Langston and Mervina Coffey Coffey

Langston Coffey was the son of James Coffey and his wife, Elizabeth "Betsy" Coffey.  James and Elizabeth were first cousins, children of brothers Joel and Nathan Coffey, themselves sons of the mythical Chesley Coffey.

Mervina Coffey, wife of Langston, was a daughter of Absolom Coffey and his wife Mary Lusk or Mary Beard.  My research notes tell the that the Absolom that married Mary Lusk might not be the same Absolom that married Mary "Polly" Beard.

I received an e-mail a couple of days ago reminding me there was a reply to a note which I posted on the Genealogy.com message board back in 2008.  The person (Linda) who wrote the reply invited me to view her Beard Family Wiki History page in which she attempts to make the case that Absolom married Polly Beard, daughter of one Hugh Beard and his wife Esther.  The Wiki author tells us that Absolom Coffey is "said to be the son of Nathan/Nathaniel Coffey and Mary Saunders" but, offers no evidence to support that claim.[1]

Mervina, born Mar. 22, 1814[2] and Langston, born Aug. 11, 1807[2], both in KY, were first and second cousins.  They married, probably in Alabama and before 1832.  In 1845 Langston was appointed first Postmaster of Coffey Town [3], Jackson Co., AL.  The first four of their (at least) six children were born in AL; the last two in TX.

Those born in AL were:

Orita Elizabeth, born Jul. 5, 1836, died in Morris Co., TX on Jun. 25, 1905.  She apparently never married.

Benjamin Benton, born Nov. 15, 1839 - Benjamin was in Titus Co. in 1860 and on census day, Aug. 22, was living with the John M. Cook family.

Julia Ann, born Aug. 6, 1843 - Julia made it to Titus Co. and in 1850 was there with her family.

James Wylie, born Jun. 28, 1846, died Apr. 18, 1880 in Morris Co., TX.  James married Mary Elnora Glass (no date).  They had three children:  Madora J., born 1867, died 1870; William Benjamin, born 1874, died 1938 and James W., born 1878, died 1929.  James W. married Martha C. c1870 in TX.  She was born c1850 in MS.  After at least 5 children, all born in Morris Co. between 1871 and 1879, she and James W. apparently split the blanket, so to speak.  James died in 1929 at Sanatorium[4], in Tom Green Co., TX. In 1900, Martha had been married to James Travis Cherry for 17 years and had two children, Jimmie and Myrtle.  The census record reports both of them as daughters.  Martha's son Richard Coffey was also in the 1900 household.  Cherry died in Titus Co. in 1905.  I have not yet found a death date for Martha.

Those born in Texas were:

Selina Perminter [sic], was born in 1849, in TX and probably Morris Co., and died there in 1904.  She married James Polk Hayes in 1870 and had at least two children; John B., 1872-1875 and William Z., 1876-?.  James was born in TN in 1845 and died in Morris Co. in 1922.  Selina died in Morris Co. in 1904.  Both are buried at Spring Hill Cemetery in Naples, Morris Co., TX.

Obituary, Omaha Breeze, Omaha, Morris Co., TX, Aug. 3, 1922

James Polk Hayes was born in Tennessee, a son of William Hayes, and came to Texas in an early day settling at Old Snow Hill and spent his life in this section of the country; moving to Omaha, where he accumulated considerable property interests.

He was married to Miss Salione Coffey, daughter of Langston Coffey, another pioneer family of North East Texas, August 3, 1870 from which union two sons were born, the oldest dying at 3 years of age, and the second, William Z. Hayes, a prominent banker of Dallas, and who was with his father in his last hours on earth, survives: the wife and mother having preceded them both several years since.

Mr. Hayes had been a very strong man in his early life, served faithfully in the Confederate Army for a term of years, and went through many experiences which many of us will never know. 

He was a member of the Primitive Baptist church at Old Spring Hill and was for the past many years considered and known as one of the leading members.

His body was followed to Spring Hill by many friends and relatives on the 28th and interred by the side of his wife after impressive funeral services.

The last child of Langston and Mervina was Louisa Victoria, born 1854.  She was with her family in 1860 but nothing else is know of her.

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[1]The only evidence that I have comes from Tim Peterman, long time Coffey researcher and descendant of Chesley.  He wrote in Wilkes County Heritage some years ago that "Absolem Coffey was supposedly born in 1788. He married first to Mary Lusk and second to Nancy Chadwick. He probably settled in Jackson Co., Ala.  Joel Coffey was supposedly born on Aug. 3, 1790. He married Mary Knox in 1817. He died in 1850."  Tim cited DAR records, census records and the James Coffey [Langston's father] family Bible.

[2] Headstones, at Spring Hill Cemetery, Naples, Morris Co., TX

[3] http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~holdridge/places/langstonmethodist2.html

[4]Sanatorium is in Tom Green County sixteen miles northwest of San Angelo on U.S. Highway 87. It was never an incorporated town, instead, it was a relatively self-sufficient tuberculosis sanatorium. The postmark "Sanatorium, Texas" began with the opening of a post office on the campus in 1919 and disappeared on October 7, 1965, when the post office closed. [John C. Henderson, "SANATORIUM, TX," Handbook of Texas Online (http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/hls16), accessed January 10, 2013. Published by the Texas State Historical Association.]

Source for some Langston info received from Glendon T. Johnson of Abilele, TX (1995-96),   Langston, Brinton and Hugh were brothers, and in Titus Co. about 1850.  They and their wives are buried in Morris Co., TX, which in 1850's was part of Titus Co.

TITUS Co. People, Place and Events by Traylor Russell of Mt. Pleasant

The Coffey Families inTitus & Morris Counties

The Coffey families came into Titus Co. in the 1850's and settled near what is now Concord....  Morris Co. was not cut off from Titus Co. until 1875.  Elizabeth Coffey, Livingston (must be Langston) Coffey and William Coffey all patented land in Titus Co. in 1861.

TX. LAND TITLE ABSTRACTS VOL 1-a OF MORRIS Co., Tx. (Mt. Pleasant Library)

Abstract #64 Elizabeth  3-6-1861 Patent #350 Vol 32 160 acres Class d/o File #707

Abstract #67 Langston  3-7-1861 Patent # 351Vol 32 160 acres Class d/o File #810

Abstract #68 William     3-7-1861 Patent # 352 Vol 32 160 acres Class d/o File 811

The map showing this also shows "L. Coffey"  owned land due east of Abstract #67 and due north (of Elizabeth's #64)

Grantee: Langston Coffey-Coffee Patente:  L. Coffey-Coffee Patent Date: 6-9-1862 Acres: 103 and 114.1 District: Bowie Cty:  Morris File : 116 & 202 Patent #: 562 & 564 Patent Volume: 9 Class: R. R. Scrip 

Anna Moreland wrote:  "In addition to his own family, Langston Coffey raised about 8 of his sister's children. Their names were 'Bridges.'"

Kathy Coffey Simmons research also names Langston as a son of James, son of Joel and Martha Stepp and Elizabeth Coffey, daughter of Nathan and Mary Saunders Coffey. 

Samuel Lusk & America Coffey

Samuel Lusk, born Oct. 15, 1800 in Buncombe Co., NC married America Coffey on Mar. 21, 1822 in Warren Co., TN.  America was born Jul. 26, 1801 in Wayne Co., KY to Ambrose and Mildred "Millie" Moore Coffey.  This Ambrose was the son of the Rev. James Coffey and his wife Elizabeth Cleveland.  America was also a sister to Holland Coffey, one of the early Red River traders.

Samuel Lusk, soldier and politician, was born on December 15 , 1800, in Buncombe Co., North Carolina. He was raised and educated in Tennessee. He married America Coffee, the sister of Gen. John Holland and Thomas Coffee, in 1823 and moved to Alabama. Lusk immigrated to Texas about 1835 and settled near Washington-on-the-Brazos. In 1836 he joined Sam Houston's forces but did not participate at the battle of San Jacinto because he had been detailed to protect the women and children. Lusk was a member of the convention of the Republic of Texas that ratified annexation. He served as county clerk in Washington County from 1848 to 1858. He was among the earliest settlers of Brenham, Washington Co., Texas and served as its mayor in 1858-1859. Lusk died in Brenham, Washington Co., Texas on December 1, 1861, in a yellow fever epidemic, and is buried in the Masonic Cemetery there. His daughter, Malinda C. Lusk, married Dewitt C. Giddings, and his son, Patrick H. Lusk, drew a white bean in the Black Bean Episode and so survived the Mier expedition. He was released through the intervention of his uncle's friend Andrew Jackson.*

Malinda C. Lusk, the seventh of nine known children born to Samuel and America was born May 16, 1836 in Independence, Washington Co., TX and died on Jun. 19, 1869 at Brenham, also in Washington Co.  She married Dewitt Clinton Giddings of Susquehanna Co., PA in 1860 at Brenahm.  Dewitt was born Jul. 18, 1827 and died Aug. 19, 1903 in Brenham.  Dewitt is known to be buried at Prairie Lea Cemetery in Brenham; Malinda is probably there as well.

Dewitt Clinton Giddings**, Democratic politician and early Texas businessman, the youngest of eight children of James and Lucy (Demming) Giddings, was born on July 18, 1827, in Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania. His father, a farmer, had been a sea captain. Giddings financed his education as a civil engineer in New York by teaching school part-time. In 1847 he was employed as a railroad engineer, and in 1850 he began legal studies in Honesdale, Pennsylvania. In 1852 he joined his brother Jabez D. Giddings in Brenham, Texas. In 1853 Dewitt Giddings was admitted to the Texas bar, received license to practice before the state district and supreme courts, and became his brother's junior partner in Brenham.

Giddings specialized in civil and probate cases and developed a lucrative legal practice and statewide reputation in state and federal courts before the Civil War. In 1859 he was construction superintendent of the Washington County Railroad. The Giddings brothers arranged a county school-fund loan and contributed financially to make possible completion of the railroad in 1860. In 1862, despite Unionist sentiment, D. C. Giddings enlisted as a private in the Confederate Twenty-first Texas Cavalry (First Texas Lancers). He was elected captain and then lieutenant colonel. In absence of Col. William Carter, Giddings was actual commander of this regiment during the war. He was briefly captured and exchanged in 1862. He participated in Arkansas and Louisiana campaigns and John S. Marmaduke's Missouri raid.

In 1867 Giddings aided yellow fever victims in Brenham; the same year, he was elected foreman of Hook and Ladder Company No. 1, which, despite its name, was organized to resist the actions of Union troops. Giddings was a member of the Constitutional Convention of 1866. He served on the Resolutions Committee of the conservative state convention in 1868. As a Democrat, he won the 1871 special election for United States congressman from the Third Texas District, in part because of his efforts to gain broad ethnic support. After Republican governor Edmund J. Davis certified the reelection of his opponent, William T. Clark, Giddings won his appeal to the United States House of Representatives, which unanimously seated him in 1872 (see GIDDINGS-CLARK ELECTION CONTEST). He was the first Southern Democrat to enter Congress during Reconstruction. He was reelected to the Forty-third Congress and as an advocate of silver defeated independent candidate George Washington Jones to serve in the Forty-fifth Congress (1877-79).

After the Civil War Giddings and his brother J. D. became land agents and owners of holdings throughout Texas. They founded the Giddings and Giddings bank at Brenham in 1866. Dewitt Giddings earned a large commission during Governor Richard Coke's term when he successively recovered $339,000 in proceeds from state-owned bonds sold in Europe during the war. After his brother's death, Giddings managed bank operations and in 1884 became sole owner of the Giddings bank. By 1874 he was a large stockholder in Texas Mutual Life Insurance of Galveston. He chartered the short-lived Brazos Valley, Brenham and Gulf Railway Company in 1888 to promote lower railroad rates. His activities focused on banking after 1875.

Giddings was a Texas presidential elector at large in 1876, a member of the Platforms and Resolutions Committee at Texas Democratic conventions in 1884, 1888, 1892, and 1894, and a Texas delegate to the national Democratic convention in 1884, 1888, and 1892. In 1886 he ran unsuccessfully against Lawrence Sullivan (Sul) Ross for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination. Giddings campaigned against a proposed state prohibition amendment and was chairman of the Anti-Prohibition State Convention in May 1887. As an opponent of Governor James S. Hogg's reelection, Giddings was chairman of the June 1892 state Democratic platform committee, coauthor of the committee's minority report opposing free silver at the Car-Stable Convention (August 1892), and member of the Turner Hall Convention platform committee. In August 1894 he supported the national Democratic party platform as chairman of the state Democratic platform committee. He was a delegate of the Texas Gold Democratic Conference to the Memphis Convention (1895) and delegate at large of Texas Gold Democrats to the Indianapolis Convention. He also served on the state Deep Water Convention Resolutions Committee to promote federal appropriations for a Gulf of Mexico port in 1888. In the 1880s he supported Populists within Washington County to destroy Republican domination of county politics. Giddings was the leading proponent of the establishment in Brenham of the state's first public schools.

In 1860 he married Malinda C. Lusk, the daughter of Samuel C. Lusk. They had five children. Mrs. Giddings died in 1869. Giddings died of heart disease in Brenham on August 19, 1903, and was buried in Prairie Lea cemetery.

GIDDINGS, De Witt Clinton, a Representative from Texas; born in Susquehanna County, Pa., July 18, 1827; pursued an academic course; studied law in Honesdale, Pa.; was admitted to the bar in Texas in 1852 and commenced practice in Brenham, Tex.; served in the Confederate Army throughout the Civil War; member of the State constitutional convention in 1866; successfully contested as a Democrat the election of William T. Clark to the Forty-second Congress; reelected to the Forty-third Congress and served from May 13, 1872, to March 3, 1875; again elected to the Forty-fifth Congress (March 4, 1877-March 3, 1879); engaged in the banking business in Brenham, Tex.; delegate to the Democratic National Conventions in 1884, 1888, and 1892; died in Brenham, Tex., on August 19, 1903; interment in Prairie Lea Cemetery.

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  *Bibliography: Frank W. Johnson, A History of Texas and Texans. Worth Stickley Ray, Austin Colony Pioneers. Texas House of Representatives, Biographical Directory of the Texan Conventions and Congresses, 1832-1845. Judy and Nath Winfield, Jr.,  Click here for information about the Black Bean Episode and the Mier Expedition.
**Bibliography: Frank Carter Adams, ed., Texas Democracy: A Centennial History of Politics and Personalities of the Democratic Party, 1836-1936 (4 vols., Austin: Democratic Historical Association, 1937). Alwyn Barr, Reconstruction to Reform: Texas Politics, 1876-1906 (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1971). John Henry Brown, Indian Wars and Pioneers of Texas (Austin: Daniell, 1880; reprod., Easley, South Carolina: Southern Historical Press, 1978). Dewitt Clinton Giddings Papers, Barker Texas History Center, University of Texas at Austin. Houston Daily Post, August 20, 1903. Frank W. Johnson, A History of Texas and Texans (5 vols., ed. E. C. Barker and E. W. Winkler [Chicago and New York: American Historical Society, 1914; rpt. 1916]). Norman Kittrell, Governors Who Have Been and Other Public Men of Texas (Houston: Dealy-Adey-Elgin, 1921). C. T. Neu, "The Giddings-Clark Election Contest, 1871-1872," Bulletin of the East Texas State Teachers College 14 (June 1931). Robert W. Shook, "The Texas `Election Outrage' of 1886," East Texas Historical Journal 10 (1972).  See also The Handbook of Texas Online