I put the story in the main text and put the details about the research and most of the speculation in the endnotes, so that you don’t have to read about the research until you want to. There are many gaps and guesses and only a few living people in this story. When birth years are given as "about" it's because the census records from which they are estimated don't give the years, just the ages at the time of enumeration, usually in the summer. I would appreciate additional information of any kind about these people. Experienced writers may find the messy structure of this article objectionable. At this stage, it's just an annotated outline, frequently revised. I aim to put everything here as I get it. Readers can easily decide whether they have pieces to add to this puzzle.

It is customary for stories like this one to begin with the emigrants, the people who crossed the ocean to America. This account will observe that custom, at least until some information turns up about the emigrants' origins in the Old Country. Our emigrants are James D. Coates and Elizabeth Simpson.

James D. Coates was born in England around 1815(1) and died in Oketo Township, Marshall County Kansas on November 26, 1892(2). He married Elizabeth Simpson on November 2, 1847 in Albany, New York(3) and was divorced by her on September 9, 1882(4) in Marshall County, Kansas.

Elizabeth Simpson Coates was born around 1822 in England or Scotland(5) and died October 26, 1900 in Bethany Township, Osborne County, Kansas, where she moved after her divorce(6).

James and Elizabeth had seven children who lived to adulthood(7). Four of the children survived at least until 1901. It is possible that others died in infancy.

• Elizabeth was born in 1849(8) in Albany, New York, married Thomas C. Watson, a Kansas neighbor (born in New York around 1843), May 31, 1868 and died November 20, 1878 near Colorado Springs. She is buried in Fairview Cemetery, plot A02 048. By July, 1870 Elizabeth and Thomas had a one-year old daughter, Jeanette(8A). Elizabeth ("Lizzie") was born around 1872 and Mary around 1874 in Kansas. The family moved to the farm of Thomas's parents in El Paso County, Colorado, where William J. was born around 1877. On June 18, 1880, Thomas married Miss Sarah Jane Walton in Colorado Springs. (9A)
  
  Jeanette married Charles Hutchin (no "s") on September 2, 1888 in Gunnison, Colorado and bore three daughters, Lucy, Dorothy Grace and Elsie. At the time of her marriage, she spelled her first name Jenetta. Gunnison, founded in 1874, is 80 or 100 miles from Colorado Springs, high in the mountains. By the time she was married, it was a silver mining boomtown and a center of smelting and railroad activity. She died some time prior to 1901. In that year the girls may have been living in Douglas County, Colorado. Samuel Brown of Spring Valley, Douglas County, was listed in the probate records as their guardian. (9)

  Lizzie married a man named Holden and probably settled near her parents in the Colorado Springs area, although I don't know the precise location. She may have died before 1900.

  Mary married George R. Gandy (born in Kansas around 1869) on May 22, 1893 in Colorado Springs and settled on a farm in the Spring Valley area of Douglas County south of Denver. They had nine children and possibly at least one more who did not survive: Winifred (April 1895) Inez L. (December 1897), Muriel (October 1898), Georgia (around 1902), Elizabeth (around 1904) Watson R. (May 29, 1905, died December 1969 near Castle Rock) Henry A. (around 1908) and George Jr. (around 1910). Possibly other children were born around 1900 and 1912. The three oldest daughters appear to have married and moved away by 1920. Mary A. died between 1910 and 1920.

  William J. Watson was in Denver around 1900, working as a laborer. By 1920, he was living at 3925 S. Clarkson, Englewood, Arapahoe County with wife Jennie, son Ralph L. age 9 and daughter Nellie E., age 6. Ralph was born in Colorado, but Nellie was born in Oklahoma. In 1930, William was running a farm near Twin Falls, Idaho, with Ralph. Jennie was a seamstress in a laundry in Hawthorne, California, near Los Angeles. Nellie was probably with her.(9A)




• Robert was born July 3, 1851, in Albany, New York, and died July 27, 1883. The place of his death is uncertain. Robert's grandson Kenneth was convinced that Robert was supposed to be catching wild horses and cows, but was found with some that weren't wild and died as a result. (See Note 10 for the "official" version, as it is preserved the records of the Franklin Public Library.) Robert is buried in the Vincent-Stevens Cemetery near Riverton beside his first wife, Julia Abbott, who he married March 29, 1876; she died Dec. 5, 1877. He married H. Elizabeth Logan of nearby Smith Center, Kansas, March 2, 1880; she died December 4, 1934 in Hastings, Nebraska and is buried in Smith Center. Robert and Elizabeth had one child, Edna (born September 15, 1882, died 1979).
  
  Edna married Jean Philip Feese (born 1870, Des Moines County, Iowa, died November 14, 1960, Hastings, Nebraska) on December 25, 1901. Jean and Edna had one son, Kenneth J. Feese, (born November 5, 1908 in Franklin, died in Lincoln, Nebraska August 31, 1977), one grandson, James Kenneth Feese, and one granddaughter, Harriet E. Peterson. Edna died at 96 on July 6, 1979.



• John B. was born 1853 in Albany, New York. He may have died before 1880,(11) although, lacking proof, the probate atorney included him in the distribution of his father's estate.(9)



• James W. (also known as James Coates, Jr., apparently to distinguish him on legal documents from his father) was born around 1855, probably in Wisconsin, and died of a fever in Raton, New Mexico, June 24, 1891, aged 36(12).



• Margaret was born in 1857, probably in Wisconsin(13). She was included in her mother's will in 1896, and also in the distribution of her father's estate in 1901(9), although she may have died as early as the 1880s, after losing touch with the family. She apparently married a man named Coop.

Some time after 1857, the family moved to Kansas and settled in Marshall County, where the local government had only recently been organized. Kansas was a violent place, the scene of vicious informal warfare - what we could now call terrorism - between pro- and anti-slavery forces. Kansas's admission as a free state was one of the events which ignited the Civil War. James and Elizabeth's family was close to the frontier in an area plagued by droughts, tornados, grasshoppers and Indians. James was a freighter, driving teams of oxen or mules pulling heavy covered wagons.(13A) Marysville was the county seat and well-located. It was at an intersection where several trails crossed the Oregon Trail and was a station on the Pony Express route between St. Joseph, Missouri and Sacramento, California. Although the township was larger than four ordinary ones, the population was sparse. Only 310 people were spread over more than 156 square miles, according to the census of 1860. In 1858, gold was discovered in paying quantities in Colorado. Denver was founded soon after that and "the business of transporting the mine equipment and merchandise needed to build the towns and take care of the population soon transformed the Kansas prairies into a continuous caravan of five thousand men and eight thousand wagons, an army of forty thousand mules and oxen passing each other day and night in an industry which, as on the Comstock, grew to be second in volume only to mining itself." (Irving Stone, "Men to Match My Mountains," pp 227-228)

• William M. (my grandfather) was born in 1859 in Marysville Township, Marshall County, Kansas(14) and died in Pratt, Kansas (apparently by suicide) on April 10, 1931(15). He married Elinor Willoughby November 22, 1887 in Kinsley, Kansas(16), and was divorced from her after an absence of almost fifteen years in 1916(17). Elinor died April 8, 1927, in Raton, New Mexico. On his marriage license, William gave his address as Osborne. William, like his father, operated a freighting business, both drayage from a rail station to (for example) a construction site and longer overnight trips to places not yet served by rail. William and Elinor had three children:
  • Nellie May (born September 3, 1888 in Edwards County, Kansas);
  • William LeRoy (born September 13, 1890 in Trinidad, Colorado--in a covered wagon, according to family tradition--died December 4, 1947 in Los Angeles); and
  • Carl Willoughby (born August 8, 1892 in Raton, New Mexico, died August 2, 1954 in Dallas).
  William, Elinor and the children returned briefly to Marysville in the early 1890s. Elinor became ill there while William was away on a trip. Her doctor suspected tuberculosis and recommended that she return to New Mexico. This was the standard therapy of the time. The high, dry climate was thought to be healthful, and local physicians preferred to export contagious patients they couldn't cure. She sold her only asset, the milk cow, bought train tickets for herself and the children, and returned to Raton and the Willoughbys. William caught up with them in Raton when he returned from his own trip. As noted above, he stayed with Elinor only a few years after his second arrival in Raton. In the late 1920's, Elinor lived with her son Carl for several years in Dallas at 811-1/2 East Eighth St. near Ewing. After a year or two, they moved next door to 809. Carl managed the Marvin Drug Store (flagship of a small local chain) at Main and Akard Streets.(25) William died two days after the fourth anniversary of Elinor's death.(24)
  
  Carl Willoughby Coates married Alice MacCauley on July 31, 1934. They had three children and three grandchildren. The children are Thomas Edward Coates (writer of this account), born October 18, 1937, Elinor Sue Coates, born October 13, 1939, and Alice Coates Corley, born March 17, 1941. Thomas married Mary Alice Dorset March 4, 1964 and adopted her two daughters, Robin Ann and Diane Marie. They had a third child together, Elizabeth Ann. Thomas and Mary were divorced in 1978. He married Barbara Mary Bush on December 3, 1997.

In the interval between 1859 and 1865, it is possible that children were born who did not survive. Or, it is possible that James was away in uniform(18) or (more likely) as a freighting contractor for one of the armies. He would have been in his mid-forties when the Civil War officially began. Courthouse records show James to have been in Ringgold County (and short of funds) in southwestern Iowa in the autumn of 1861, but a careful search turned up no evidence of property ownership. Other records show the Marysville, Kansas property being sold by the sheriff after several years of unpaid taxes in the early 1860s.

• Joseph H. was born in 1865 or 1866 in Missouri(19). Around 1901, he was apparently known for a time as Joseph Coop(20), although the Census of 1910 shows him in White Rock township, Lane County, Kansas, as plain Joseph H. Coates. Joseph purchased and occupied 640 acres (a square mile or "section") in Lane County in 1909 and exchanged it September 16, 1912 for property in Franklin County owned by Henry C. Long. Franklin county is in eastern Kansas, one county away from the state line.(26) Alvin Stockton recalled that Joseph never married and left a substantial estate when he died, which I think was probably between 1910 and 1920.(27)

I have no reliable information regarding when James or Elizabeth entered the U.S. They were married in Albany, New York in 1847(3). Robert's grandson's widow told me James was a fugitive from the Canadian police (the Mounted Police hadn't been formed yet) and jumped ship at Racine, Wisconsin. This might have been the end of a business trip in the mid 1850s. Or if this is how he first entered the U.S., it would have been more likely in the 1830s or early 1840s. In the 1860 U.S. Census all the children but William are listed (improbably) as being born in New York. In the 1870 U.S. Census all the children except William and Joseph are listed (also improbably) as being born in Wisconsin, so it would seem the family had some connection there. Two stories may have merged. I particularly need ideas and information on the period before 1847.

Although the family was still together in Marysville for the 1875 Kansas census, the long distance freighting business probably dried up in Marysville during the 1870s when Kansas was crisscrossed with railroads to Colorado and New Mexico. James homesteaded in 1875 in booming Franklin County, Nebraska, in the Republican River valley near the Kansas border. (Elizabeth claimed in her divorce petition that James abandoned her in 1875.) In 1880 he had Joseph and Margaret with him in Franklin County(23). James relinquished his homestead to William on September 17, 1880, before he was able to secure a patent. The railroad was completed through Franklin County in 1879. William gave up the homestead on February 22, 1882, the year before Robert died. Relinquishments were not unusual at the time. Many of the homestead records in that area showed a series of names entered and later scratched out(22). This appears to have been a way of accumulating and transferring equity. It is possible that climatic variations made farming too unpredictable. The longitude of Marshall County is 96.5 degrees; Franklin County is 99 degrees. Walter Webb, historian of the great plains, established the 98th meridian as the point where low rainfall made conventional farming (as envisioned in the Homestead Act) impractical. William turned 21 in 1880, so perhaps the relinquishment was a birthday gift. Or maybe James was simply unsuccessful in his efforts to keep his freighting business one jump ahead of the proliferating railroads.

By 1882, James was back in Marysville. Elizabeth filed for divorce that year, alleging several incidents of violent behavior. They divided the property, she moved to Osborne County as described above, and James moved into a little dwelling on his portion just across the river from the original family homestead, where he lived "miserable, miserly and half-starved," until his death in 1892 at about 77 years of age. He had apparently been subsisting on income from renting the land. James was sometimes incoherent during his last year and it is possible that he was robbed a few days before he died, although he survived that episode. The coroner's jury ruled that death was due to natural causes, although a second robbery is a possibility. No family members attended his funeral and he was buried in the Oketo Cemetery.(2) Four months before James died, his grandson Carl was born in Raton, NM. Nine years later, when James's estate was distributed, its value was about $2500, approximately enough to buy a 160-acre farm in the area.

Joseph, Elizabeth's youngest son, moved to Osborne with her after her divorce in 1882. (This was only 12 years after the last Indian fight in Osborne County.) He was sixteen, and she received custody. When she died eighteen years later in 1900, he inherited her farm in Osborne County and sold it in August of 1905. Joseph may have left the area soon after, since courthouse officials could find no further records in his name. In her will Elizabeth made $10 bequests to Edna (daughter of Robert Coates [her son, born 1851]) and to Margaret Coates Coop. She also made a $300 bequest to Robert Armstrong, "familiarly known as Robert Coates," described as a minor grandson(21). This may have been a way to compensate him for his work on the farm. Why did Elizabeth move half way across the state? Perhaps Osborne is where her daughter Margaret Coop lived, although historians of the Coop family in Kansas have no record of her. And, why did Elizabeth not make bequests to other children or grandchildren?

A general comment on research methods: With three exceptions, all the information on the Coates line was compiled by examining records in the National Archives, the Library of Congress and local courthouses and libraries. The Marshall County Historical Society has been especially helpful, particularly with the Watson line. The only person I could find to interview was Mrs. Kenneth J. Feese of Lincoln, NE, widow of Robert Coates's grandson. I spoke with her in 1977 and she gave me a story told her by her late husband's mother (Robert's daughter), Edna Coates Feese, 94 at the time. Recently, James Kenneth Feese, Robert's great-grandson, helpfully filled in additional details for his family. Bill Stockton interviewed his uncle Alvin Stockton at length in 1984 and my sister Alice Coates Corley transcribed the tapes. I am grateful to them for a copy of that interview and to Mrs. Feese, her son, and the librarians, local historians and county clerks who scoured their collections and helped me fill in some of the gaps.

1. U.S. Census, Marshall County Kansas, 1860, 1870, 1880.

2. This date is from the probate court record. He didn't move from Marysville to Oketo, the township was subdivided. The Oketo Herald and the Marshall County News, both of Friday, Dec 2, 1892, provide details of his death. The Herald provided the quote about his situation, gave his age as 87, and the date of death as November 25. Despite the coroner's finding of death from natural causes, both papers mentioned unaccounted-for cash and suggested robbery.

3. Albany [N.Y.] Evening Journal, Nov. 3, 1847, p. 3. In a column headed "Marriages," the notice in its entirety says "In this city, on the 2nd inst.[i.e., the second day of this month], by Rev. S.F. Morrow, Mr. James COATES to Miss Elizabeth SIMPSON." Her divorce petition, filed 35 years later, says "On or about November 8, 1847." Neither James nor Elizabeth appears in the New York state census of 1840. How could they have ended up in Wisconsin a few years after they married? There was a tide of migration at that time from New England and New York to the upper midwest. Wisconsin became a state in 1848. In Green County there is a village called Albany. The Albany in Wisconsin might have been settled by a company of emigrants from New York state and James and Elizabeth may have been part of that group. Although the history of Albany Village says nothing about how it was named (and local historians I consulted didn't know), this seems reasonable.

Rev. Morrow of Albany New York was pastor of the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church, at Chapel and Canal Streets. The church no longer exists under that name. According to the Presbyterian Church-USA, the church's records were destroyed by fire in 1924. A copy of a marriage license would contain details such as the names of families and witnesses, but the Albany County Hall of Records has no marriage records prior to 1875, according to its website. Elizabeth doesn't appear in the city directories at all. She may have been a daughter or niece in one of the six households headed by men named Simpson listed in the 1846-47 directory. Or she might have been a live-in servant anywhere. She would have been about 24 when she married.

Regarding James's arrival, the Ancestry.com database lists 12 men by that name in its index of passenger lists. All are outside the 1815-1847 window except two: Quebec, 1823 (details in White, "Dictionary of Scottish Immigrants to Canada," 1896, Ontario Genealogical Society) and New York, 1840 ("Early New York Naturalizations . . .1792-1840," 1999, Baltimore, Genealogical Publishing Co.; LOC F118.S363. Of course, there may be other sources of lists, and he might never have been on any list.

4. Her divorce petition. She signed with an X.

5. U.S. Censuses of 1860, 1870 and 1880 show her birthdate as 1822. The Census of 1900 (Vol. 39, Sheet 4, Enumeration District 101, Line 63) shows her age as 83, which would have made her 47 or 48 when her youngest son was born. 1822 is more likely. The U.S. Census of New York for 1840 shows several Elizabeth Simpsons, all in New York City or Brooklyn, and all the wrong age. (But, the enumeration method for that Census appears prone to error.) In all cases, Elizabeth's birthplace is given as England. But Simpson is a Scottish name, a sept (affiliate) of the Fraser clan. Today there is a small Fraser enclave on the Scottish coast south of Aberdeen and a larger one around Fraserburgh north of Aberdeen. Much larger holdings exist along the Great Glen all along the south side of Loch Ness and Loch Lochy from Inverness to Fort William. There's more Fraser country extending due west from Inverness in the general direction of Achnasheen. If she was indeed born in Scotland these would be good places to begin looking for records of her birth.

6. Probate record.

7. Dates and places are consistent with natural birth, as opposed to adoption. Census records didn't distinguish.

8. Elizabeth Simpson Coates's divorce petition lists six children, omitting her daughter Elizabeth, who died between 1877 and 1880. Ages of the others are consistent with the dates given in this article. Elizabeth Coates Watson was probably born in Albany NY. The U.S. Census of 1860 of Marshall County, Kansas (Marysville Township, page 331) gives her age as eleven and her birthplace as England(!), but that was surely an enumeration error since her parents had been married in 1847 in Albany, NY and the Albany NY city directory shows the family in Albany at a different address every year through 1854. The census of 1870 gave her birthplace as Wisconsin, as it did in a separate entry for all the children except William and Joseph. That also appears to be an error. Perhaps the enumerator interviewed a child who was born in Wisconsin and thought that her or his older siblings were born there, too. The index to the 1850 Census shows a James Coats (no "e") in the First Ward in Albany, but the page number points to the Fourth Ward. I read every entry in the First Ward, and he's not there, and he isn't on page 214 in the Fourth Ward, either. I'm sure he's there someplace, because there is a James Coates in each Albany city directory from 1846-47 through 1854. The name does not appear before or after that time. The directories do not show his occupation, which is unusual. The U.S. Censuses of Wisconsin for 1840 and 1850 show no one named James Coats or Coates in Wisconsin. The family does not appear in the 1855 Kansas Territorial census. Albany, New York seems to be her most likely birthplace.

8A. U.S. Census of 1870, Marshall County Kansas, Sheet 20 (later renumbered 329), line 23. Marriage date is from Marshall County courthouse records, Book OO, page 83. He was 25 and she was 18. Elizabeth was omitted from her mother's divorce petition. According to census records for 1910 and 1920, Thomas remarried in 1880 and relocated then or soon after to Illinois.

9. James D. Coates, property distribution at probate, filed in Marshall County, Kansas. In the final accounting (after three “annual” accountings over nine years), June 18, 1901, the three Watsons each received one quarter of the amount that their mother's siblings received. The fourth quarter was distributed in thirds to three minor children of Jeannette Hutchins, named Lucy Hutchins, Dorothy G. Hutchins, and Elsie Hutchins, grandchildren of Elizabeth Coates Watson. The guardian who received the payment for them was listed as Samuel Brown. Jeanette Watson Hutchins (born around 1869) would have been in her twenties during the 1890's, so the children were probably under twelve in 1901. Places of residence for the Watsons and Hutchinses are taken from the probate record. Jeanette Hutchins and Samuel Brown can't be found in Douglas County Kansas, so the county in Colorado where her family lived is more likely. In fact, there is a Samuel Brown, born in Kentucky in 1832 in Spring Valley, Douglas County, Co., listed in the 1900 census near the family of Henry Gandy. But I couldn't find the Hutchins family. The probate attorney reported expenses of a lawsuit, Watson vs. Coates, although a careful search by a helpful volunteer at the Marshall County Historical Society turned up no evidence of a lawsuit actually having been filed. What makes this mystifying is that payments are shown to John and Margaret, with no indication of where they lived, or that they were even alive.

9A. Date of Elizabeth's marriage is from courthouse records. Information about Elizabeth's death is from the Colorado Springs Gazette, November 24, 1878, p.4, as reported by a helpful volunteer at the El Paso County GenWeb. The notice says in its entirety: "Died at Colorado City on the 20th inst., at 5pm Elizabeth Watson aged 29 years. She leaves a husband and 3 small children to mourn her loss." It is not clear why the paper reported three children instead of four, but that issue of the paper also has the previous day's date, so it was not a good day for accuracy. Colorado City merged with Colorado Springs in 1917. Information on Thomas's remarriage comes from an index to the El Paso County marriage records printed in the Colorado Springs Gazette for January 15, 1881.

Jeanette's marriage was performed by Justice of the Peace C.H. Morgan in Gunnison.

Lizzie Watson Holden could not be found in the index to the 1900 U.S. Census. The only two Elizabeth Holdens of the right age in the indexes to the 1900 census were single women, both 29, in Marietta, Ohio and Providence, Rhode Island. Neither was born in Kansas. Lizzie Holden may not have been alive in 1900, despite her appearance on the estate distribution.

Information on Mary Watson Gandy and her children comes from the U.S. Censuses of 1880, 1900, 1910 and 1920. She was missing from the 1920 census and George R. was listed as a widower. Watson Gandy appears in the Social Security Death Index as residing in Castle Rock, Douglas County, Colorado. The SSDI is the source of his dates of birth and death (December, 1969); the unusual name is unambiguous. Her marriage was performed by Justice opf the Peace Thomas Shideler. Copies of the marriage records of Jeanette and Mary were provided by a helpful volunteer at the El Paso county GenWeb.

W.J. Watson is at two different addresses in the Denver City Directories of 1901-1902 and 1903, but not in the 1900 U.S. Census of Colorado. His location for 1920 comes from the Census of the U.S., Vol. 6, E.D. 18, Sheet 26, Line 93. For 1910, it can only be cross-checked against the Denver City Directory, since for some reason there is no index to the 1910 U.S. Census of Colorado. William J., Ralph and Jennie were found through the national index to the 1930 census, filtered by their birthplaces. Jennie was the only Jennie M. Watson in the entire 1930 census. She listed herself as head of the household, although Nellie (who would have been about 16) wasn't listed, and advanced her birthdate by three years. But, note that W.J.'s wife in the 1910 census listed her father as born in Mississippi and her mother as born in the U.S. The woman in Hawthorne listed her father in the 1930 census as born in Tennessee and her mother as born in Kansas.

10. Date of his death comes from the receipt for his tombstone. Month, day and year of his birth and death are pencilled on the back of a tintype photograph in my posession. The U.S. Censuses of 1860 (Marshall County, page 51) and 1880 (Marshall County, page 331) give his birthplace as New York but 1870 lists him and several siblings as being born in Wisconsin. The license for his first marriage puts his birthplace as Dane County Wisconsin, which I think is an error. Who has first-hand knowledge of their place of birth? On the other hand, if the family was traveling back and forth between Albany and Madison, they could have maintained addresses in both locations. See Note 8.

As far as his death is concerned, this is the official version, from an index file of pioneers at the local library, partly typed and partly written in ballpoint pen: Robert was returning to Riverton from a trip to Cheyenne, Wyoming to buy ponies and died on the train in Plum Creek (now Lexington), Nebraska after feeling unwell from before he departed Cheyenne. No newspapers survive from the time in the Lexington area. Robert's great-grandson remembers that his father conducted numerous interviews and found a solid consensus for the account in the main text. If someone sanitized the library's history file, it was done after the invention of the ballpoint pen in the 1940s.

The obituary of Robert's wife, H. Elizabeth Logan Coates, was published in the local Franklin paper on December 13, 1934. It mentions a grandson, Kenneth J. Feese, and a great-grandson, James Kenneth Feese. I spoke by telephone with the widow of Kenneth J. Feese shortly after he died in Lincoln Nebraska in 1977. She was very helpful. She reported that husband's mother, Edna, was blind and deaf (although otherwise in good condition for 94), so I didn't try to interview her. One of the Feese family websites gives Jean Feese's full name as James Jean Philip Feese. On his marriage license, he identified himself as Jean P. Feese. His grandson said, "to the best of my knowledge, Jean Feese never used James," and went on to attribute his own name to his other grandfather. The date of Edna's death comes from her death notice in the Lincoln Journal-Star, the same place I got the date of Kenneth's death. Edna's writeup mentions that she was a member of the D.A.R. One of Jean Feese's male antecedents was married in Philadelphia in 1780, so he could have fought in the Revolution.

11. U.S. Censuses of 1860 and 1870; birth year confirmed by mother's divorce petition. See note 8. John does not appear in a national Soundex search of the 1880 census, filtered on birth in either Wisconsin or New York. His mother may not have been aware of his death.

12. His gravestone in the family plot in Raton, NM, minus the Jr. (photograph supplied by Sue Coates). The censuses of 1860 and 1880 show his birthplace as New York. The 1870 census shows him being born in Wisconsin. The family does not appear in either the 1855 Albany City Directory or the 1855 Kansas census, so perhaps he actually was born in Wisconsin. The persistent disagreement beween various censuses about the birthplaces of the older children could be explained (as suggested in Note 10) if the family was traveling between the two locations, perhaps guiding emigrants or transporting their goods. I have two additional records bearing James Jr.'s name: an affidavit he signed in 1885 attesting to the identity of his mother, and the deed by which he purchased Elizabeth's farm after her divorce. I also have a copy of the title page of a book which he signed which gives his middle initial as "W." The Raton Range mentioned his death and age but gave no additional details. Alvin Stockton recollected the cause as "some kind of fever."

13. Census record (for birthplace, see Notes 8 and 12); birth year confirmed by mother's divorce petition. She does not appear in a Soundex search of the 1910 census. (In the index to the 1880 census she is listed as "Margaretta". Indexes have their limits.) She may have died as early as the 1880s after losing touch with the family.

13A. The Pratt Daily Tribune, April 13, 1931, story about William's death mentions that James was a freighter "in the early days."

14. U.S. Censuses of 1860, 1870, and 1880. Birth year further confirmed by mother's divorce petition. Birthplace is consistently shown as Marshall County, Kansas in all records.

15. Death certificate. His address is listed as "transient," and I previously thought he was passing through. Bruce Stockton points out that Pratt is one county away from Kinsley, where William was married and where some Willoughbys lived. He may not have gone far. Bruce located a newspaper story of William’s death describing him as a transient (Rocky Mountain News, April 11, 1931, page 1: “Kills two mules, ends own life-Itinerant sets covered wagon afire and commits suicide.” ). The Pratt newspaper did point out that the deceased was known to have several hundred dollars in cash which was unaccounted for after his death. So it was possible that he was killed in a robbery attempt contrived to resemble suicide, although the coroner ruled it a suicide ("gunshot in temple--self-inflicted"). If he did have cash when he died, there are other ways it could have disappeared.

There is another question: was this deceased indeed my grandfather? Alvin Stockton said his mother (William's daughter Nell) saw the newspaper story when it was published and asked my father (her brother) to check. Alvin said "Carl always wanted to find out something about his father. He viewed the remains and paid the undertaker to bury him. They did not have any funeral. But he described the man and Aunt Minnie [Mary Willoughby Westphal] got the description. . . .The man he described was too short and had heavy curly hair, and Aunt Minnie said our grandfather had very thin hair and it was not curly at all, and he was taller. . . and she said it was not the same man at all. It was all a complete mystery." Alvin went on to speculate that perhaps the deceased had robbed my grandfather and stolen his identity and the distinctive wagon he lived in. That leaves the question of how the original identification got in the newspaper story. The coroner's death certificate is indistinct, but appears to be signed on the date of death, April 10 and gives his age as 77, not 72 as all other records indicate. Perhaps the coroner backdated his document after he talked with Carl Coates. Or, perhaps the deceased had been in Pratt long enough for people to know him by name.

The Pratt Daily Tribune carried three stories on the event, on April 10, 11, and 13, all on the front page. The first story (published while the authorities were still trying to locate relatives) says "Mr. Coates had spoken at times of having two sons and a daughter in New Mexico." The second story relays some information via Undersheriff Kutz from the sheriff of Anderson County (south of Kansas City): "He told Kutz that an uncle of Coates lived at Garnett and that a son, William Coates, lives at Raton, New Mexico. Officers here are attempting to reach the son today." Note that this account is different from Alvin Stockton's recollection of an event a half-century before. The story on Monday, April 13 is headed "Coates Buried Here -- Son of Wanderer Who Killed Self Here, Arranges for Burial of Man in Pratt -- Left Family Years Ago -- Family had not Heard of Coates in Quarter of A Century -- Wife Died Three [sic] Years Ago." It goes on, "Relatives at Garnett first read of the tragedy and notified local officials of the son in New Mexico. Later, the son in Oklahoma City was also notified. The man told officers yesterday that he was only eleven years old [1902-03] when his father deserted the family. Originally Coates' relatives lived in Marshall county. William M. Coates' father was a freighter in the early days."

By an interesting coincidence, the Santa Fe rail station that serves Pratt is called Coats and is located about six miles southwest of the center of Pratt. The place dates from the railroad's arrival in 1887. The newspaper stories make no mention of this coincidence and emphasize that the mysterious wanderer had arrived in town for the first time a few months before. (If it is necessary to learn more about the community of Coats, the local library has a volume of land patents in Pratt County 1880-1910 and the Kansas Genealogical Society Library has a 77-page history of the first 100 years of Coats, Kansas. The village is on a branch of the main line through Kinsley and Dodge City which had reached Raton seven years before.)

The relative in Garnett who provided the original notification was probably Catherine Ann Willoughby Keeney Mahon, William's wife's sister. The "uncle" in Garnett might have been a poorly enunciated "in-law". On the other hand, it is possible that either of William's parents had a brother in Kansas; today there is one telephone in Garnett listed to a Coates family and one to a Simpson. No Mahons or Keeneys. As far as the identification is concerned, the way the newspaper developed the stories suggests that if there was an identity theft, it was a truly elaborate (and pointless) deception. (But recall that the deceased was not in good mental health.) In addition to the physical description mentioned above, there's a related problem: The weekly Pratt Union said in the April 17 issue, "The aged recluse had stated his age as 77 to some people but his appearance was more that of a man about 60 years of age. His muscles were strong, not flabby and his general appearance was more rugged than a man of his stated years." Of course, all the other evidence (census records, his mother's divorce petition, his own marriage license) puts William's age in 1931 at about 72. It was William's father, James D., who died at 77.

The lot at 4th and Commodore where William died, is now vacant. Bruce Stockton visited Pratt and reported that the outline of a barn foundation is still visible at that location.

16. Copy of marriage certificate.

17. Copy of complaint and decree. The complaint asserts that they separated prior to 1907. I have no further information on William's activities until his death.

18. Kansas was in turmoil over whether the upcoming election on the constitution of the new state would permit slavery or prohibit it. Eastern Kansas in the late 1850's was flooded with violent partisans attempting to influence this election. Presumably many of them joined one of the armies once the Civil War started. A search of the records in the National Archives produced only one James Coates in all of the Kansas regiments, the 6th Kansas Cavalry. (I didn't check Nebraska units.) He was much too young and born in Pennsylvania. There were a number of Jameses on the other side but they were all in eastern units. The only J.D. Coates I could find in the entire Army of the Confederate States enlisted in the Arkansas Cavalry at Clarksville as First Sergeant of Co. D, Carroll's Cavalry Regiment, and was later promoted to lieutenant after some adventures. Clarksville is on the Arkansas River, a couple of hundred miles from Maryville. Missouri had many Rebel units that would have been more convenient for a Kansan to join. If James moved his young family into the dangers of Kansas in pursuit of a principle, it's not clear which side he was on or whether he later joined the army to carry on the fight. More likely he was there to develop a freighting business and spent the War years away from home as a freighting contractor for one of the armies or on long trips to the west, probably the Denver area.

19. U.S. Census of 1870, 1880 and 1900; birth year also confirmed by mother's divorce petition. No one with his name, birthdate and birthplace appears in the indexes to the 1920 and 1930 censuses.

20. I have nothing but the census record to show where the family was at the time Joseph was born. Nothing else, such as a property deed, places them in Missouri or anywhere else in the mid-1860s, but it isn't impossible; the state line was only 100 miles from Marysville, at the town of St. Joseph. They did move around. On the probate of James’s estate, Joseph is listed as "Joseph Coates, now Coop," but on the sale of the farm he inherited from his mother, he's again plain Joseph Coates. Joseph was in his late thirties at the time. Coop is an unusual name. Nineteen telephones are listed under the name Coop in Kansas, and five of them are in the Osborne area. By contrast, there are 79 under Coates, none in the Osborne area. Unfortunately, authorities on the Kansas Coops have no record of Margaret or Joseph. Nebraska has around about a dozen telephones listed with that name, so that would be a good place to look next. Perhaps Joseph was impressed by his in-laws.

21. Elizabeth Coates, will. She signed with an X. The U.S. Census of Osborne County for 1900 (Vol. 39, Sheet 4, Enumeration District 101, Line 63) shows Elizabeth and Joseph in a household with Robert Armstrong, "nephew," born in December, 1883 in Kansas, mother born in Iowa, father's birthplace unspecified. Note that the 1880 census of Marshall County included a boarder named George Armstrong, single, aged 25, born in Pennsylvania. Presumably Elizabeth knew Margaret was alive when she signed her will on June 16, 1896. Margaret might have died after that, with or without the knowledge of her mother. She is not in the 1910 Soundex index to the census, which provides for many variations on her surname. There does not appear to be any provision for variations in her given name, such as Margaretta, etc.

22. These documents are in the National Archives warehouse in Suitland, MD.

23. U.S. Census of 1880 for Franklin precinct, Franklin Co., Nebraska, Sheet 3, Enumeration District 39.

24. For details about William's occupation and the family's return to Kansas and later move back to New Mexico, I relied on Alvin Stockton's recollections, supported by courthouse records showing William's purchase of his birthplace in Marysville in 1900. The symptoms of tuberculosis Elinor exhibited were likely contagious and this may explain how her son William contracted the disease and it also makes me think that Carl could have had it, too. Elinor also suffered from kidney disease which caused acute discomfort and which could have affected her personality. It probably hastened her death, too. She was in poor health much of her life.

25. Dallas City Directories. At first they lived at 811-1/2 East Eighth, near Ewing, but in a later edition of the book they were at 809. They probably arrived in Dallas in early 1924 and left in 1926 or early 1927 after the directory went to press; they appeared in the 1925, 1926 and 1927 editions.

26. Courthouse records, Lane County. The Franklin County seat is Ottawa. The Ottawa City Directory for 1910 contains listings for people named both Long and Coates, according to the index posted on the website of the Franklin County Historical Society.

27. Joseph does not appear in the index to the 1920 Federal census anywhere as born in 1865. There is no one named Coates in the 1920 census of Franklin County, Kansas and he isn't in the indexes of probated wills or cemeteries for Franklin County, either. Apparently he died somewhere else. In searching for Joseph Coateses born in Missouri in the 1860s, I did find one in the 1920 census of Sioux City, Iowa, born in 1869, and one in 1930 in Big Spring, Texas, born in 1863.

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