Mary "Polly" Beard married Absalom Coffey
Mary, who was called "Polly", a common nickname for Mary back then, was born about 1787 in Eastern Tennessee. She married Absalom Coffey/Coffee on 20 September 1808 in Adair County, Kentucky. He was born about the same time as she, in Eastern Tennessee. He is said to be the son of Nathan/Nathaniel Coffey and Mary Saunders. The witness on their marriage record is David Doak, the husband of Polly's sister Jane Beard Doak.
The Coffey family appears to have been related to the Coffey family who were in the Valley of Virginia at the same time as the Beards. As early as 1747 in Augusta County, Virginia records, there was a Hugh Coffey on the list of a road crew to make a road from the lower end of the Cowpasture River, exactly where our Beards were documented a few years later. (see the Timeline for details of the Beard family in the Valley). The family is said to have gone to North Carolina from Virginia. If so, did they perhaps live in the part of present day Eastern Tennessee that was back then a part of North Carolina? Some of the children of Nathan Coffey seem to have later reported being born in Tennessee. We have seen reports of their home in North Carolina being Wilkes County. Coffey family researchers may be able to help with their timeline. Wherever they were, they wound up coming into early Green and Adair Counties, Kentucky about the turn of the 19th century, some of them moved down into middle Tennessee at the same time as our Beard families, and several were then found in northern Alabama, where old Nathan Coffey died in 1823.
Right after they were married, Absalom Coffey and wife Polly sold 92 and 1/2 acres of land on Sulphur Lick Creek, Adair County, Kentucky. This was an area where her father, Hugh Beard, owned a lot of land, and perhaps this parcel was a wedding gift.
Absalom and Polly Beard Coffey were listed in the 1810 Adair County, Kentucky census. They had one male under ten, and this would have been Brinton. Other Coffeys listed in Adair County were Nathan, Chesley, Richard, and Newton. In 1814, Hugh Beard and his wife Esther sold land to Absalom Coffey. This land was also on Sulphur Lick Creek.
All of Absalom and Polly's four children were born in Adair County, Kentucky. The apparent last one, a daughter, listed her age on the censuses erratically, and the best we can tell is that she was born sometime between 1814 and 1820.
Hugh Beard, along with many other of the Beards in Adair County, moved south into Bedford County, Tennessee. Absalom and Polly obviously moved to Bedford County with them or shortly after, as all of them were listed on the 1820 census there. Hugh was listed "Hugh Baird" on this census. Absalom and Polly had two males under ten, and three females under ten. There were two males ten to sixteen. We are guessing that one of them may have been a teenage relative.
In the early to middle 1820s, Hugh went down further south into the northern part of Alabama. On 7 November 1826, "Hugh Beard of Limestone County, Alabama" gave a Power of Attorney to "Absolom Coffee of same" to secure land from Joseph Miller, whose bond the said Hugh Beard holds, and deed it to Alex. Miller. Note that this Power of Attorney was filed for record in Adair County, Kentucky, as that is where the land and the Millers were located.
In the Land Records of Jackson County, Alabama, we find some issue dates for an Absalom Coffee, listed from the Huntsville office: 1 June 1831, 4 September 1835, 1838, and one for 1849, which is probably Absalom, Junior.
When did Mary Polly Coffey die? We have a break in the birthdates of the children of Absalom, but we are probably missing some names of children, judging from the census records. On the 1830 Jackson County, Alabama census, Absolem Coffey is a male forty to fifty with either no wife or a young wife. This could very well be his second wife listed. The eldest female in the home is aged fifteen to twenty. Children included one male five to ten, one male ten to fifteen, and three males twenty to thirty, one female ten to fifteen. Because of this census, we are postulating that Mary Beard Coffey passed away before 1830, probably in Jackson County, Alabama.
In 1840 Jackson County, Alabama: A. Coffey household includes a male 50-60, two males under five, two males five to ten, one male fifteen to twenty, and one male twenty to thirty. The lone female in the house was twenty to thirty. This is probably Absalom's second wife Nancy Chadwick, who was born in Kentucky between 1807 to 1810. The three males under the age of ten would be her sons.
The last sign of Absalom Coffey that we find is the deposition he gave on 28 March 1843 in Alabama, in which he stated that he knew a man named John Duncan for over twenty years. Absalom is said to have died in 1848 in Alabama.
On the 1850 census in Jackson County, Alabama, Absalom's widow Nancy Coffey lived with her six children. Next door was "Hew" Coffey, who was thirty years old, and a son of Absalom and first wife, Mary Beard Coffey (whose father was named Hugh Beard).
We have used the following records to research and find the descendants of Absalom; they are from the records of Glen and Mary Johnson, who were good enough to share with others researching Coffey/Coffee families. In a basement vault of Jackson County, Alabama courthouse, Item 1, Box 21, dated 8 January 1869: a petition states that Absalom, Senior died intestate and that the estate still had property unadministered. The petitioner, Absalom, Junior, represented the heirs of Absolom Coffey, deceased, who were listed Breny [Brinton?], Rithy [Oritha], Thomas J., who all lived in Titus Cunty, Texas, near Dangerfield; Absalom and Narcissa Coffey, who reside in Jackson County, Alabama; George Coffey, a minor under 21 in Jackson County, Alabama. The heirs of Hugh Coffey, deceased, who reside at Dangerfield; the heirs of Lankston Coffey, deceased, who reside near Dangerfield.
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