Person:Thomas Moore Coleman (1)

Incidents I recollect as a child. When I was less than 2 1/2 years old grandfather came to live with us and gave me a little axe. When less than three years an uncle broke my axe, ruined it. When two years and seven months old I distinctly remember the birth of my brother. The same winter I followed father to the spring in my night dress when there was snow on the ground and he switched me to the house. The next spring I visited an aunt and cousin and several incidents are well remembered. From the writings of Thomas Moore Coleman

1.   History of Guthrie and Adair Counties, Iowa - 1884 - Beaver Twp.
   1884.

   Thomas M. Coleman, the fifth settler in Beaver township, was born in Parke county, Indiana, May 15, 1830, and is the son of Lemuel P. and Rosanna (Moore) Coleman. He was married on the 30th of October, 1851, to Miss Catharine Miller, a daughter of Christian and Elizabeth (Zech) Miller and moved to Iowa in 1852. They have seven children living--Frank, John, Anna, Nellie, William E., James and Siddie May. Edward, the youngest, died in 1869. Mr. Coleman has been a member of the Guthrie Center A. F. and A. M. lodge, of which he has been master two or three terms. He has held the position of county surveyor, and was a member of the board of supervisors for nine years. He was appointed collector of delinquent taxes under Mr. John Heriott, county treasurer. Being a prominent man of this county, he has held all the township offices, with the exception of constable. Mr. Colman owns two hundred and twenty-two acres of land, one hundred and forty acres of which are under cultivation and raises live stock and follows general farming. Mr. Coleman is one of the prominent men of the township and is one of the most honorable and well known in the county. Being a firm believer in Christianity and a strong temperance man, he has been an active worker in both these causes.

2.   History of Guthrie & Adair Counties Iowa 1884.

   Early Days by Thomas M Coleman
   
   Of the hardships, privations,toils, trials, hopes and fears of the first settlers of a new country, the pen can give but an imperfect idea. There were dangers those coming in after years never think of having been encountered by those who led the way, and laid a foundation for our present prosperity. But not withstanding all oppositions, the progress has been far beyond the most sanguine expectations. But we live in an age of wondrous changes, and when we look back at the great difference between the present and when we started in life, we cannot realize how it came. Very few can grasp hold of the car of progress and keep up, without getting dizzy, as they look back into the receding past. And while we rejoice in the grand achievements of today, we wonder that we set so much store on what we once termed a splendid success, now that we see it so far surpassed by the progress of the present. I feel at a loss for words to describe the past, so that it may be understood now; and I feel inclined to lay down my pen, but my friends and the publishers are so urgent. I will try, although it seems too much like writing of myself, so much of what I have seen is so closely connected with my own history.
   Coming into Guthrie county the 5th of November, 1852, I have witnessed nearly all the changes it has undergone, from an Indian hunting ground, the home of wild animals, to the beautiful farms, the pleasant homes, and thriving villages and towns, with which it is now dotted all over; but how can I tell it? The change of races of men and animals is not much greater than the changes in methods and facilities for work, business, and education, as I saw them, thirty to fifty years ago.
   My father and my grandfather before me were pioneers, always in advance of conveniences and benefits of older settlements, always deprived of many advantages we prize so highly now; but they were always looking and working for the better things. The promotion of religion, morality, and good government, was always of the utmost importance to them, as they have been to me, yet I feel a regret that no more has been accomplished, and that I can not give a better account of things I have known to be going on around me.
   I built the fourth house in Beaver township; and like all other houses of that day, it was made of logs, covered with "clapboards," and floored with "puncheons." The roof split out of oak, and the floor basswood, and smoothed with an ax. Our chimneys were built up of " sticks and mud," or tough sods. Our fireplace was always broad enough for a friend or stranger, although we always cooked and warmed by it, when cold enough to need fire to sit by; and it seems to me, our food was more savory then than now, but may be our appetites were sharpened by watching the broil or roast so long before it was ready for the table.
   Our first crops of wheat were "tramped" out, or beaten out with a "flail," on the ground, and cleaned by the wind, or by two men taking a sheet and fanning with it while another would hold it as high as he could and let it fall so as to blow the chaff out, but there was enough dirt in it to keep most people from chewing it very fine. The mill then had no smut machines, and with the dirt and smut, I have seen bread as black as most of our Iowa soil; and this accounts for the eating of a great deal of cornbread by the first settlers, as their wheat crops were not very good. Until Anderson's mill was built, it looked very much as if starvation was in sight sometimes, to the fattest of us.
   In the summer of 1852, after failing to get anything to make bread at any of the mills east of us, Henry Mains and one of his little boys started west and turned south into Cass county and went into Missouri, about a hundred and fifty miles from home. Two nights and three days he was out of sight of human habitation, with no road or track to guide him; and he says as he laid in his wagon at night and listened to the snuffing and the snapping of the wolves around him, " it was a little lonesome," and the thought of those at home with short allowance of food did not help it any. He staid so long the other settlers were fearful of some accident to him, but he came at last and brought bread and gladness to the early settlement. After we had a mill in our county it was often difficult to get to it from our side, as we had two rivers to cross, and no bridges ferries; so in time of high waters we would take our grain across in a canoe and swim or horses and wagons across the best we could, and often we had a bit of fun and danger in doing so.
   Our trading was done at Des Moines for several years, and I am satisfied that I made one hundred trips there and back in the first fifteen years, and had many and narrow escape in crossing rivers, sometimes on poor ice, or swimming or fording deep water, or in terrible storms, and houses few and far between; sometimes alone and sometimes with those whose presence increase the dread of peril. But whatever had to be met by pioneers, as a rule, was met with all the force of mind and muscle at command; they were not the men to sit down and wait for something to turn up; and the expedients resorted to under adverse circumstances, often showed the ingenuity of men whose wits were put to the test to provide food and clothes for themselves and families. And the vein of humor that said, "make the best of a bad job," often gave merriment at the jokes a man would get off at the grotesque appearance of his own team, implement, or whatever it was that showed a departure from usual methods or fashions. Quaint looking teams, wagons, plows, or even clothes were often met with. One of our first county officers had a pair of pantaloons that no one of the family or neighbors could tell what color or kind of fabric they had originally been, they were so patched with different kinds and colors of cloth, but they kept the cold out; and so did the wolf, or coon skinned cap, or coat, or buckskin pants. And as Lord Kame's idea of beauty, "the most perfect adaptability to the use intended, "was accepted then, none of these things lessened the respect for the man: as the best each one could afford was the top of the standard of fashion, and made all so attired equal, whether it was broadcloth, homespun, or buckskin.
   We had no railroads, and so had to transport everything with teams, and it would be an incurable case of the blues that would not be driven away by sitting around the campfire with a squad of teamsters so pleasant evening, as they halted on their journey, to or from market, two hundred miles from their homes. This writing revives the recollection of many a pleasant trip, with jokes, anecdotes, and pleasant converse, giving a rest to mind and body; but it also revives the thought of mud, and cold, stormy trips, trying to the utmost both men and teams; and i think what a grand good thing a railroad is.
   The early settlers of Guthrie county, it seems to me, were a remarkably pleasant, neighborly, hopeful, energetic set of men, ever ready to lend a helping hand, or give words of cheer to those who needed or happened to be despondent. Most of us coming from heavy timbered states, the lack of timber was alarming, and the force of the winds and furious storms gave terror to those who had never witnessed such things before. The winter of 1856-7 was of unusual severity and the cause of much privation. The snow drifted terribly, and teams could not pass up and down Beaver from early in December until about the 20th of March. We had to go out on the ridges to the "old divide stage road, "which was kept open part of the time, but there was very little travel across the country-only one team, I believe, from our neighborhood to Panora, the county seat, all winter; and it was a fearful journey, over snow drifts and crusted snow that broke down with the horses so their legs were bruised, until it was very hard to get them along at all. I often wonder how it was so few persons were frozen, in the long journeys often made, and houses so far apart. Our Iowa blizzards were then a source of real danger; no houses, fences, or anything else to show were the roads were. So there was great danger of getting lost, and but little prospect of getting to a place of shelter. Garrett Miller was lost in a very bad stormy night, coming home from the Panora mill, and laid out, but fortunately he had a quilt, and enough presence of mind to get under the snow, and escaped with frozen ears and fingers.
   Some were frozen to death. I think one among the best men we ever had, Elza Lank, perished in this way; and though I used to say I often enjoyed a "battle with the storm king," there is till this day a sadness comes over me whenever I see or hear of such a winter storm, for it wakens memories of ones I loved, who perished by the cold monster. He certainly was a true friend of mankind, and was the first temperance talker I ever listened to. But after all his hard work for our prohibitory law, he was taken away before it was fairly tried.
   Danger and privation were leagued, or at least, very close together; and it may sound strange to people who are crowding each other, but I know of no privation harder to bear in early times, than the great lack of human faces. As we gazed about us in our loneliness and saw so few of our kind, many times at the sight of a stranger a tear has stolen down the cheek, half of joy for the added presence of another human being, and half regret that far away friends were not with us. And as friend longed for friendship, and enjoyed the converse of even a stranger, with added force did christian hearts yearn for the full fellowship and love of brethren and sisters, and to hear the gospel preached, to buoy them up on their lonely pilgrimage.
   But I think good was wrought out of the rough experiences and privations many of us passed through. In my journey to this country I learned the need of shelter, by being often refused lodging or food, and with firm resolve I determined never to turn anyone away that needed or deserved shelter and food, and have sacredly kept the resolution.
   It was on the lone prairies of Guthrie county, with a thirty miles' space between me and my next neighbor on the west, and no one knew how far north or south to the next one, that I learned how broad the great bond of human brotherhood was; and here the woof, if not the work, of the mantle of christian charity, was so woven into my being, that creeds and churches made no difference as to the protection and warmth of affection it fostered, or the aid it afforded.
   As proof of how we wanted to see the county settled up, I might say, but for the work of two or three men, our swamp land, that afterward yielded over thirty-five thousand dollars would have been given for a fifteen hundred dollar bridge, and the settlement of one hundred and fifty immigrants in our county.
   As to the political affairs of our county in early times, I suppose there are others who are better able to give them than I am. In those days I was a democrat, but was called an "off ox," because there were so many things in the republican platform that I believed in, and so many things in the other that I would not swallow, and when I voted as a member of our board of supervisors to give one hundred and fifty dollars to our first company of soldiers in the war of the rebellion, it was, to say, " the last hair that broke the camel's back," and made one of the liveliest political storms I ever witnessed in Beaver, and I have seen several. Our old county seat fights drew out everything that ever enters into a political contest, only shotguns, and other brute force; and there were many laughable and droll things occurred to relieve the monotony of our pioneer political contests.
   But there is one thing my mind keeps recurring to of which I must speak. I told you, kind reader, how we felt the lack of faces to look upon, and regretted the absence of friends, so you can see the thinning of our ranks by death would be doubly sorrowful. The scarcity of numbers made our loss more severe, and added to the fears of some who feared the country was not suited to the settlement of the white race, and that disease would yet depopulate the country. Many a mother has shuddered at the recital of the story of some old Indian who said Iowa would raise no children; and as victim after victim, young and old, fell beneath the dreadful stroke, many a heart burdened with sorrow entertained fears that our settlement here was a mistake and in the end might yet prove a failure. Several, urged by such fears,left the country; and when I landed on the west side of the South Coon, at the house of my father, who had come the spring before, and found eight sick ones, and only one little girl able to wait on them,- if they had been able to travel, and we had money to go on, - we would all have left the country, and hurried away from the scenes of so much sickness and privation, with so little we could see to ever repay us.
   In 1853 there were several additions to our settlement, among them Christian Miller, my wife's father; a man we had all known for years, and known to honor, and many of us to love and looked to for counsel. No man, probably, that ever came here believed stronger in Iowa than he did. He was delighted with the country, and we rejoiced in his words of encouragement and christian exhortation; but in a few short months he was gone; and although we sorrowed with our burden lightened by his consolation and " hope in his death," yet words cannot tell of our loneliness and sorrow, as we realized our loss of one we looked to as our leader. His father had died a few days before, and another, the one it seemed we needed most, to be taken so soon from our little band pressed a deeper grief on every heart. There were others yet to follow soon, and one by one we have witnessed the departure of so many for a better country, and such a host of our dearest friends are " over there," that not withstanding the great faith we have in what we often call the "grandest and noblest state of its size on this green earth," we look forward with anticipations of joy to a settlement in " that better country," a city paved with gold, where privation and toil is over, and joy and peace and rest will so fill the soul that these light afflictions, which are but for a moment, shall work for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. But while here we expect to do that which our hands find to do with our might. Labor makes rest the sweeter, and as in the past, Guthrie pioneers did not sit repining in hopeless sorrow, but worked with might and main to achieve success, so may we hope that they may ever go on, endued with that courage and fortitude that has conquered so many opposing elements, surmounted so many obstacles, with hope as an anchor to the soul, guided by divine wisdom, until grander victories may yet be achieved, and still more of the structure of our christian civilization bear the impress of the workingmen and women who laid its foundation years ago in Guthrie county.
   Many a time we never knew if good would come of our labors or not, but I feel more than repaid for the humble part I have been permitted to perform, and the grand results shown today in our county makes me wonder at the success, although I have watched it growing over thirty years. But my paper is too long for one so imperfect and I will quit, regretting that I have not been able to write more of interest to the readers of our County History.

3.   Obituary COLEMAN- At Newton, Iowa June 16, 1904, Thomas Moore Coleman, aged 74 years, 1 month and 1 day. Born in Parke county, Ind., he was married to Miss Catherine Miller, October 30, 1851. They lived together 35 years, when she departed to the heavenly home. He located in Guthrie county, Iowa in 1853. the last eleven years he lived in Newton, Iowa. They had eight children, five boys and three girls. One son died in infancy. Brother Coleman was married again to Amre Livingston, who survives him. Also two brothers and four sisters, and numerous grandchildren and great-grandchildren. He was converted and fellowshipped with the Church of God at the age of twenty-one. He was always true to his Christian profession. He possessed a brilliant intellect: filled important positions of trust, wrote some valuable literary articles, and he was a member of the Masonic Order. He was buried from the Coleman homestead on Beaver Creek where he made a