Samuel Coulter

  General Notes:

Samuel and Maria lived in Mercer County, PA for the first seven years of their marriage, surrounded by siblings, parents, aunts and uncles, cousins and Samuel's maternal grandparents, Jacob Rose and Rebecca Clark. In the spring of 1855, Samuel and Maria moved to Jackson County, IA in a covered wagon with their first four children - Jerusha the youngest only three weeks old. The journey from northwestern Pennsylvania took 42 days. The milk cows were tied to the back of the wagon so they couldn't wander away. Samuel walked most of the way; and his younger brother James walked with him for half the journey before returning home. This part of Iowa was then wild prairie, full of deer and prairie chickens and other wild game. Indians still lived in the vicinity; but they were generally peaceful. One time, a group of drunken Indians on horseback tore up Samuel's watermelon vines with their horses. Angered, Samuel went to his cabin for his 5 foot long flintlock musket. Keeping a cooler head and fearing for the safety of their children, his wife Maria talked him into remaining in the cabin until the Indians tired of the sport and left.
That same spring, Samuel moved his family to northern Marshall County, Iowa, where he worked for two years for $10 per month. In 1856, he bought the first 80 acres of his 240 acre farm in Iowa Township for $5 per acre. (In 1869, this part of Iowa Township became Liscomb Township.) Times were so hard, and money so scarce, that his farm was once sold for the unpaid taxes, and he had a serious time recovering it. In September, 1887, Samuel bought a house in Conrad at 208 Washington Street, one block west of Main Street, a neighborhood called Gospel Hollow. Samuel added a basement and otherwise remodeled the house; and he and Maria and their four unmarried children, Mose, Lee, Florence and Laura, moved in. Samuel and Maria lived here until their deaths. Maria at age 84, and Samuel several months later at 90. His obituary mentioned his long life had been lived with the strictest integrity, with a motto to "owe no man." After his death, the 240-acre farm was sold for $170 per acre.

Samuel married Maria Bash, daughter of Christian (Christopher) Bash and Elizabeth George, on 13 Jun 1848 in Pine Grove (Now Grove City), PA. (Maria Bash was born on 22 Oct 1831 in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania and died on 2 Nov 1915 in Conrad, Iowa.)