... Matthew Coy was born March 20, 1829, on a farm four miles north of this city, now known as the Campbell Patton farm. He is a descendant of Kentucky parentage. His father, William Coy, was born and raised in Hardin county, Kentucky. He was one of the Kentucky riflemen, alluded to in history, that won for General Andrew Jackson the famous battle of New Orleans, January 8, 1815. The regiment to which he belonged was floated down the rivers, Ohio and Mississippi, to New Orleans on flat boats, but after the battle the soldiers were discharged and made their way home as best they could. They came in squads, some on horseback and others on foot. Young Coy, with a few companions, trudged the weary journey on foot, and on the last day of his homeward march he made sixty miles, being urged to exert all his energy by the feeling that he was near home and about to be embraced by his young wife, whom he had married but a year before his enlistment, and from whom he had heard but once, and that was the tidings that she had borne him a son, whom he was doubly anxious to see. With such an inspiration and anxiety, no wonder that the foot-sore soldier was awakened to a new activity, and that he was able to double the regulation march on that day, so that his weary limbs bore him to his home, his wife and his first-born son. William Coy married Miss Sarah Robertson. Her father came to the "New Purchase" earlier, and had entered a body of land in the neighborhood where his sons and sons-in-law afterwards lived. He was of the Robertson family from which came the Lieutenant Governor Robertson, who was elected to the office, which was seized by the coup d'etat of Green Smith-an event which figures in the political history of the state. Soon after the close of the war of 1812, which was marked by the battle of New Orleans, perhaps in 1816, the year that the state was admitted into the Union, William Coy, with his wife and baby boy, came to Indiana. It is said that Mrs. Coy and the babe rode on horseback and that the father trudged his way on foot. The weary journey ended at her father's house, and they at once joined in the task of clearing the land and developing one of the richest farming districts in the county.
The family of William and Sarah Coy consisted of ten children, all of whom are dead except Matthew Coy, and the subject of this sketch. William Coy and his wife died in Indianapolis, both at an advanced age. ...
