Oldest vet in cemetery given gravestone

DAVE MOSIER/independent editor

Two simple questions. However, the answers they elicited have now resulted in a grave marker for the oldest military veteran buried in Van Wert’s Woodland Cemetery.

Van Wert City Councilman Bill Marshall, who is also a member of the Van Wert County Veterans Service Commission, said he was curious as to who was the oldest veteran buried in the cemetery and asked cemetery caretaker Dave Schulte if he knew.

“He immediately answered ‘James Coe’,” Marshall said, adding that, when he asked if he could see Coe’s gravestone, the answer also quickly came back: “He doesn’t have one.”

Coe’s story is an interesting one, to say the least. The man, who was born (no lie) on July 4, 1776, in Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania, was a veteran of the War of 1812 who spent some time as a prisoner of war following the unsuccessful American attempt to invade Canada.

Coe, who lived to the age of 109, nearly didn’t have a long life at all. His father and a brother were killed in an Indian massacre in Wyoming, Pennsylvania, when he was still very young, but he survived with his mother, who fled with him into the mountains around the village and later returned when the Indians had gone.

Marshall said Coe lived in the village until he was 16, when he left to become a sailor for 14 years. His obituary noted that he “visited every portion of the globe” during that time.

After leaving the sea, Coe went to New York and later enlisted in the U.S. Army at the start of the War of 1812. He was part of an expedition into Canada led by Major General Stephen Van Rensselaer III, later the founder of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and one of the richest men in America at the time, but was captured during the Battle of Queenston Heights on October 13, 1812. He was later exchanged and served during the Battle of Little York on April 27, 1813, and the Battle of Fort George on May 27, 1813, where he received a saber wound in the leg. Coe remained in the army until he was mustered out on February 9, 1815.

After leaving the army, Coe returned to Pennsylvania, where he met and fell in love with Permilla Gibbs. The couple was married in Bradford County, Pennsylvania, on February 15, 1824, and were husband and wife for 63 years until his death on November 19, 1885.

The couple first came to Ohio in 1836 when they moved to the Ohio village of Baltimore. They moved to Van Wert County in 1850 when Coe received a veteran’s land grant of 160 acres in Union Township. He later sold that farm and bought one in Hoaglin Township in 1864 and lived there with his wife until his death. The couple had five children: three daughters and two sons.

Marshall said he learned that Coe was a hardy individual and used to walk from his farm in Hoaglin Township to Van Wert each month to pick up his veteran’s pension of $8.

According to his obituary, which was written by one of his daughters, Coe was “honest, honorable, and upright in all of his dealings” and “a close student and deep reader of the Scriptures”.

Marshall said he was impressed with Coe’s life and accomplishments, but was also sad to learn his gravesite was without a headstone and thought maybe the Veterans Service Office could do something about that.

He talked to Veterans Service Officer Barry Johns about the possibility of the Veterans Administration providing a headstone for Coe’s gravesite. Johns did some checking and the result was a granite headstone recently installed at Coe’s grave.

At 11 a.m. this Saturday, a special memorial ceremony will be held at Coe’s gravesite to honor the cemetery’s oldest veteran. Marshall said he was hoping to get some re-enactors in War of 1812 uniforms, but said he wasn’t sure yet whether that will be possible.