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EARLY SETTLERS OF SANGAMON COUNTY - 1876
By John Carroll Power

These biographies were submitted by a researcher and evidently abstracted from the 1876 History of Sangamon County, IL. Errors could occur, so one should always verify the correctness by obtaining copies of vitals and performing all necessary research to document what is contained herein.



COLEY, WILLIS, was born Feb. 14, 1792, near Ballston Springs, N. Y., and when he was a child his parents moved to Cazenovia, Madison county. Willis was there married in Feb., 1818, to Lucinda Chapin. His father owned some land in the military tract between the Illinois and Mississippi rivers. Soon after Willis was married his father sent him out to see it. He came on a raft down the Alleghany and Ohio rivers to Shawneetown, thence to St. Louis by keel boat. He went on foot to the military tract, and returned to Edwardsville. July 4, 1819, he started from that place, on foot and alone, for his home in New York. At Terre Haute, Ind., he secured cooked food, and traveled two hundred miles to the Maumee river, without seeing any other human beings but Indians. He arrived at Cazenovia August 7, 1819. March 4, 1820, he started with his family, consisting of himself, wife and two children, accompanied by five or six other families. They moved by water to Shawneetown, Ill., where Mr. Coley lived three years. He then moved in a wagon drawn by two yoke of oxen, and in March, 1823, arrived in what is now Loami township, where they had three children. Of their five children--

ROBERT W., born in New York, married in Sangamon county to Rebecca A. Jarrett. She died Feb. 13, 1870, and Robert W. Coley died March, 1872. Their daughter LAVINA is the wife of John A. DeWitt, and lives in Springfield. Their son WILLIS lives in Loami.

CHARLOTTE, born August 15, 1819, in New York, married in Sangamon county to Reuben Moore, and moved to Texas in 1852. Reuben Moore died in 1863, leaving a widow and seven children. LUCINDA, ROBERT E., ELLEN and POLLY are married, and live in Texas. LAURA, their third child, married Lott Mason, and lives in Auburn, Sangamon county. EDGAR and WILLIE, the two youngest, live with their mother, near McKinney, Collin county, Texas.

HUBBARD S., born in Sangamon county, married March 4, 1852, to Susan Jacobs. They have two children, ANNIS and MAY, and live in Oswego, Labette county, Kansas.

JAMES M., born August 23, 1832, in Sangamon county, married Oct. 28, 1858, to Caroline Greenwood. She died six weeks after they were married. Mr. Coley married April 19, 1860, to America Gibson. They had two children, LEWIS B. and MARY F., the latter of whom died in her third year. J. M. Coley and wife live in Loami.

ANGELINE, born in Sangamon county, married Hugh Forrest, and both died.

Mrs. Lucinda Coley died at Loami, and Willis Coley was married Sept., 1851, to Mrs. Philena Jenkins, who was previously Mrs. Kidder, and whose maiden name was Sprague, a native of Windham county, Vt. After a residence of just half a century at Loami, Willis Coley moved, in 1873, to Oswego, Kansas.



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