixth child, and the only member of the family who settled in Iowa. Only four of the children are living at the present time, two sons and two daughters. One son, Martin V. B., died at Milliken’s Bend, Louisiana, while serving his country during the war of the Rebellion.

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