NOTES ON ISAIAH DANIEL COLEMAN AND HIS OLD HOME
(AS TOLD TO J. P. COLEMAN BY MRS. ESTELLE COLEMAN, CHRISTMAS, 1950)
Mrs. Estelle Bruce Coleman was the daughter of Thompson Bruce, and married Henry Jonathan Coleman, son of Isaiah Daniel Coleman, in 1887. She died February 21, 1953. The Isaiah Daniel Coleman house burned in March, 1889. The house was constructed of logs, weatherboarded with plank, and contained 16 rooms. It was situated on the east side of the old Louisville and Winona Road (which is still used as a public road), and on the identical spot where the J. P. Coleman tractor shed now stands. This is approximately 600 feet north of the Southeast corner of the Southeast 1/4 of the Southwest 1/4, Section 1, Township 16, Range 10, Choctaw County, Mississippi. The house faced west and a hall ran through it from front to back on the first floor. There were two chimneys at each end of the house, providing fireplaces on both the first and second floors.
"I (Mrs. Estelle Coleman) moved to this house in 1887, when I married Henry Jonathan Coleman, and I lived there until the house burned in March 1889. Isaiah Daniel Coleman was then getting quite feeble. He would chew tobacco and would spit on newspapers. My husband was doing spring plowing in the 'flat,' on the west side of the road, in front of the house. I was doing the family wash. When my husband came in for dinner he gathered up a bunch of the newspapers that his father had been using and threw them in the fire which was burning in a fireplace on the first floor. He returned to plowing and it was not until about 2 o'clock that it was discovered that the roof was on fire. There were no ladders sufficiently long to reach the roof, and no men present except Henry Jonathan Coleman and Isaiah Daniel Coleman. Henry Jonathan Coleman was then 30 years of age."
"We were not able to get much out of the house. Henry Jonathan Coleman did take an elegant mirror out and, in the excitement, accidentally broke it. After the fire, which was seen for miles around, Henry Jonathan Coleman and I moved into a cabin on the west side of the road, and Isaiah Daniel Coleman moved in the home with his daughter, Mrs. Laura Eugenia Bruce, about a half mile north, on the old Louisville and Winona Road."
"He died there April 8, 1889, about a month after the fire. He was never especially sick, but was weak from old age. He was eating an orange and somehow became strangled on it and died before help could arrive. Henry Jonathan Coleman, Rufus Bruce, and others were about three-quarters of a mile away at a log rolling on the John W. Robinson property (then owned by Lafayette Robinson). Isaiah Daniel Coleman was dead before they could be notified and reach home."
"I was told that Isaiah Daniel Coleman was never affialated [sic] with any church. It was also said that he was extremely bad to use profane language in his younger days, but he had quit that when I moved into the home and I never did hear him use such language. He would sit around the house and spend most of his time reading. He always refused to allow his picture to be made. He said he would not leave an image of his on earth for people to look at after he was gone. For over sixty years there has been a tradition that he attempted to enter the house when it burned, and desired to be burned up with it. This is not true. My husband had to lead him away from the house several times to keep him from getting in it and being burned. This was due, I think, to the fact that he was very old, could not see well, was very much excited by the occurrence, and was not altogether aware of the danger. The house could not have been much over 50 years old when it was destroyed by fire. Either William Charles Coleman or William Ragsdale Coleman built this house. William Ragsdale had lived in it until 1860."
... NOTE: Henry Jonathan Coleman always insisted that his name was John Henry and used the initials "J. H."
In December, 1950, Mrs. Estelle Coleman sold to J. P. Coleman her spinning wheel which John Bruce brought to Mississippi when he moved here from Georgia. This spinning wheel was later owned by his daughter, Mrs. Rachel Hood. About 1900. Mrs. Hood sold the spinning wheel to Mrs. Estelle Coleman for $2.00. Mrs. Coleman and her half-brother, Floris B. Bruce (Sheriff of Choctaw County, 1944-1948) carried the spinning wheel home with them. ...
