text:
A Few Genealogical Notes
by Sarah Coger
a compilation and roughly chronological arrangement of Historical Documents,
Family Stories, Legends, Myths, and possibly some Outright Lies, concerning the
travels and development of that branch of the family named Koger, Coger, or
Cogar, which left Auggen, Germany, about 1730, for America, and which migrated
through Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Kansas, to settle in Northwest Arkansas in
the years immediately following the War Between the States.
Arranged, from several
sources, by
Steve and Sarah Coger
September 1994, November 1997
PLEASE NOTE: These 'notes' are an ongoing work, and subject to additions, deletions, and corrections.
If the reader sees any errors, or the need for any corrections or annotations at all, of any kind, please contact the compiler at the address given below.
If any reader has any family information at all that could be added to the notes, please contact me.
If any reader has any material or information that could clear up any of the questions presented in the "Questions and Controversies" section, please contact me.
The reader who wishes to use any part of the document, written by this compiler, in any way, in a family history that will be freely shared with other researchers, is granted that right without exception.
No rights are granted to anyone wishing to sell parts of the family history, at any price. However, those individual letters from other persons and specific Koger documents quoted herein are still the property of the authors quoted, and those authors should be contacted for those rights.
Steve Coger
P. O. Box 64
Danville, Arkansas 72833-0064
Table of
To The First Edition...............................................................................................
Preface To The Second Edition...........................................................................................
Preface to One Family's Eyewitness to America..................................................................
A Summary Of The Generations.........................................................................................
The Coger Family: A Summary...........................................................................................
Questions And Controversies..............................................................................................
Claus Koger.......................................................................................................................
Dietrich Koger...................................................................................................................
Claus Koger.......................................................................................................................
Joss Koger.........................................................................................................................
The Generation Of The Emigrants.......................................................................................
Jacob Koger......................................................................................................................
Peter Coger.......................................................................................................................
William Coger....................................................................................................................
John Coger........................................................................................................................
Andrew Jackson Coger......................................................................................................
Asa Coger.........................................................................................................................
information contained herein was gathered from several sources: Marvin V. Koger of Knoxville, Tennessee, and
Julia Parks America Hill's History of Henry County, Virginia, were the major
sources for the information on Jacob Koger; letters written by Peter Coger,
kept on file in the National Archives, provided the information on his
generation; all information on land grants and other public records on Peter
and William Coger was provided by James Brooks Koger of Miami, Florida: family
records kept by Miss Lillie Squires, great-granddaughter of John and Sarah
Coger, provided much of the information on William, John, and Asa Coger and
their families; a narrative written by Inez Coger Hinds provided much
information on John, Asa, and Damon Coger;
information provided by Miss Emma Cogar of Seminole, Florida, Paul C.
Koger of Salt Lake City, Utah, and the Genealogical Records Society of the
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints helped greatly in tying together
loose ends.
addition, the 1993 revision of this work contains much of a 1989 paper written
by Sarah Coger, oldest child of the original compiler, concerning the service
of the various generations in the wars in which the developing nation
document is an ongoing work, and any other pertinent information uncovered in
the future will be sent as it becomes available.
1974/January 1993
a literal point of view, any attempt to write a biography of a human being, or
of a human family, is, from the start, doomed to failure. Every human is so diverse, so variable, so
inconstant in nature, that any written summarization of his life must be
inherently inadequate. In life, there
is no one whose story can be abstracted in four pages, or forty pages, or four
hundred pages.
is fairly safe to assume that every man and woman named in these notes was, at
times, good, and kind, and conscientious.
The same individual, at other times, being human, may have had moments
of intense selfishness and spite. All
named here had moments when they took pleasure in and gave thanks for a
beautiful sunset, or a soft rain, or fragrant spring flowers. They all, too, had moments when they spoke
harshly to a friend, when they cursed an enemy, when they thought themselves
too busy to stop to tell their children that they loved them, when they let the
cares and fears of the day overcome the joys that they should have held to be
more important, and more lasting. All
had moments when they hurried too much, neglecting to slow down enough to take
delight in their blessings, until at last they discovered that it was too late,
that suddenly those wondrous blessings were lost and gone forever. All, at times, knew fear; fear of an
unexpected noise in the night; fear of a threatening storm in tornado season;
fear for a child, late in getting home; fear of wars and rumors of wars; all
our ancestors knew great and small fears, every day of their lives. All of them knew the despair of losing loved
ones to disease, disaster, and death.
All of them, intimately or distantly, knew war. All of them knew love, and raised children. Some were wealthy, though most had to work
from day to day to survive. Some had
indoor plumbing, though most were well familiar with cool walks in the
moonlight. Some could read and write,
though most, back through the centuries, could not.
short, no one of our ancestors was absolutely perfect, and no one was
absolutely imperfect. No one was all
good, and no one all bad. All of them
were just people, not so much different from people today. If we could be given the chance and the time
to meet them, to know them at an age between the immature folly of youth and
the hardened gruffness of age, to get to know their joys and fears, their
despairs and delights, I feel that we would care deeply for them, as lost
parents, as found friends.
a very real sense, this is the ultimate wish of the family genealogist: to know his ancestors as friends, to speak
with them, to learn from them, to show them that the family, perhaps, turned
out all right, and, in addition, to let them know that we have not forgotten.
Danville, Arkansas
April 1980
Preface To One Family's Eyewitness To America
Sarah Coger
isn't surprising, in Arkansas, to find families with a history in this country
going back over two hundred years. Many
native Arkansas families are the descendants of pioneers who came to this state
before it became a state, or even a territory.
is even more surprising, to me, is that so few people are interested in knowing
about their history. In a country with
such complete historical records, reaching back long before 1776, and with
libraries in every county which contain so much information about history, it
seems odd that so few people want to know what their ancestors, even what their
grandparents and parents, did with their lives.
families combine to make a child. This
means four grand-parent families, eight great-grand-parent families, sixteen
great-great-grandparent families, and so on.
A family which had been in this country for two hundred years might
involve as many as two hundred and fifty six different family names. With such a wealth of human time and
experience in the background, practically any family who had been in this
country for some time would have some history involving the development of the
country itself.
family came to America in 1728, from the wine-making village of Auggen, in the
Southwest Germany. According to family
tradition they were trying to escape civil troubles resulting from growth of
the group called the Huguenots.
that time members of my family have served in Indian Wars before the
revolution, the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, the Civil War, and the
Second World War.
family's history has been traced back as far as the year 1572, with the birth
of Claus Koger, who was Vogt, or Magistrate, of a village called Weil am Rhine,
in Southwest Germany, near, and sometimes within, the French border.
son Dietrich Koger, born in 1608, moved to the village of Auggen where he was
Vogt, too.
son, also named Claus Koger, born in 1637, in Auggen, and raised six
son, Josias Koger, born in 1674, was the father of the generation of emigrants
who first came to America, including his sons Jacob Coger, born in 1710, and
Nicholaus, who fought Indians on the new continent and made a home in America.
son, Peter Coger, born in 1753, served at Point Pleasant, and fought in the
battles of Vincennes and Yorktown.
son William Coger, born in 1782, served in the War of 1812.
son John Coger, born in 1804, was the father of a family split by the Civil
War, including ten sons, several of whom, including Asa Coger, born in 1829,
fought at Gettysburg, and served as prisoners of war.
son Damon Coger, born in 1865, was the father of Max Coger, born in 1905, who
served in the South Pacific campaign during World War Two, and who was my
Paper is intended to serve as a review of the efforts of the members of one
American family, my family, in the creation and growth of one country, my
country, America.
(to One Family's Eyewitness
to History)
Delury, George E., WORLD ALMANAC BOOK OF THE STRANGE # 2, New American Library, 1978.
"Gettysburg," FUNK AND WAGNALLS NEW ENCYCLOPEDIA,
New York, Funk and Wagnalls, Inc., Vol. 11.
"Guadalcanal," FUNK AND WAGNALLS NEW ENCYCLOPEDIA,
New York, Funk and Wagnalls, Inc., Vol. 12.
Koger, James B., "KOGERS; THE HISTORY OF THE FAMILY
OF JACOB KOGER, Miami, Florida, Privately Published, 1976.
Lancaster, Bruce and J.H. Plumb, THE AMERICAN
HERITAGE BOOK OF THE REVOLUTION, New York, Dell Publishing Co., 1958.
Nevins, Allan and Henry Steele Commager, THE POCKET
HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES, New York,
Pocket Books, Inc., 1943.
Wallechinsky, David and Irving Wallace, THE PEOPLE'S
ALMANAC, Garden City, New York, Doubleday
and Company, 1975.
Wallechinsky, David and Irving Wallace, THE PEOPLE'S
ALMANAC #2, New York, Bantam Books,
Inc., 1978.
"War of 1812," FUNK AND WAGNALLS NEW ENCYCLOPEDIA,
New York, Funk and Wagnalls, Inc., Vol. 24.
"Yorktown," FUNK AND WAGNALLS ENCYCLOPEDIA, New
York, Funk and Wagnalls, Inc., Vol. 25.
Note: Although Sarah Coger's paper was extensively footnoted
and thoroughly annotated, those footnotes have no value in this "Coger Family:
A Few Genealogical Notes" and have been deleted.
The reader should not assume that the lack of footnotes in
this work imply plagiarism in the original research paper, which had all quotes
and references completely cited and acknowledged.
A Summary
such a relatively small family, the Cogers are blessed with an abundance of
family historians. Any Coger family
member, newly interested in his genealogy, will invariably be surprised and
pleased by the large number of researchers who have preceded him, and by the
wealth of historical material which they have already uncovered.
this time, the recorded history of the family can be traced, with some
accuracy, to Weil am Rhine, in Southwest Germany, in the last third of the
Sixteenth Century.
Koger was born in that region of Southwest Germany in about 1572, and served as
Vogt, or Magistrate, in that village.
Koger, Claus Koger's son, was born in 1608, and moved, during his youth, to
Auggen, Germany, where he, too, served as Vogt.
Koger, son of Dietrich, was born in 1637 at Auggen, and there raised his family
of six children.
Koger was born in Auggen in 1674, and was the last generation of our ancestors
to live, and die, in Auggen.
Koger and Nicholaus Koger, sons of Joss, came to America between 1728 and 1732,
landing in Philadelphia, and living for a while in Pennsylvania before moving
on into Virginia to settle and raise their families.
Coger was born about 1753, and was raised in Rockingham County, Virginia. He served as a soldier in the Revolution,
and his story is preserved in three letters which he dictated, late in his
life, to obtain a government pension for his service.
Coger was born about 1782, eldest son of Peter Coger. He was raised in what is
now West Virginia. Family records state
that he married Elizabeth Kingerly (Kingary), and that they raised eight
Coger was born in 1804, and lived in Franklin, Braxton, and Webster Counties,
Western Virginia. He married a local
girl named Sarah Sands, and they raised a large family. After the Civil War, he and his wife Sarah
Jane Sands Coger, and several of his sons and their families, moved away from
Virginia forever, moving first to Kansas, and later to Arkansas.
Jackson Coger, son of John and Sarah Coger, was born in 1834. He served as Quarter Sergeant in the
Confederate Army. After the Civil War,
his parents and several of his brothers and their families, moved first to
Kansas, and later to Northwest Arkansas. Andrew Jackson Coger died in 1906.
Franklin Cogar, son of Andrew Jackson and Tobitha Jane, was born in Braxton
County, West Virginia, in 1877. He married, and they were the parents of
Frankin Cogar was born in Braxton County, West Virginia, in 1910 and died in
1991. He was a railroader. He married Flora Ethel Turner (1913-1997) of
Exchange, West Virginia. He had four sons, Herbert (1930), Richard (1934), Demi
Dale (1937), Francis (1941), and one daughter, Eunice (1935-1974).
Family Crest
The Shield of the Koger family "Coat
of Arms" or "Code of Identification" is at an angle and it is a reddish yellow
or golden in color.
The Charges are in silver and are three
in number. They are blades, or that
portion of the plow that turns the earth, and they point downward. They are staggered in the shield. They are called "Kogs". It is from this that the family name has
originated. They also indicate that the
Kogers of generations ago were mainly farmers or tillers of the soil by
The Helmet is steel gray and is lined
with a blue green border and it is topped with crimson. It rests on the extreme upper right hand
corner of the shield.
The Wreath is
four in number and is an alternation of gold and blue.
The Crest
itself is two "Kogs" or blades as in the arms, one on top of the other, one
facing downward and the other inverted and pointing upward.
The Wantling is
a variation of purple and dark blue.
The Ribbon
bears no motto and changes with its folds from a dark to a light blue.
The Name Koger
appears below the ribbon and shows no change or variation in the spelling of
the name, from its origin to the present generation.
The Coat of Arms is German it its conception. It has been documented and recorded in
several books on German heraldry. It
has now been handed down in the family for many generations.
It had more usage in previous times in Germany than it
does in America. It was displayed by
the family on their farm gates and over the doors of their home to identify the
fact that Kogers lived there. Thus the
term Code of Identification.
Koger/Coger/Cogar family is blessed in many ways, not the least of which is the
relative abundance of family historians.
every branch of the family has one or more of its own chroniclers eagerly
searching out the details of that branch's specific history.
fact, combined with the relative rarity of the Coger family name, compared,
say, to more widespread names such as Smith, Brown, or Jones, has been a major
benefit to tracing the twists and turns of the family since it came to this
the family history is not completely without argument or controversy. Several factors, including contradictory
oral traditions from different branches of the family, combined with the loss
of many early records during the Civil War, create questions and controversies
within the research.
major questions trouble Coger and Cogar researchers in this branch of the
The Identity of the Patriarch: Jacob or Nicholaus
most important question concerns which of the Koger brother immigrants, Hans
Jacob Koger or his brother Hans Nicholaus Koger, is the patriarch of most of
the West Virginia and Arkansas Cogers/Cogars.
Hans Nicholaus
branch of the Cogar clan in Virginia and West Virginia states that without
question we descend from Hans Nicholas Koger, who was killed by Indians as he
was building a log house on the "Lower Page Bottoms," in Orange County,
Virginia, in the mid-Eighteenth Century, leaving several orphan children to be
raised by others.
to this view, Hans Nicholas Koger had six children, of which the youngest was
our ancestor Peter. After the death of Nicholaus, according to this idea, these
children were raised by a man named Godfrey Hambleton (or Hamilton). Peter then served in the Revolutionary War,
and later had children who led directly to the West Virginia family.
theory also cites as further proof of our descent from Hans Nicholaus family
tradition that:
great-great-grandfather Jacob Coger told his family that his grandmother
Coger's (Peter Coger's mother's) name was Elizabeth, and that he named Aunt
Elizabeth (his daughter) for her. My great-grandfather recorded the family data
and it was given to me."
would seem to indicate that Peter Coger, the Revolutionary War veteran, was the
son of Hans Nicholaus and Elizabeth Wilheut Koger, rather than Hans Jacob Koger
and Lucinda Crum.
Hans Jacob
many other Cogar and Koger family researchers, including James B. Koger, Okey
Cogar, Louise and Karl Koger, and others, question how Nicholaus could possibly
have fathered Peter when Nicholaus died in 1743 and Peter was not born, by his
own statement, until 1753.
the Church Book of John Casper Stoever, of the "Codorus Creek Church," are
listed the births of the children of Jacob Koger's brother Nicholaus, Called
Hans Nicholaus in the book:
John (Hans)
Koger b. September 3,
Elizabeth Koger b.
December 2, 1728
John Michael
Koger b. March 10, 1740
John Jacob
Koger b. September 4,
Catharina Koger b. May 17, 1743
is no listing for a son named Peter Koger.
The supporters of the Hans Nicholaus theory agree with this list of five
children, but also adds the name of Peter, listing his birth date as 1753. This presents other researchers with a
problem, because the records, as stated above, clearly state that Hans
Nicholaus was killed ten years before, in 1743.
show that Hans Jacob Koger and his brother-in-law Adam Miller were appointed as
guardians of Michael Koger, son of Hans Nicholaus Koger, following Nicholaus'
death. In 1753, Jacob Koger made a
report to the Court of Orange County stating that he had traveled twice to
Pennsylvania since his brother's death to settle the estate. He also states
that he had paid to the widow, Mrs. Elizabeth Koger, her part of her husband's
estate, "that being her dower." On the
same day, he entered into an agreement with a Thomas Macredie to pay b. 59.12.3
by June 1, 1754, to the orphans of Nicholas Koger as their part of their
father's estate.
to the late Okey Cogar of Morgantown, West Virginia, West Virginia University
professor and Cogar family historian, it took Jacob this ten year period just
to settle the estate. The records then
appear to indicate that, for reasons not fully understood today, Michael and
the other children of Nicholaus began to spell their name Cowger. Nicholaus' daughter Catharina Koger/Coger/
Cowger is possibly the one listed in the wills of Godfrey Hamilton, shown in
the following section on William Coger, Jacob's grandson.
a letter dated April 1, 1980, Okey Cogar wrote in a letter to Steve Coger:
"I might interject some of my findings and
thoughts at this point. There is a county in the South Branch Valley of West
Virginia which has many Cowgers. This county is Pendleton, once part of Augusta
County, Virginia.
"The first Cowger of record in the county was John. Then there
was a Jacob and a George Cowger. I have land grants that were granted to John
and Jacob Coger but this land later was owned by John and Jacob Cowger.
"I never could locate a Michael Cowger of this generation in
Pendleton County, but George was very prominent and acquired a lot of property.
George was married to Hanna Haas, spinster daughter of Peter Haas, a famous
Indian fighter in west Virginia history.
"Peter gave George and Hanna some property in Augusta, later
Pendleton, County. They later sold this property and the deed was drawn in the
name of George Couger or George Cowger but when they appeared before the Court
in Staunton the clerk of the court validated the deed as follows—`Before the
Honorable Court this day did appear Michael Coger and his wife Hanna who
declare the above to be their work...' signed by the clerk and members of the
"So regardless of what George Cowger called himself the court
knew him by his true name. They had made him a ward of Adam Miller in 1755.
"In my honest opinion based on 25 years of research, the above
is the story of the sons of Nicholaus Koger. They were orphaned and Jacob had
named his children in the same manner and there had to be some way to
differentiate between them."
"(Many of these) documents are missing as Rockingham records
were burned during the Civil War. Damn Yankees."
The Father of John: William or Peter
group supporting Hans Nicholaus also argues that the father of our ancestor
John Coger who was born about 1804 in Braxton County, Virginia, was not William
Coger the War of 1812 veteran, as stated clearly in the family records of
Lillie Squires, of Gem, West Virginia, but was in fact Peter Coger, the
Revolutionary War veteran. The source
for this idea is unknown.
several letters to Arlis and Steve Coger in the 1970's, Miss Lillie Squires,
the great-granddaughter of John Coger states:
"...Our mother talked a lot about her folks.
She had a good memory. I looked in my scrap box, I found some clippings you
might be interested in. I found where I had wrote names of my mother's five
"I had said to her tell me back as far as you can. Grandpa John
(John Milton Coger, Asa's brother) Coger's father's name was John Coger—his
wife was Sarah Jane Sands. His father was William Coger—and the same people
would be Asa Coger's parents and grandparents.
"I will send you Uncle Jackson and Grandpa's obituaries. They
are brothers of (your) Asa Coger that went west.
"My sister says she remembers Cell, Neal, and Asa went
West. She thought there was a Coger
woman that married a John Edwards. Eliza Coger, wife of J. N. Coger, this would
be Newt Coger, he might be a nephew or a brother (Newt was Jackson Newton
Coger, son of James and Grandson of John-DSC).
"Mattie my sister will soon be 89, she said Cell Coger was the
one she thought left with Luther Skinner. One of the Cogers that went west
married Asa Stump's sister (This was Marcellus-DSC). He went to visit them
"...I think Grandpa's old generations are from Webster County,
West Virginia. He went back there a
lot. He did like to hunt."
Braxton County
Sampson Newton Miller, a teacher who
married into the Cogar family, wrote:
"William Coger married Betty Kingary,
September 18, 1804, and moved to what is now Webster Springs (in Webster
County, West Virginia). He lived there a short time and moved to Hacker Valley where
he reared a large family of sons and daughters. His sons were John, who lived
in Braxton several years and then moved to the state of Kansas in 1864, Tobias,
William C., Benjamin, Tunis..."
Newton Miller
family tradition is quoted by Inez Coger, grand-daughter of Asa, who tells that
our first Coger ancestor to immigrate here was Jacques Cogare, a Huguenot. The
phonetic similarity of Jacques to Jacob, pronounced Yockob, might be considered
by some to be telling evidence, having survived as a family tradition for two
one part of the family puts forth the opinion that the descent is this:
CLAUS KOGER begat
DIETRICH KOGER begat
CLAUS KOGER begat
NICHOLAUS KOGER begat
PETER COGER begat
COGER begat
COGER begat
COGAR begat
opinion of this author, Stephan Coger, and of many others of the Coger, Cogar,
and Koger families at this time and based on the information available is this:
KOGER begat
DIETRICH KOGER begat
CLAUS KOGER begat
JACOB KOGER begat
COGER begat
COGER begat
COGER begat
COGER begat
COGAR begat
notes, in the absence at this time of documentation to validate the first
version of the lineage, will follow the second one listed above, which at this
time appears to be more thoroughly researched and logical.
is very frustrating to a genealogist to have such unsolved questions, in a very
real sense, it is the single most frustrating and heartbreaking aspect of any
genealogists life search.
is of the greatest importance to all researchers, to get the ancestry right,
not just to be correct, but because it seems to anyone who honors and reveres
his family that it is of a deep and transcendent and spiritual value to honor
the right people, whose lives led to our lives, and not to dishonor any of
these, by inadvertent neglect or forgetting.
honor and revere all of these, and pray for a time when research will tell us
the full truth of our ancestry.
The Known
German Generations
in the state of Baden, in southwest Germany, is a small village in the
foothills of the Black Forest, ten miles east of the Rhine River. It is about twenty-five miles north of
Basel, Switzerland, and thirty-five miles south of Freiburg, Germany. The earliest written records of the Koger/Coger
family are found here. The family
played a prominent part in the early recorded history of this area in the
Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries.
to Coger family tradition, as written down by Inez Coger Hinds in a family
history she wrote about thirty years ago,
"the first Cogers to land in America
migrated here from France in the Huguenot migration. The name of this first
ancestor, according to this legend, was Jacques Cogare."
was almost right. The first Coger to
immigrate here was Jacob, pronounced Yockob (phonetically similar, after two
hundred years, to Jacques) Koger, and he came from a part of Southwest Germany
which was from time to time claimed as French territory.
regard to the Huguenot story, we simply do not know. The Huguenots were a French Protestant religious group, during
the 1500's and the 1600's, influenced by the beliefs of John Calvin.
Huguenots were hated by the Roman Catholics, which included the Royal Court of
France and most of the French people.
The Huguenots were the subject of many years of persecution, and several
terrible massacres, including the "St. Bartholemew's Day Massacre" of August
24, 1572. After two centuries of
persecution, the Edict of Nantes, which had conferred on the Huguenots freedom
of religion and admission to public offices in 1598, was revoked by Louis XIV,
and over one hundred thousand Huguenots were driven from their homeland.
earliest historical homeland of the Koger family though, was at this time across
the river Rhine, ten miles into Germany from the French border. We do not know whether the Huguenot troubles
affected our ancestors' decision, in 1728, to leave Germany forever.
Koger was born about 1572, probably in the village of Weil am Rhine. Little information has survived from his
generation. Extant records show that he
married a Dorothy Jager, daughter of Dietrich Jager, Vogt at Bintzen. Though we do not know the names of all of
his children, we do know that his son Dietrich was born at Weil am Rhine on
Shrove Tuesday, in 1608. We also know
that Claus Koger served as Vogt, a title analogous to Bailiff or Magistrate, of
Weil am Rhine, and that he died there in an accident at the age of 58.
According to the Old Koger Family
Book at Auggen, in an entry on page 39,
"Claus Koger,
formerly Bailiff at Weyl,
drowned in the
Meadows near Riehen,
58 years old."
Koger, son of Claus and Dorothy Jager Koger, moved from Weil am Rhine to Auggen
in 1629, and married Maria Leininger on August 24 of that year. Maria's father, Hans Leininger, had served
as Vogt, of Auggen from 1624 to 1629.
Dietrich and Maria had 6 children. Claus, named after his grandfather,
was their third child, and was born in 1637.
Maria, according to the records, died "in childbed", on April 30, 1643,
and Dietrich married again, to Anna Hagin, daughter of the Vogt of Tannenkirch,
George Hagin. According to the new
church book of the Parish Auggen, their "wedding dinner was held in Basel,
because there was not enough safety in the country".
Koger became Vogt of Auggen in 1629, and served for many years. The book "Der Weinort Auggen" (The
Winevillage Auggen) contains numerous references to Dietrich Koger, which are
shown below, by the page number on which the statements are found.
A continual supply of livestock could only be requisitioned gradually.
Better established farmers, like Lenininger, Koger, Kuttler, and Klugermann, appeared
to have possessed, with the aid of relatives in nearby Switzerland, supplies
for emergency times where they could keep livestock besides corn, wine, and the
The new magistrate in 1629 was the former Sergeant-at-arms, Dietrich
Koger, a married son of a magistrate from Weil. He was an energetic man who
began with an experienced hand to organize the greatly disrupted village
The driving forces in rebuilding the village were the Magistrate
Dietrich Koger and the Pastor Jeremias Gmelin. Dietrich Koger had grown up as
the son of the Magistrate in Weil, in the hard school of the times.
One episode should be mentioned which took place in our village in 1798
and must be seen as a symptom of that politically restless time: in the village
some men were supposed to be taken to prison in Lorrach for poaching.
Emissaries of the French revolutionary government used this to incite the
residents against their Margrave who was at the time staying in Badenweiler. In
the night before the telling of the poachers, the concerned persons and the
dissatisfied militant persons of the place, with the Magistrate Dietrich Koger
in the lead, assembled before the village hall, in order to go to Badenweiler
with weapons in their hands, as they said, to speak with the Margrave.
We learn on thing, that on September 15th of that year, a high official
came unannounced to Auggen and removed the Magistrate Koger, the
Sergeant-at-arms Kittler, and the entire village Court from their offices, and
replaced them with new officials.
While Neff was spouting a revolutionary tirade, Paul Moriz took Jacob
Vohl's weapon from the wall with the intention of shooting Neff. Vohl's wife,
who was a Koger before she married Vohl, could not restrain herself from saying
some strong words so that Moriz threatened to shoot her. Had Dr. Elsasser not
intervened, the results might have been disastrous.
104. Only from the mid-Seventeenth
Century did the Magistrate affix a seal with his very own crest. Dietrich Koger
was the first to do so. His seal we see in his epitaph on the west Cemetery
Wall which shows the beginning of our village coat of arms: plough and
112. The keeping of animals in
alternating stalls was disadvantageous for animal maintenance; from a report by
Magistrate Koger it was prevalent that young bulls had to be slaughtered
because of disease, quite frequently.
26. Around 1650, the Auggener Vogt
Dietrich Koger had on lease with Gutaner Meierhof some real estate. Since he used the Gutnauer field and the woodlands of the upper and lower part of
the timber slide, Neuenburg was afraid that Koger could absorb this real estate
for Auggen, so sought legal action to prevent Koger's control. Finally, when
the Auggen shepherds again grazed their animals in the Rhine Valley, Neuenburg
returned to his former Austrian central government in Ensisheim. Auggen asserted that the Margrave government
likewise fitted in. Neuenburg depended
on his royal privilege. The matter was
brought to the attention of the Royal Notary, Dietschin, where it was
thoroughly discussed. However, they
were unable to come to any agreement.
154. #30 Braurtsmatten: For a long time it was government property
and in the 17th Century it was managed as a holding by Magistrate Koger. A part of this property is found today under
the designation "Roggenbacher Schlag"
in the possession of the firm Krafft.
159. Koger emigrated from Weil in
1629. (Dietrich)
196. In a large village fire in
October 1727 the "Renkenhof" was a victim of the flames. It was not
rebuilt. The feudal tenants at that
time, the Magistrate Joss Muser and Martin Koger (a son of Dietrich Koger) used
the location for a succession of house gardens, but soon were sold.
2201. When the Meierhof was destroyed
in 1675, the property held in fee went to the Auggener families; Koger,
Kuttler, Lenininger, and Muser. In the
last centuries before the secularization were given to the St. Blasisch Diocese
of Krozingen yearly a total of 15 measures (150 liters) of rye, 6 measures of
oats, and 4 measures of barley. After
the Secularization the sale of good of 242 Jucharten resulted through Christian
Lenininger and Jos and Johann Kroger between 1825 and 1843.
244. Lowen the "Lion" was named in
1641. The Innkeeper of the Lowen was the
butcher Joss Kuttler, a grandson of the important Magistrate Kuttler. The business, butcher shop, and inn were run
by Kuttler as predecessor of the present Dreher-Hoflin House. The concession to
the above was bestowed for the last time in 1701. When Kuttler died in 1678, his son Joss inherited the business
with the Inn. Kuttler's wife was
Elizabeth Kurz. After Joss Kuttler's
death she married in 1713 the butcher Martin Koger, a son of the Magistrate
Dietrich Koger. Their business was
severely damaged by a fire in 1727, but was soon rebuilt. In 1762 the property went to Martin Koger's
son who was likewise a butcher. Because
in the meantime several Inns appeared in the village, their Inn (Koger's) went
out of business. Then Koger ran only a
butcher's shop.
253. Among the butchers, we meet
three generations of Kogers. One of
them had learned the profession and
the French language in Lausanne, which was advantageous in the frequent
"visits" of the French troops.
254. In 1710 Jos Koger was named Cooper.
257. A smith, Martin Koger, from 1802
carried on his business in the present Reinhard Zollinschen house behind the
"Rebstock" (vine).
to the Auggen Church-book, "Dietrich Koger, the old Magistrate of Auggen, 80
years and nine months old, pretty weak but still getting around on his own,
being of sound mind, able to get out of bed on his own, died peacefully on the
morning of November 27, 1688. Recorded
down on Christmas by the Pastor, in his Ministry for 37 years on that day. Jerimia"
Memorial Epitaph on the wall in the cemetery at Auggen reads as follows:
Koger, son of Dietrich, married Maria Kuttler, daughter of Jose Kuttler (who is
described in the records as butcher, inn-keeper, and Orphan-judge in Auggen),
on November 20, 1665. Maria, who had
been born on Mayday of 1646, was nineteen.
and Maria had six children; Dietrich and Joss, twins, born November 8, 1666;
Maria, born July 17, 1669; Claus, born August 9, 1671; Joss, born August 8,
1674, and named after his brother who had died an infant on May 18, 1667; and
Christoph, born December 10, 1678.
brief entry on page 41 of the Old Koger Family Book at Auggen states about
Claus Koger;
"Born at Eastern (sic) 1637,
was butcher, married 20 November 1665 Maria Kuttlerin at Auggen and had six
children with her, he died, falling from nut tree, 14 September 1679."
this, we learn both his occupation, butcher, and his manner of death, in a fall
from a tree, at the age of 42.
Koger, his father, outlived him, dying nine years later, on November 27, 1688.
"In 1710, Jos
Koger was named Cooper."
entry, found on page 254 of the book "Der Weinort Auggen", a written history of
Auggen, published by the Borough of Auggen, indicates for us the importance
that was placed on the "Cooper", the wine cast maker, by the elders of that
wine-making village.
Jos. Koger, the Cooper, or wine-barrel maker (an important position in a
wine-making village like Auggen) represented the last of our Koger ancestors to
be live his life in his German homeland.
name Jos, in other entries written Joss, is believed by many genealogists to be
a contraction of the name Josias, which was popular at that time in that region
of Germany, although Joss is also a popular German name, and one of his sons
took the name Joseph in this country.
records exist from that time which will mention a man at one time as Jos or
Joss, and at another as Josias. As the
existing records mention our ancestor as Jos or Joss, these notes will use that
ancestor Joss Koger married Maria Catharina Gebhard, daughter of the Pastor of
the nearby village of Feldburg, on February 22, 1701. These were troubled times in Europe, and a family's Church
Records were often left incomplete as the family moved from village to village
to seek sanctuary from the incessant fighting.
The records which do yet exist show these children for Maria and
Joss: Maria, born December 25, 1701,
died May 8, 1703; Nicolaus, born February 21, 1704, died April 4, 1704; Joss,
born March 14, 1705; and Bernhard, born November 15, 1706. We must assume that Maria Gebhard Koger
died, although the records do not list it, as the records next show Joss Koger
marrying Anna Lowenbergen on April 23, 1709.
Two of their sons are mentioned in the records; Hans Jacob Koger, born
July 24, 1710, and Nicholas Koger, born January 30, 1712.
is these two brothers who, between 1728 and 1732, came across the Atlantic to
whatever reason, whether due to religious persecution, continuing trouble from
the French troops crossing the border, or trouble with the Margrave, the
political head of the state of Baden, Jacob and Nicholas Koger left Germany and
immigrated to the new land of America.
Koger, their father and the last German branch of our ancestry, died at Auggen
on August 23, 1733.
is an interesting point to make that when Nicholas Koger was killed by Indians
as he and Jacob were building a cabin on their Virginia land, his will listed
among his worldly goods Coopering tools.
It seems likely that his father Joss had taught him his trade before the
The Generation
Of The Emigrants
Joss Koger's children, we know that Bernhard remained in Germany, raised a
family, and died, in Auggen, in 1755.
Joss Koger Jr. came to America about 1734, with the Reverend Peter
Pury's Colony, according to family tradition.
Joss used the name Joseph Koger after landing in Charleston, South
Carolina. Existing records state that a
Nicklaus Koger and a Jacob Koger arrived in Philadelphia on August 17, 1732,
aboard the "Pink, John and William, out from Rotterdam, last from Dover." However, tradition held among the Koger
family genealogists of today states that Hans Jacob Koger came to Philadelphia
on August 24, 1728 aboard the ship "Morton House". No European records have been found, possibly for the reasons
mentioned above, concerning those that Koger tradition holds to be the rest of
Jacob and Nicholas Koger's brothers and sisters who traveled to America,
Michael, Peter, and Barbara Koger. Joss
Koger, their father and the last German branch of our ancestry, died at Auggen
on August 23, 1733.
B. Koger writes
"...as to the professions
of the generations, they varied; all of them probably worked in the vineyards,
as this is the accepted thing today for most of the inhabitants to do. "Old Claus was Magistrate at Weil. His son Dietrich was Mayor at Auggen. Some were innkeepers, and some were
butchers. They were definitely 'upper
class.' They sent their children to
school to learn to read and write. They
had homes, businesses, and cattle.
"One German Koger asked me a question, "Why
would your ancestor want to leave this beautiful country and go to America?"
"My answer was 'To live a new life, to own
land, to be free.' They could not
conceive of a man having one thousand acres of land in his own name."
Large sections of the following section on Jacob Koger are
taken verbatim from two Koger family histories written by James B. Koger of
Coral Gables, Florida, and Marvin V. Koger, of Knoxville, Tennessee, which, in
turn, draw heavily from Julia Parks America Hill's "History of Henry County,
1700 to 1727, 50,000 Germans came to the colonies. From 1727 to 1776, there were 30,000 who came into Pennsylvania
alone. Of these Germans, the historian
Rupp says:
"They were principally farmers. They depended upon themselves, not upon
others. They wielded the mattock, the
axe and the maul, and by the powers of brawny arms, rooted up the grubs,
removed saplings, felled the majestic oaks, laid low the towering hickory,
prostrated where they grew the walnut, poplar, chestnut, cleaved such as suited
the purpose into rails for fences; preserved untiringly until the forest was
changed into arable field."
Koger brothers and one sister came to America from Germany. The sister was the first to come, as the
wife of an Adam Miller, or Mueller.
Jacob Koger and his younger brother, Michael, came on the ship, Morton
House, into Philadelphia from Germany in 1728.
The immigration record of the Morton House for that voyage states:
24, 1728, eighty Palatines with their families, about 200 persons, imported in
the ship "Mortonhouse", John Coultas, Master, last from Deal, whence the ship
sailed June 15th, Col. Ree.III.327 255 persons were on board, 80 males above
16, 69 women and 56 children. (Rupp).
The names of the 80 men
above sixteen are given below:
(Names of the women and
children were not given)
Geo Bechtell Denius
Johannes Bar Joan A.
Johannes Roth Jacob
Uli Schurch Philip
Vincent Stoufer Baltas Gerriger
Henrich Dielinger Jacob Storm
Christ News Wanger Johan Scharch
Hans M. Dettmer Johannes
Johan Doderer Hans
Christoffel Bencker Johannes Bolla
Johan Rorr Michael
Hans Hauff John
J. Hack
Jacob Coger Johan
Johan Er Felde
John H. Raan Johan
Johans Kitsmiller Rudolph
Johan Jost Smith Jonas Kohler
Johannes Naycommet Ury Schurgh
Henrich Eschelmann Johannes
Johans Lagerhan Kasper
Martin Vogelhutter Johannes
Hans Martin Miller Hans L. Miller
Johan P. Molich Gottfried
Sullenger Hans
Jocob Miller
Peter Denekelberg Hens Erdt
Abram Wolff Johannes
Frederic Loeder Stephen
Jacob Jost Derick
Frans. Latshow Peter Mittelkau
Johan Hengst Bernerd
Jacob Heidschuh Johan Roth
Johannes Weygandy Johan C. Meng
Johan M. Ranck Johan Stock
Michael Kohler Johannes Bar
Hans Frihm Jacob
Philip Engert Conrad
Hans Philip Jacob
Martin Schaub Hans
George Schmidt
is believed that these names were signed by the clerk, who spelled the name
"Coger," rather than the Germanic "Koger".
males on the ship above the age of sixteen either signed their names or made
their mark to the following declaration:
"We subscribers, natives, and late
inhabitants of the Palatinate upon the Rhine and places adjacent, having
transported ourselves and families into this Province of Pennsylvania, a colony
subject of Great Britain, in hopes and expectation of finding a retreat and
peaceable settlement therein, do solemnly promise and engage that we will be
faithful and bear true allegiance to HIS MAJESTY, KING GEORGE THE SECOND, and
his successors, Kings of Great Britain, and will be faithful to the proprietor
of this province, and that we will demean ourselves peaceably to all His
Majesty's subjects, and strictly observe and conform to the laws of England and
this Province to the utmost of our power and best of our understanding."
years later, Jacob Koger and Nickalous Koger were listed as coming from Germany
into Philadelphia by the following notation:
October 17, 1732, on the ship "Pink", John and William of Sunderland,
Constable Tymperman, Master from Rotterdam, last from Dover, 61 men above
sixteen, 109 women and children of both sexes and various ages.
250 years, it is a family mystery why Jacob Koger is listed twice coming from
Germany. Some Koger genealogists believe that he returned to the homeland to
bring his brother Nickalous. Others state that the first Jacob Coger was a
cousin from another village in Germany. Still others state that the 1728
listing is simply in error.
any rate, and by whatever path, Jacob and Nickalous were in America.
story is told by some of the descendants of Jacob Koger now living in Henry
County, Virginia, that when Jacob came over from Germany he brought with him
his younger brother, Michael.
they had been here a few years, their father Joss, who had remained in Germany,
had a dream one night that he saw Michael climbing in a pear tree. In this
dream his son fell, and in the fall an old limb was driven into his thigh. He hung there on the limb until he died.
next letter Joss Koger received from Jacob in America related in detail the
death of young Michael, just as his father had seen it in the dream. Since there were 56 children on the ship
"Mortonhouse" under sixteen years of age whose names were not given, Michael
might well have been among them.
is known that Jacob had a son named Michael, and so the fact that Michael is a
family name lends more credence to the old story.
Koger, according to traditions of his branch of the family, came from Germany
about 1734 through Charleston, South Carolina, with the Reverend Peter Pury's
Colony. The immigration records of
Charleston have been destroyed and his name does not appear in the Pury list,
but the family history clearly has it that he came with Pury's group.
Koger came into Philadelphia on October 28, 1738, among "Palatines imported in
the bilander `Thistle'. George Houston,
Commander from Rotterdam, last from Cowes, 42 men, 36 boys, 64 women and
Barbara, Jacob, Michael, Nicholas, Joseph, and Peter Koger came to America from
southwest Germany to found the Koger family here on this continent long before
the land was known as the United States of America.
immigration records show that a great influx of settlers came from "the
Palatinate on the Rhine." The
Palatinate was the name of the area of Germany, which at that time included
Baden and the village of Auggen.
family tradition tells that Jacob Koger's (and his younger brother, Michael's)
passage was paid to this country by a man named Harmon, with the understanding
that Jacob Koger would work for this Harmon for at least two years, without
pay, so that Harmon would be repaid for the funds that he had advanced for the
passage. Apparently Jacob Koger lived
up to this agreement.
history tells that this Harmon was a physically powerful man, who could "lift
25 bushels of wheat at one time."
tradition, quoted by Marvin Koger, states;
"...There was a bully living outside of that neighborhood who took
offence at Mr. Harmon and came over to demand a settlement of the trouble in
the usual way—with fist and skull. Mr.
Harmon leisurely picked the man up and threw him over the garden fence."
the indenture period, Jacob never had any real problems with his employer. One story, though, tells how one time, when
he and Harmon were driving Harmon's oxcart to the mill, Jacob, at the reins,
fell asleep in the hot sunlight, and the cattle left the road and gathered in a
field under the shade of a tree.
Harmon, seeing what had happened, yelled to Jacob: "Wake up there Yockob! Wake up! (Yockob was the original pronunciation for
Jacob) Jacob was startled, but still
managed to get the cattle back onto the road.
The story states that Jacob was careful not to get sleepy again.
still in Pennsylvania, about 1737, Jacob Koger married Lucinda Crum. They had a
large family: Michael Koger, who was named for the little brother Jacob brought
with him, became a Revolutionary War soldier.
Michael was born in 1740 in Pennsylvania but lived and married in
Augusta County, Virginia; Henry Koger, who was born in Pennsylvania on October
15, 1743, and who later lived in Henry County, Virginia; John Koger, who was
born in January of 1745 and died in Patrick County, Virginia, on February 18,
1835; Jacob Koger, Jr., who was a Revolutionary War soldier and who died in
Franklin County, Virginia, on May 21, 1797; Peter Koger, also a soldier of the
Franklin County, Virginia, born in 1753 and later a resident of Rockingham
County, Virginia; Nichalous Koger, the youngest son, who moved westward to what
is now Wayne County, Kentucky, and died on November 26, 1824 in Campbell
County, Tennessee; Mary Koger, the one daughter, that married a Dr. Stone of
Henry County, Virginia, and of whom we have no further record. Family tradition says that there was another
son named Joseph, who as is told below was killed by drowning in the spring of
the Koger home in Henry County, Virginia.
In the Church Book of John
Casper Stoever, of the "Codorus Creek Church," are listed the births of the
children of Jacob Koger's brother Nicholaus, Called Hans Nicholaus in the book:
John (Hans) Koger b.
September 3, 1736
Ann Elizabeth Koger b.
December 2, 1728
John Michael Koger b.
March 10, 1740
John Jacob Koger b.
September 4, 1741
Anna Catharina
Koger b.
May 17, 1743
don't know how long Jacob and Nicholaus stayed in Pennsylvania, but eventually
both moved into the area of Virginia where their sister Barbara and her husband
Adam Mueller/Miller, by this time a respected county official, lived.
know that by 1740 Jacob and his brother Nicholaus had begun acquiring land in
1743, Nicholaus Koger was killed by Indians as he was building a log house on
the "Lower Page Bottoms," in Orange County, Virginia, and Jacob Koger was
appointed as administrator of his estate.
Nicholaus was buried on the land, and Jacob Koger and his brother-in-law
Adam Miller were appointed as guardians of Michael Koger, son of Nicholas
took Jacob ten years to settle this estate. On May 24th of 1753, Jacob Koger
made a report to the Court of Orange County stating that he had traveled twice
to Pennsylvania to settle the estate of his brother. He also states that he had
paid to the widow, Mrs. Elizabeth Koger, her part of her husband's estate,
"that being her dower." On the same
day, he entered into an agreement with Thomas Macredie to pay b. 59.12.3 by
June 1, 1754, to the orphans of Nicholas Koger as their part of their father's
records appear to indicate that, for reasons not fully understood today,
Michael and the other children of Nicholaus began to spell their name
Cowger. Nicholaus' daughter Catharina
Koger/Coger/Cowger is probably the one listed in the wills of Godfrey Hamilton,
shown in the following section on William Coger, Jacob's grandson.
a letter dated April 1, 1980, Okey Cogar writes to Steve Coger:
"I might interject some of my findings and
thoughts at this point. There is a county in the South Branch Valley of West
Virginia which has many Cowgers. This county is Pendleton, once part of Augusta
County, Virginia.
"The first Cowger of record in the county was John. Then there
was a Jacob and a George Cowger. I have land grants that were granted to John
and Jacob Coger but this land later was owned by John and Jacob Cowger.
"I never could locate a Michael Cowger of this generation in
Pendleton County, but George was very prominent and acquired a lot of property.
George was married to Hanna Haas, spinster daughter of Peter Haas, a famous
Indian fighter in west Virginia history.
"Peter gave George and Hanna some property in Augusta, later
Pendleton, County. They later sold this property and the deed was drawn in the
name of George Couger or George Cowger but when they appeared before the Court
in Staunton the clerk of the court validated the deed as follows—`Before the
Honorable Court this day did appear Michael Coger and his wife Hanna who
declare the above to be their work...' signed by the clerk and members of the
"So regardless of what George Cowger called himself the court
knew him by his true name. They had made him a ward of Adam Miller in 1755.
"In my honest opinion based on 25 years of research, the above
is the story of the sons of George Nichoulas Koger. They were orphaned and
Jacob had named his children in the same manner and there had to be some way to
differentiate between them."
numbers of the Pennsylvania Germans had worked their way down in the Virginia
Counties, especially Augusta County.
George Washington and others were surveying lands in that part of Virginia in
April 1748, they were attended with a great number of people, men, women and
children, who followed them through the woods—they would never speak English,
but when spoken to, they all spoke German."
Washington, Page 418.
we are not sure exactly what year Jacob Koger and his wife and family left
Pennsylvania and moved to Augusta County, Virginia, we do not know, but it was
definitely after 1743, as their son Henry Koger was born in Pennsylvania; whether
John Koger, their third son, was born there or in Virginia is not known. But at least one old history of Virginia
(Sparks, page 418), shows that Jacob Koger is definitely established in Augusta
County by 1746.
any rate, by 1746 Jacob Koger had moved to Augusta County, Virginia, into the
house he and his brother Nicholaus built, about 25 miles outside of present-day
Staunton on the Shenandoah River. The house became their family home and the
move from Pennsylvania became permanent.
From court records of May 1750, we see
evidence of Jacob Koger's religious, or, more accurately, his lack of religious
make-up, which seems to have fit in very awkwardly with the "blue laws" of that
time. In those records, Jacob Koger was
indicted for;
"Jacob Koger
for a breach of the Sabbath by driving hogs across the Blue Ridge on the
Sabbath Day".
conclusion of the case appears on the court record in 1750:
"Upon the
presentment of the grand jury against the said, Jacob Koger, his excuse by his
attorney being heard, it is considered by the court that he forfeit and pay to
the Church warden of Augusta Parish, where the offence was committed, for the
use of the poor of the said Parish, five shillings current money, and that he
pay costs.
V. Jacob Koger, on presentment of the grand jury for a breach of the
Sabbath. 2nd Mch. 1750."
appears that Jacob was not by himself as an offender of the prevailing
religious sentiments. The same grand
jury, with a James Trimble as foreman, brought indictments against the
Thomas Chew, a lawyer, and John Bremham, Deputy Sheriff, as common swearers."
Sevier for swearing six profane oaths.
(This Valentine Sevier was the father of John Sevier, Governor of
Frame for a breach of the Sabbath in unnecessarily traveling ten miles."
courthouse was not like its modern counterparts, as the following report of the
grand jury indicates, from May 21, 1748:
find the court house to be 38' 3" long and 18' 3" wide in the clear, built with
logs hewed on both sides, not laid close.
Some of the cracks between the logs are quite open, four or five inches
wide, and four or five feet long, and some are stopped with chunks and clay,
but not quite closed; two small holes are cut for windows, but no glass or
shutters are attached to them, the inside not finished nor fitting for His
Majesty's judicature to sit."
the spring court of Virginia on May 19, 1748, Jacob Koger was made overseer of
the road in Augusta County, Virginia, to succeed Adam Miller, his
19, 1748, Jacob Koger is hereby appointed overseer of the road in the room of
Adam Miller (Koger family tradition states that this Adam Miller was the
husband of Jacob's sister Barbara Koger), and is ordered that because the said
road to be cleared and kept in repair according to law."
was not the only important public office that Jacob Koger was to fill. On May 20, 1752, Jacob Koger was made
constable of Augusta County, Virginia.
"May 20,
1752, John Harmon is on his Moshion discharged from being Constable as soon as
Jacob Koger is sworn into the said office for which purpose it is ordered that
the said Harmon summon him before a justice of the county to be sworn according
to law."
that time, being a constable or deputy sheriff was not without its
responsibilities and dangers, as some of the returns of this court show:
1752—Not executed on account of an axe.
Williams V. Bulger, John Lewis D.S.."
1753—William V. Bulger—Not executed by reason of a gun.
John Lewis D.S."
1756—Not executed by reason the defendant outrode me so that I could not catch
Sampson Matthews D.S."
V. Johnson—Not executed by the reason of the flux being in the house.
R. Breckenridge, D.S."
1763—Reed V. Clendening, not executed by reason the fellow gave me heel play.
George Skillern D.S."
is presumed that Jacob Koger would write or he could not have been made
Constable. The immigration record seems
to imply that he could not sign his name; however, some subsequent deeds
clearly show that he could.
might be said of the piety of these people, it is apparent that they had very
little charity or tolerance toward an offender of the law, as the following
Cole being presented by the grand jury for having a bastard child and refusing
to pay her fine or give security for the same according to the law, it is
ordered that she receive on her bare back at the public whipping post of the
county, twenty lashes well laid on in lieu of this fine. It is said to the sheriff that execution
there of be done immediately."
April 24, 1753, Jacob Koger was granted by the Governor of Virginia 930 acres
of land at the Hawksbill of the Shenandoah River (this is one of the locations
that Peter Coger was later to list as a birthplace). This land grant is on file at the land office in Richmond,
Virginia, and reads as follows:
"Grant to Jacob Koger. George the second, by the Grace of God, of Great
Britain, France and Ireland, King, defender of the faith, do to all of these
whom presents shall come, Greetings, know ye, that for divers good causes and
consideration and especially for an in consideration of the sum of forty
schillings of good and lawful money, for our use paid and to our receiver
general of our revenues in this colony and dominion of Virginia. We have given, granted and confirmed and by
thee presents by us, our heirs and successors, do give grant and confirm unto
Jacob Koger, one certain tract or parcel of land, containing nine hundred and
thirty acres, lying and being in the County of Augusta on the south side of the
Shenandoah River, 530 acres, being a part of a tract of 2,000 acres formerly
granted unto Richard Maudlin, Jr., by our letters of 1743 and 400 acres, the
residue, never before granted. With all
woods, underwoods, swamps, marshes, lowground, meadows, feldings, and his due
share of all veins, mines and quarries as well discovered and not discovered,
within the boundaries aforesaid and being part of the quantity of nine hundred
and thirty acres. Of the land and the
river waters and water courses, therein contained, together with the privileges
of hunting, hawking, fishing, fowling and any other proper commodities and herdsmen,
whatsoever, to the same or any part thereof, belonging on in all will
appertaining, to have, hold, possess and every part thereof, with their and
every appurtenances unto the said Jacob Koger, his heirs and assigns, former to
have been held by us, our heirs, successors of our Manor of East Greenwich, in
the County of Kent. In free and common
society and not in Captive or by Knight's service. Yielding and praying upon us, our heirs and successors forever,
every 50 acres of land and so proportionally, for a lesser or greater quantity
than 50 acres, and rent fee of one schilling yearly to be paid, upon the feast
of Saint Michael, the Arch Angel, also cultivating and improving these acres,
part of every fifty of the tract above mentioned, within the year after the
date of these presents, excepting for so much of the said land as hath already
been cultivated and improved, according to the conditions of the said former
patent. Provided always that three
years of the said rent fee, shall be anytime in arrears and unpaid, or if the
said Jacob Koger, his heirs or assigns, do not within the space of three years,
next coming after the date of these presents, cultivate and improve, three
acres, next of any fifty of the tract above mentioned, except as is before
excepted, then the estate hereby granted, shall cease deformed and thereafter
it shall and may be lawful for us, our heirs and successors to grant the same
land and provisions with the appurtances with, to such other persons or person
as our heirs and successors, with.
Witness of our trusty and well beloved Robert Dinwiddie, Esq. our
Governor and Commander in Chief of our said colony, the 24th day of April, 1753
and in the 27th year of our reign.
Robert Dinwiddie."
by 1753 Jacob Koger owned 930 acres of land in Augusta County, in what is now
Rockingham County. The plot of his farm appears on the plot book of the county
1762 Jacob Koger moved to Halifax County, Virginia, now Henry County. Court
records state that on August 12, 1762, Jacob Koger of Halifax County gave his
son Michael Koger of the County of Augusta, 455 acres of the above patent,
lying on the Shenandoah River, for the sum of five shillings. He retained the balance of 545 acres and appointed
his son, Michael, as overseer of his lands.
Okey Cogar writes in a letter of April 1, 1980, the vagaries of the land grant
law at that time required Jacob to split up his young family:
"The land in Augusta (later Rockingham)
County was originally purchased from Richard Mauldin in 1743 but a faulty deed
was granted. The land was resurveyed in 1755 and granted to him in total by a
crown patent.
"Jacob was (in 1762) in Halifax territory, later Henry County,
and had land surveyed there that year. He subsequently received a patent for
the Henry county land and moved there.
"Granted or patented land was not a gift in any manner. Certain stipulations applied, the two most
severe being a `quit-rent' that had to be paid the Crown each year and the real
back-breaker, which was the stipulation that so many new acres had to be put
under cultivation each year. This latter is the reason that most grants were
modest in size before the Revolution.
Only land speculators, such as the above-mentioned Mauldin, went for the
large tracts and then they had to sell them rapidly or lose them.
"Jacob's 1000 acres in Augusta (later Rockingham) was a large
grant, mostly bottomland. The grant in Henry County was 200 plus acres of hilly
land. So old Jacob found himself with two land grants and great obligations in
"By 1764, the two parcels of land being separated by 100 miles
or more, Jacob had to divide his labor force or lose one of the properties. The
Rockingham land was fertile and beautiful, but the Henry County land was
tobacco land and worth a cash crop each year.
"So, Jacob's family was split.
His sons "Michael, Jacob Jr., and Peter remained on the land in
Rockingham County and Jacob Sr. took John and Henry with him to the Henry
County property.
"Michael became quite prominent in Rockingham—a Judge, member of
the Court, Captain of the Militia. He sold out in 1784 and moved to Kentucky
where he acquired vast land holdings, many slaves, and died in 1801 a very
wealthy man.
"Young Jacob and Peter left Rockingham around 1784. the real documents
are missing as Rockingham records were burned during the Civil War. Damn Yankees."
Jacob remained in Halifax County, the land changed counties three times. After
Halifax it was in Pittsylvania, then in Patrick Henry County, and today straddles
the Patrick and Henry County line, about 20 miles from the present city of
Martinsville, close to the community of Sanville. Here in this section of Virginia Jacob Koger built a home,
acquired many acres of land, and lived the rest of his life.
land was rolling or hilly, a sandy, rocky soil, especially adapted to tobacco.
built his house over a spring and had a pump put down through the floor so that
his family might get water without being exposed to the Indians.
tradition relates that one of Jacob's children, his son Joseph, while just a
baby, drowned in that spring.
built a dam across the creek that became known as Koger Creek, and erected a
grist mill.
The Indian
the many worries Jacob Koger and his family had to deal with in their Virginia
home was the constant threat presented by the Indians. The native American tribes of the area,
sometimes on their own, sometimes under the influence of the French and English
governments, resented and resisted the encroachment of the whites on their
a paper written for a gifted and talented program project in 1989, Sarah Coger
"Before the revolution, settlers had been
slipping along river valleys, through the wild passes, across ranges, and into the
trans-appalachian lands which had been legally closed to them by the British
government. With many others, Jacob and
Nicholas Koger had moved into western Pennsylvania, with hundreds of other
immigrants of German ancestry, collectively called the Pennsylvania Deutsche,
(or, mistakenly, Pennsylvania Dutch) and from there into Virginia. Others traveled on into what is now modern
West Virginia, and into the area now known as Kentucky, guided there in
increasing numbers by Daniel Boone via the newly-found Cumberland Gap, and by
what grew to be called Boone's Wilderness Road.
"It was lucky for the white settlers that the Indians of North
America were too few, their numbers already tremendously reduced by diseases
brought from Europe by the earlier French, Spanish, and English explorers, and
too much less advanced in weapons technology, to be a grave impediment to
"However, the number of white casualties among the new
immigrants gave evidence of the deadliness of the Indian attacks.
"Jacob Koger had brought his younger brother Nicholaus to
Philadelphia, on the ship "Pink, John and William", out from Rotterdam, through
Dover, landing in America on October 17, 1732.
Nicholaus Koger settled in Augusta County, Virginia, and fathered five
"But, (as stated above) in 1743, while building a log cabin for
a new home in the `Page Bottoms' of Orange County, Nicholaus Koger was attacked
and killed by Indians.
"In this way did the Koger family first learn intimately of the
deadliness of the natives of this new land."
loss of a brother was not the only cost the Koger family paid for their entry
into the new land. In a Coger family history written by James B. Koger, the
author states;
"It is said that one night Jacob had a dream that the Indians
had come and murdered his children. He
dreamed the same dream a second time, and then a third, until he was so
frightened that he got his wife and children up and took them over the creek to
a high knoll where they stayed until morning.
"The following morning he discovered that his home had been
plundered by the Indians and that a fine horse was gone. He had paid one thousand acres of land for
this animal.
"Fortunately, the horse escaped from the Indians, in what is now
Floyd County, Virginia, and returned to him.
"A fort was built three miles south of his home and he would
often take his family there to seek refuge during the Indian raids."
In his capacities as Justice of the
Peace, Constable, Road Overseer, and Deputy Sheriff, Jacob Koger also found the
native Americans a danger in other ways;"
1756—not executed by reason the way was dangerous due to the Indians."
28, 1758—not executed by reason of the heathern Indians ranging so that I can't
get up there."
any rate, the day to day threat presented by the native American peoples on the
new immigrants was so imminent that it is hard for us today to understand. There was no sanctuary. Sometimes, too, the Indians were motivated
by outside forces, as Jacob Coger's son Peter would find out a generation
owned approximately 1000 acres of land in Henry County. Wild animals were plentiful in this section
of the country at this time. According
to tradition, Jacob would kill about 4000 pounds of bear meat and salt it down
for his winter's supply of meat, then with what other small game he could
manage to kill, kept his family from starving during the winters. The bear were said to be so bad that hogs
were almost impossible to raise.
stories indicate that this bear hunting tradition kept up through the life of
Jacob's great-great-grandson Asa, who is said with his brothers to have killed
60 bears in one winter.
may be that since his indictment in 1750 for
"driving hogs across the Blue Ridge on the Sabbath Day," he, by this
time, liked the bear meat better anyway.
following contract, or "bond," of Susannah Reynolds to Jacob Koger from 1779
shows the low purchasing power of Virginia currency at this period of the
"Know all men by these presents that
I, Susannah Reynolds, of the County of Henry, am held and firmly bound unto
Jacob Koger of the County aforesaid, in the just and full sum of one thousand
pounds Virginia Currency, I bind myself, my heirs, executors administrators jointly
and severally by these present seals, with my seal and dated this day Anno
Domini 1779.
The consideration
of the above obligation is such that if the above Susannah Reynolds does well
and truly pay or causes to be paid unto the above Jacob Koger, his heirs, or
assigns, thirty barrels of good merchantable corn, delivered at the said
Koger's dwelling house on or before the 25th day of December, next ensuing the
date hereof, then the above obligation is to be void, otherwise to remain in
full force power, and virtue.
Signed, sealed and delivered in the
presence of ------------------ (Seal)"
Koger did not serve in the Revolution—he was, by that time, too old. However, he had three sons, Peter, Jacob,
and Michael, who did serve, as will be mentioned later.
October 21, 1782 Jacob Koger gave his son, Henry, the farm where he lived,
being a "Certain tract of land lying on both sides of Stone Creek, Henry
County." The farm contained 285 acres.
This deed was witnessed by his son Peter Koger and Peter's wife Mary. As Jacob's wife, Lucinda, did not witness
the deed it is assumed that she had died by this time.
1779 Jacob paid five pounds, 19 s. 7 p. tax to the County.
Koger had a brother named Joseph who lived in South Carolina. While there is no evidence which might show
that he ever journeyed to South Carolina to visit him, there is plenty of
evidence, both in Virginia and in South Carolina, that two of Jacob's sons,
Henry and John, did go to South Carolina on several occasions to visit with the
Koger family there.
one occasion Henry Koger took with him a small boy named Peter Koger, who was
probably not the son of our Peter Coger, who was apparently born about five
years after the letter was written. As
proof of the connection between the family of Jacob Koger of Virginia and
Joseph Koger of South Carolina, there is now on record at Columbia, South
Carolina, a letter that was written during these times:
letter of 1783. The following letter,
written by Joseph Koger, a former officer in the militia of South Carolina,
during the Revolution, a resident of that part of the former Charleston
District, now embraced in Colleton County, to two cousins in Virginia.
South Carolina Scull Swamp
4, 1783
"To Mr. John or Henry Koger
Living in Henry County,
On Smith's River
"Dear Cousins:
I have once more taken this opportunity of riting to you. It has bin some time since I attempted to
rite to any of you for want of a good chance, I do therefore inform you all,
that I and family are in good health at present, hoping one and all enjoy the
same. I have three children, two sons
and a daughter. Mr Bridge's family is
well, there has bin very great up and downs since you left this plase. I mean Henry, as I derect to boath of
you. Mrs. Batty that was is dead and
Doctor Hoof also and your cosern is not yet settled, nor the note from Mrs.
Murphey has not bin, your things left with me and Mrs. Koger is all safe tho'
much damaged by hiding out and often moving, I lost old Peter (possibly Jacob's
brother), went to the British, Tirah is dead and four others, since you came
form here, three children and a young wench, Hatchett is kild by Charles
Sanders a axident, John and Joshua William is dead, did with the small pox.
very great Toreys, Mr. Ackermans family is well. Sally is married to John Gruber and has one child, Sister Moly is
married to James Cavanau and lives in town.
Your case with St John and Benlingail went in your favor, the letter has
gone with the British and many others.
We have had a sene of blood sheed in our State and many of our dear
friends is among the slain.
"I have heard of your marriage by Major John Hampton and the
unhappyness which attended you in it, I am very sorry it has bin so with you,
but hope that you have got over it. By
this Polley Brige is married and lives very well, Gordin has been a very great
Torey and so has James Thompson, tho they boath remane with our Charles
Sheppard is kild at the seige of Savana and number of others. I should think it a happyness if I could
once more see you all to have a full account of our past life since I last was
either of you. Mrs. Cook has not give
me the least except the young wench wich I mentioned died. I do conclude with my best wishes to one and
all, my uncle and all other relations and friends and am your afictionate
and Friend
"Mrs. Koger gives her kind
love to you all."
letter was written by Joseph Koger, Jr. of South Carolina after the death of
his uncle Jacob Koger of Henry County, Virginia. His reference to his uncle,
however, indicates that he had not yet received word of the death of Jacob
Koger died in Henry County, Virginia, on June 13,1783. He had previously given away his land to his
son, Henry Koger, so he left no real estate, but the record of Henry County,
Virginia, does list his personal estate and it is as follows:
An appraisement of the goods and chattels and personal estate
of Jacob Koger, deceased, June 13, 1783, to-wit:
1 copper
still and pewter worm |
35 pds. |
00s |
0 |
2 head
horses |
6 |
10 |
0 |
9 head of
cattle |
12 |
2 |
0 |
1 pr.
spoon moulds and ladel |
0 |
16 |
0 |
1 loom
& quill wheel, 2 stays |
1 |
4 |
0 |
3 pewter
bowles, 2 pewter dishes |
1 |
6 |
0 |
1 shear
& Cutter, 1 trowel hoe, 1 winding hoe |
1 |
5 |
0 |
3 iron
pots, 1 iron pot rack, 2 frying pans |
3 |
17 |
0 |
2 bells, 1
bell collar, 1 jointer stock and iron, 1 frame saw |
11 |
3 |
grindstone, 1 bung borer, 1 flax wheel, 1 fro |
1 |
4 |
6 |
3 maul
rings, 2 iron wedges, 1 round shovel, 2 sickles |
1 |
6 |
6 |
smoothing plain, 1 foot adz, 4 drawing knives |
1 |
3 |
6 |
2 chisels,
4 augers, 1 clawhammer, 2 clevices |
0 |
14 |
0 |
1 whip
saw, 3 pole axes, 2 board axes, 1 pr.
skeins |
3 |
8 |
0 |
1 cooper
adz, 1 dung hook, 1 dung fork, 1 pitchfork |
1 |
3 |
0 |
1 lock
chain, 1 pr. pot hooks, 1 iron shovel, 1 pr. steeliards |
1 |
8 |
6 |
1 pr.
frizen irons, 1 mill pick, 1 pr. iron rope works |
1 |
12 |
0 |
1 pr.
pinchers, 2 gun barrels, 1 steel mill, 2 mattocks |
1 |
00 |
9 |
3 flax
wheel spindles and cranks and sundry old irons |
8 |
6 |
nails, 1 beef hide, 1 cross-cut caw, 1 cedar piggin |
1 |
4 |
0 |
1 lamps, 1
branding iron |
4 |
1 |
0 |
16 head of
hogs to nails sold 6 p. |
79 pds |
19 |
9 |
Forster, Anthony Tittle, Samuel Allen.
account held for Henry County the day of June, 1783.
The within inventory was returned
and ordered to be recorded by the court.
Test. John Cox, C.C.C. (Henry County Court Record, Martinsville, Va.)
above list of tools indicates for us very accurately Jacob Koger's vocation and
mode of living. the first item of the
list shows that he kept a still, and that his copper still and pewter worm sold
for nearly as much as all his other goods.
had a grist mill with two mill stones, one for corn and one for wheat. These two stones are yet to be seen on
Koger's Creek where the old mill dam is now located.
also had a sawmill, as indicated by the whipsaw, framesaw and crosscut saw.
two broad axes and coopers adz and foot adz show that he could erect a log
house and hew out the puncheon floor.
two chisels, four augers, four drawing knives, claw hammer, and smoothing plain
show equipment as a carpenter of his time.
our ancestor Jacob Koger had lived his life, apparently an all-around
mechanist, mechanic and farmer. He had
spent 55 years in America. He was 72
years, 11 months, and 6 days old at his death.
is known of the death of his wife, Lucinda Crum Koger. Nor is it known where either of them were
buried. Family tradition states that
they were buried on the land he gave his son Henry, as there is a family
cemetery there, but most of the graves are marked only with field stones.
1 - Jacob Koger to 2
- B Henry Koger
This indenture, made this 21st day of October, year of our Lord, 1782, between Jacob Koger, of the one part and Henry Koger of the other part, both of Henry County, Virginia, Witnesseth that the said Jacob Koger, for and in consideration of Divers good cause and more especially for the natural affection that I have for my son Henry Koger. Do decease all the right and title of a certain tract of land, lying and being in the county of Henry, on both sides of Stones Creek and bounded as follows:
Beginning at a chestnut tree on a branch thence new lines, North twenty five degrees, East one hundred and sixty eight poles to a red oak North ten degrees, West eighty six poles to a dogwood on a branch, North forty degrees, West eighty eight poles to pointers North five degrees; East one hundred and twenty four poles to a white oak, North forty three degrees; West sixty eight to a hickory, North fifty four degrees, East ninety six poles crossing the creek aforesaid to pointers South forty degrees, East one hundred thirty four poles to a white oak, South eight degrees, West one hundred eighty eight poles to a white oak, South forty three degrees, East sixty four poles to a white oak, South thirty nine degrees, West forty six poles to pointers south twenty degrees, East sixty six poles to a white oak bush. South twenty one degrees, West one hundred and twenty poles to a white oak and thence North seventy nine degrees, West Sixty eight poles, crossing the creek aforesaid to the beginning. Containing two hundred and eighty five acres, with all the rights and title to the aforesaid tract of land and premises, with the appurtenances their unto the said Henry Koger, his heirs and assigns forever, and the said Jacob Koger and his heirs, the aforesaid tract of land and premises with appurtenances there unto, now belonging to the said Henry Koger and his heirs and assigns, the right and title of the aforesaid tract of land and premises against him, the said Jacob Koger and his heirs and all other persons, will warrant and forever defend.
In witness whereof the said Jacob Koger, hath here unto, set his hand and affixed his seal, the day and year above written, signed in the presence of, signed sealed and delivered.
Jacob Koger
Peter Coger
John Dillard
Mary Koger
Memorandum that quiet and peaceable possession of the within mentioned tract of land and premises with appurtenances was given agreeable to the within indenture February 28, 1781.
Jacob Koger
Peter Coger
John Dillard
Mary Koger
Index to Kogers
of Jacob Koger and his wife, Lucinda Crum
Immigrant from the Palatinate
of Germany
August 24, 1728
Resident of Henry County, Virginia
Michael Koger (wife, Mary)
Henry Koger (second wife, Mary King)
John Koger (wife, Gillie Coleman Napier)
Catherine Koger (husband, James Baker)
Mary Koger (husband, A.H. Bassett)
Joseph Koger (wife, Ruth Slaughter)
Jacob Koger (wife, Siani Philpott)
Henry Koger, Jr. (wife, Lucinda Thomas)
Abraham Koger (first wife, Deana Luttrell)
Abraham Koger (second wife, Mary Corn)
Sarah Koger (husband, Reuben Philpott)
Elizabeth Koger (husband,, Josiah Slaughter)
William Koger (wife, Matilda Anglin)
John Koger (first wife, Elizabeth)
Jacob Koger, Jr. (wife, Sarah)
Peter Koger [Coger] (wife, Mary Mackelvain)
William Coger, Sr. (wife, Elizabeth Kingery)
Catherine Coger (husband, John Ashward)
Jacob Coger (wife, Margaret Mollahan)
Thomas Cogar (wife, Mary Eva Spillman)
Benjamin Coger (wife, Mary Hosey)
Peter Coger, Jr. (wife, Mary)
John Coger (wife, Carolina)
Nicholas Koger (first wife, Dorothy)
John Koger (first wife, Hestor Jones)
John Koger (second wife, Mary Smith)
William Koger (wife, Polly Bookout)
James Koger (wife, Alexandria Jane Majors)
Thomas Koger (wife, Lois Majors)
Isaac Koger (wife, Nancy Hollingsworth)
Catherine Koger (husband, Thomas Smith)
Mary Koger (husband, Benjamin Smith)
Sarah Koger (husband, John Baker)
Mary Koger (husband, Dr. Stone)
Concerning Jacob Koger, his brother Nicholas, and
their children:
(excerpts of a letter from the late Dr. Okey Cogar, Professor of
History at West Virginia University, Morgantown, West Virginia, dated April 1,
· It is unlikely that Peter Coger was born on
the Hawksbille of the Shenandoah in Virginia, because "Jacob Koger sold his
Hawksbille property to John Megert on September 21, 22, 1743. Peter states that he was born in 1753. At that time Hans Jacob was living at the
Lower Page Bottoms, a beautiful 10 acre tract that he purchased from Richard
Mauldin in 1743, and rounded out with a grant in 1753. This land lies about 15 miles south of
Luray, Virginia, on the Shenandoah River."
· Concerning why Peter Coger was raised in
Rockingham County, Virginia, when Jacob Koger was living in Henry County, "... the land in Rockingham
County was originally purchased from Mauldin, but a faulty deed was
granted. The land was resurveyed in
1755, and granted to Jacob "in total" by a Crown Patent. Jacob was in Halifax Territory, later Henry
County, and had land surveyed there in that year. He subsequently received a patent for the Henry County land, and
moved there.
"Granted or Patented land
was not a gift in any manner. Certain
stipulations applied, the two most severe being a "quit-rent" that had to be
paid to the crown each year, and the other, the real back-breaker, was the
stipulation that so many acres had to be put under cultivation each year. This latter is the reason that most grants
were modest in size before the Revolution; only land speculators such as the
above mentioned Mauldin went for large tracts, and then they had to sell them
rapidly or lose them.
"Jacob's thousand acres in
Rockingham County was a large grant, mostly bottomland. The grant in Henry County was two hundred
acres of hilly land. So old Jacob found
himself with two grants and great obligations in 1755. By 1764, the two parcels of land being
separated by 100 miles or more, Jacob had to divide his labor force, or lose
one of the properties. The Rockingham
land was fertile and beautiful, but the Henry County land was tobacco land, and
worth a cash crop each year.
"Michael, Jacob (Jr.) and
Peter remained on the land in Rockingham County, and Jacob (Sr.) took John and
Henry with him to Henry County.
"Michael became quite
prominent in Rockingham¾a Judge, member of the
Court, Captain of Militia, etc. He sold
out in 1784 and moved to Kentucky where he acquired vast land holdings, many
slaves, and died there in 1801, a very wealthy man. Young Jacob and Peter left Rockingham around 1784."
· Concerning the relationship between Godfrey
Hamilton and Jacob Koger's family, "...this is a difficult question. I have never seen any document that even
remotely refers to any sort of relationship.
I pick up Godfrey Hamilton in Boutetort County in 1784 or 1785. Peter and Jacob were both in the same area
at that time. I can find no record of
Godfrey Hamilton owning land in Augusta County. He had some trouble with the Rockingham Court in 1778, in regard
to two orphan children he was holding;
they were listed as two girls in Court Records. No names given... Nicholas's (Hans Jacob's brother) would have been too old. He gives various deeds to Jacob, some
witnessed by Peter, and one produced in Franklin County Court by Peter. Catharina Koger (about 52 years old),
probably the daughter of Nicholas, was heir to his estate. After the county got through with his
property, she wound up with a horse.
(In his will) he refers to William, eldest son of Peter Koger. With several documents and access to all
state and county records, we still cannot discover the proper relationship."
· Concerning Jacob Koger's brother Nicholas,
and his children, "Nicholaus, also called Hans Nicholaus, in the Church Book of John
Casper Stoever, of Codorus Creek Church, always spelled his name Koger. Court officials in Virginia spelled it
Coger. In the church book, Nicholaus
had the following children listed:
John (Hans) Koger b. September 3, 1736
Elizabeth Koger b.
December 2, 1738 married Henry Miller,
son of Adam Miller
Michael Koger b. March 10,
John Jacob
Koger b. September 4,
Catharina Koger b. May 17, 1743 (perhaps
the one named in Godfrey Hamilton's will)
"There is a county in the
South Branch Valley of West Virginia which has many Cowgers. The county is Pendleton, once part of
Augusta County. The first Cowger of
record in the county was John. Then
there was a Jacob and a George Cowger.
I have some land grants that
were granted to John and Jacob Coger, but this same land later was listed as
owned by John and Jacob Cowger. I never could locate a Michael Cowger of
this generation in Pendleton County, but this George was very prominent, and
acquired a lot of property. George was
married to Hanna Haas, daughter of Peter Haas, a famous Indian fighter in West
Virginia history. Peter gave George and
Hanna some property in August, later Pendleton, County. They later sold this property, and the deed
was drawn up in the name of George Couger or George Cowger, but when they
appeared before the Court in Staunton, the Clerk of the Court validated the
deed as follows¾ "Before the Honorable Court this day did
appear Michael Coger and his wife Hanna, who declare the above to be their
work... etc." This was signed by the
Clerk and by members of the Court.
"So regardless of what
George Cowger called himself, the court knew him by his true name. They made him a ward of Adam Miller in
1755. In my honest opinion based on 25
years of research, this is the true story of the sons of Nicholaus Koger. They were orphaned, when Nicholaus was
killed by Indians as he was building a log house on the Lower Page Bottoms tract
mentioned above; Jacob had named his children in the same manner and (the name
change provided) a way to differentiate between (his children and
· Concerning variations in birthdates given by
hour ancestors, "most of these birthdates come from Census records. After many years I have discovered that to
the early pioneers times and dates were of very little importance. Really, time only became important in our
lifetime. The first two generations of
our family were literate. Peter could
write, his sons couldn't. Your William
couldn't, and neither could my Thomas, his brother, yet both were instrumental
in forming the county of Webster.
Thomas was one of the leading officials, and the first County Court was
held in his home. These first settlers
in West Virginia were more interested in clearing land and planting
fields. Their sons and daughters in the
following generation learned to read and write because they had more time. Simply put, the immigrant Kogers were
literate and both Jacob and Nicholaus were bilingual (German and English),
their sons could read and write, but the next generation did not have the time
or opportunity. Then we start learning
to read and write again in the following generation. Bearing this in mind, and trying to put yourself in that time and
place, I think you will readily see why a few years here and there, as far as
age was concerned, was of little import.
Birth Certificates or official records did not exist so many things that
"learn" are conjecture at best. I have
no trouble with this, since I have worked through a Doctorate in History, and
as that is the method used by the best of historians. I know that genealogists want a certificate or document, but in
most cases they are not available, because they were never made. We all do the best we can by checking every
source, and by copying those documents that we do find."
Coger was born around 1753, `in the state of Pennsylvania,' or `on the
Hawksbille in the Shenandoah Valley, Virginia.' This latter location was on the
930 acres of land granted by the Governor of Virginia on the 24th of April
1753. According to the National
Archives, both of these statements are on record. He was raised in Augusta and Rockingham Counties, in Virginia.
Cogar writes in a letter of April 1, 1980, previously quoted in the section on
Jacob Koger:
"Hans Jacob Koger sold his Hawksbill property to John Megert
September 21 and 22, 1743. Peter states that he was born in 1753. At that time
Hans Jacob was living at the Lower Page Bottoms, a beautiful 1000 acre tract he
purchased from Richard Mauldin in 1743 and rounded out with a grant in 1753.
This land lies about 15 miles south of Luray, Virginia, on the Shenandoah
have been raised by family genealogist through the years why Peter was
apparently raised in Rockingham County while his father Jacob apparently lived
in Henry County.
Okey Coger writes:
"The land in Rockingham County (initially
Augusta County) was originally purchased from Richard Mauldin in 1743 but a
faulty deed was granted. The land was resurveyed in 1755 and granted to him in
total by a crown patent.
"Jacob was in Halifax territory, later Henry County, and had
land surveyed there that year. He subsequently received a patent for the Henry
county land and moved there.
"Granted or patented land was not a gift in any manner. Certain
stipulations applied, the two most severe being a `quit-rent' that had to be
paid the Crown each year and the real back-breaker, which was the stipulation
that so many new acres had to be put under cultivation each year. This latter
is the reason that most grants were modest in size before the Revolution. Only land speculators, such as the
above-mentioned Mauldin, went for the large tracts, and then they had to sell
them rapidly or lose them.
"Jacob's 1000 acres in Rockingham (initially Augusta) was a
large grant, mostly bottomland. The grant in Henry County was 200 plus acres of
hilly land. So old Jacob found himself with two land grants and great
obligations in 1755. By 1764, the two
parcels of land being separated by 100 miles or more, Jacob had to divide his
labor force or lose one of the properties. The Rockingham land was fertile and
beautiful but the Henry County land was tobacco land and worth a cash crop each
"So Jacob's family was split, and his sons Michael, Jacob Jr.,
and Peter remained on the land in Rockingham County while Jacob Sr. took John
and Henry with him to the Henry County property.
"Michael became quite prominent in Rockingham—a Judge, member of
the Court, Captain of the Militia. He sold out in 1784 and moved to Kentucky
where he acquired vast land holdings, many slaves, and died in 1801 a very
wealthy man.
"Young Jacob and Peter left Rockingham around 1784. the real
documents are missing as Rockingham records were burned during the Civil War.
Damn Yankees."
Peter was twenty-four, according to the records in the National Archives, he
started a long series of services as a soldier for the new land.
records state that Peter Coger, while a resident of Rockingham County,
Virginia, volunteered for the first of several tours in July 1777, when he
served as a private in Captain Jeremiah Regan's Virginia Company, with whom he
marched to Point Pleasant and continued in Service for six months.
The Battle of
Point Pleasant
famous Battle of Point Pleasant had taken place in 1774, but Cornstalk, the
Indian leader who led the Indian Confederacy in that battle, would meet his
death in the presence of Peter Coger at Point Pleasant three years later.
quoting from the Sarah Coger's One
Family's Eyewitness to History:
Indian natives of the land harassed and at times delayed the white man's
colonization of the land, but they never really stopped it. When the first Europeans arrived, the
Indians East of the Mississippi probably numbered not more than two hundred
thousand. Those of the whole continent North of Mexico certainly did not exceed
five hundred thousand.
only with the bow and arrow, the tomahawk, and the war club, and ignorant of
military "arts" other than the ambush, they were ordinarily no match for
well-equipped and vigilant groups of whites. These settlers were a hard,
driving lot, intent on owning and clearing land, and generally possessed a
callow disregard for the natives they encountered. Shawnees, Delawares, Miamis, Ottawas, Cherokees, Chippewas, and
Foxes struck at the immigrants sharply, and were struck back with equal, or
greater, ferocity.
those Indians living along the Eastern Great Lakes found a strong ally in the
Colonel Henry Hamilton—who was to earn the name of "hair buyer" from the
Americans along the frontier—was the commanding officer of the British Post at
Detroit. He set to work at once supplying the tribes with arms, ammunition,
rum, blankets, and the usual trade-trinkets of white man's commerce with the
Indians, and sent them south with his blessing. There was no need for an Ottawa or Miami Chief to think twice
about such support. In the old days the French along the northern lakes and
rivers had always armed the Indians against the pushing, striving intruders to
the South. Now the English, replacing the French, were acting in the same old familiar
a result, during the years from 1775 and 1778, the objective of the new
settlers wrath was always Detroit, because they reasoned, correctly, that if
the main source of the Indian's munitions was crushed, the western threat to
them would be appreciably eased.
all of the efforts of the settlers against Detroit ended in failure and
frustration; England remained in its role of protector of the wilderness, and
Indian raiding parties swooped out of the forest where and when they chose.
that shadowy area known as Kentucky, called by historians the `Indians' dark
and bloody ground,' a Virginia-born surveyor began to study the situation and
reason out ways and means of controlling it. His name was George Rogers Clark,
the brother of William Clark (of the Lewis and Clark expedition up the Missouri
River) and he had ample data on which to base a plan of action against the
Indians and their British backers.
all the Indians, the Shawnees were the most bloody and terrible, holding all
other men, Indians as well as Whites, in contempt as warriors in comparison
with themselves. This opinion made them
more restless and fierce than any other savages; and they boasted that they had
killed ten times as many white people, as had any other Indian nation. They were a well formed, active and
ingenious people, were assuming and imperious in the presence of others not of
their own nation, and were sometimes very cruel.' So wrote Captain John Stuart in his "Memoirs of the Indian Wars
and Other Occurrences," in the early nineteenth century.
1771, seven nations of Indians-Shawnees, Delawares, Wyandots, Mingos, Miamis,
Ottawas, Illinois—and others, formed a Confederacy that was the most powerful
to menace the frontiers of civilization in the colonies.
Shawnees were the most powerful of these tribes. The most powerful of the
Shawnees was the famous chieftain Keigh-tugh-gua, which translates to
"Cornstalk." In 1774, when the white
men were pressing down into the Kanawha and Ohio River valleys, the Indian
Confederacy prepared to protect their lands.
name once chilled the heart of every white man on the Virginia frontier, and
struck terror into every resident of the mountain cabins. His name was associated with several
frontier massacres. He was gifted with
skills in oratory and statesmanship, he was very brave, and he was considered
to be a genius in military strategy.
Many historians believe that it was Cornstalk's fighting tactics,
adopted by the Americans, that led them to defeat the British in a number of
Indians formed a line across the point from the Ohio River to the Kanawha
River. The whites and Indians each numbered about twelve hundred men. Chief Cornstalk's voice echoed above the
sounds of battle, `Be strong! Be strong!' The broad-shouldered six-foot
chieftain led his followers bravely, but they were no match for the white man's
musketry. When the Battle of Point
Pleasant was over, one hundred and forty whites and at least twice that many
Indians lay dead. The Indians retreated
westward into what is now Ohio.
fort was built at the junction of the Kanawha and Ohio rivers to keep the
Indians from returning to Virginia."
was this fort where Peter Coger spent the last six months in 1777.
The Indian Fighters
Coger reenlisted in April 1778, and served as a private in Captain Abraham
Bowman's and Abraham Kellar's companies in General George Rogers Clark's
expedition against the Indians. During
this service he was involved in the battle of Vincennes, after which he was
discharged on May 8, 1779.
According to three letters dictated
by Peter Coger himself;
"In Rockingham County in the state of
Virginia on the 1st July 1777 he volunteered as a private in a company
commanded by Capt. Jeremiah Ragan.—Harrison Lieut. Ensign name forgotten. March from thence through Augusta and
Greenbriar Counties from Staunton, to the Warm Springs to Savanah Fort, now
Lewisburg in the county of Greenbriar, State of Virginia, to Big Kenawha,
to Point Pleasant to the Great Kanawha
River and descended to Point Pleasant at the mouth. When he arrived the fort was Garrisoned by Col. A. Kellars
troops. He seen when there Capts.
Arbuckle, Stewart, and Hill. Cornstalk
the celebrated Sachem was at this time detained at the fort as a hostage
together with Red Hawk and some other Indians of distinction, was at Pt.
One Family's Eyewitness to History:
made peace with the white man. In November 1777, at the instigation of the
English, the Indians were massing for a new attack. Cornstalk and his fellow tribesmen didn't want another war, which
they would surely lose. On November 7, Cornstalk and Red Hawk, a Delaware
Chief, came to the fort where Peter and Jacob Coger were in service to try and
negotiate a peace before the battle began.
told Captain Arbuckle, who was in command of the garrison, that he was opposed
to joining the war on the side of the British, but that all the Indian nation
except himself and his tribe were determined to take part in it. However, as Cornstalk put it, he and his
tribe would have to run with the stream.
his peacemaking trouble, Cornstalk, Red Hawk and another Indian were taken
hostage in an attempt to prevent the Indians from joining the British.
and his fellow Indians held as hostages, were well treated and given
comfortable quarters. In fact, the
chief even assisted his captors in plotting maps of the Ohio River Valley. On November 9, Cornstalk's son, Ellinipsico,
came to see his father, and he, too, was detained at the fort.
The next day, those in the fort heard
gunfire from the direction of the Kanawha River. Investigation showed that two men, Gilmore and Hamilton, who had
left the fort to hunt deer were ambushed by Indian snipers. Hamilton managed to escape but Gilmore was
killed and scalped.
the corpse was returned to the fort, Peter Coger and his brother Jacob watched
as some of the soldiers, in a fit of fury, charged past their protesting
officers and forced their way into the building where the Indian captives were
being held. Even though the
bushwhackers who killed Gilmore were from another tribe, the frenzied soldiers
called for the blood of Cornstalk and the other hostages.
the soldiers advanced through the door, Chief Cornstalk rose up to meet them,
and standing erect, faced them. The
sight of the bronzed, six-foot chieftain bravely facing them caused the mob to
pause, but only momentarily, before they fired, killing the Indians. The great Cornstalk went down with eight
musket balls in his body.
Coger states:
"...was at
Point Pleasant when the affair took place which led to the death of the Indian
hostages. Seen Cornstalk, Red Hawk, and
Ellinipsico shot by the incensed soldiers."
Hawk attempted to escape up the chimney, but was shot down. Ellinipsico was slain as he sat on a stool,
and the other Indian was strangled to death.
Cornstalk was buried in a marked grave near the fort on Point Pleasant,
overlooking the junction of the Ohio and Kanawha Rivers. The bodies of the other Indians, including
Ellinipsico, were dumped into the Kanawha River.
his book `Winning The West,' Theodore Roosevelt wrote,
"Cornstalk died a grand death, by an act of
cowardly treachery on the part of his American foes; it is one of the darkest
stains on the checkered pages of frontier history."
Revolution: Peter Coger at Vincennes
Again, from the letters of Peter
"Declarant remained at the fort at Pt. Pleasant awaiting the
arrival of Genl. Hand from Fort Pitt with whose forces they expected to form a
junction at Pt. Pleasant and then proceed under his command on an expedition
against the Indians on the North side of the Ohio. Genl. Hand arrived without an army and the expedition was
"That in the month of April 1778 he again, in company with his
brother Jacob, Entered the service of the United States, under the command of
Capt. Abraham Boman, that both himself and his brother Jacob Volunteered for
the term of one year Expressly to Join the Expedition undertaken by Col. George
Rogers Clark, against the British and Indians in the Illinois Country."
One Family's Eyewitness To History:
Rogers Clark knew that most of the raiding on the settlements on the western
frontier came from British-fed supply centers in what was called the 'Illinois
Country,' that area bounded by the Wabash and Miami Rivers on the east, the
Illinois on the north, the Mississippi on the west, and the Ohio on the south. Out of that quadrangle came the supplies
that made possible Indian raids on Kentucky.
The main settlements were Kaskaskia, about fifty miles south of Saint
Louis, Cahokia, just south of modern East Saint Louis, Prarie du Rocher,
seventeen miles north of Kaskaskia, and Vincennes, on the Wabash.
Jefferson granted Clark twelve hundred pounds for the purpose of capturing
Kaskaskia, and ending its threat.
mustered his command, a bare 200 men, including Peter Coger, Jacob Coger, and
several of their Virginia friends from their previous service, at the Falls of
the Ohio, near present Louisville, and embarked on June 26, 1778, shooting the
rapids of the Ohio. The sun went into
total eclipse, but Clark hailed this as a good omen. His boats road the current west until they landed at the "Burnt
Chimneys" of old Fort Massac, nearly opposite the mouth of the Tennessee
River. Hiding his boats, he drove his
command north.
As Peter Coger told it:
"We embarked on board of keel boats at
Wheeling and descended to the falls of the Ohio, we landed at the Falls and
built cabins on the Island and left a number of families, and, leaving some
soldiers for their protection, embarked and proceeded down the Ohio River to
the Burnt Chimneys below the Falls of the River—there we landed—and fearing
that the savages might find and destroy our boats—we sunk them and continued
the march to the Illinois River and commenced our march by land to the
Illinois, a very tedious and fatiguing journey, on the night of the last days
march we marched all night and about Cock Crow in the morning we completed our
landing on the opposite side of the Illinois River, having had only one small
boat to ferry us all across."
was a killing march, and there were two long foodless days, before his men
sighted Kaskaskia on July 4. The
settlement was unguarded, and fell to Clark without a shot or any hostile
reaction. Clark sent Bowman on with a
small detachment, and soon had news that both Cahokia and Prarie du Rocher had
fallen without the slightest resistance.
"We marched directly to the fort and took
possession then of (it). Our approach
had been conducted so quietly and secretly that the fort had no notice of their
danger until it was too late to make resistance. In this Fort we found a Governor and his lady who were made
prisoners and Declarant understood that the Governor was sent as a prisoner to
the Governor of Virginia, we remained here but a few days. Col. Clark placed this fort under a guard
and marched with the main body of his troops to a place called Coho of which we
took possession."
One Family's Eyewitness To History:
Frenchman in the expedition, Pere Gibault, volunteered to trek overland to
Vincennes, to try to talk the French inhabitants into surrender. This, too, succeeded, and Captain Leonard
Helm, with a small force, was sent on, by August, to occupy Vincennes, and Fort
Sackville, the outpost that guarded it.
September, Henry Hamilton, the English officer the Indians called "Hair Buyer"
at Detroit, had received word of the fall of the four southern British posts,
and he responded quickly to what he saw as the threat to Detroit itself.
scraped together some 175 Europeans, mostly French militia, and sixty Indians,
and set out on October 7, 1778, from Detroit, with the idea of taking Fort
Sackville and Vincennes. His route
stretched from the shores of Lake Erie, down the Maumee to the Wabash, and from
there to Fort Sackville. His force
reached Vincennes on December 17.
the sight of the invading force, the people of Vincennes rushed to proclaim
their loyalty to England. The local
militia offered no resistance, and Captain Helm and his few men at the fort
were made prisoners of war.
settled in for the winter, gathering supplies, secure and unconcerned about American
invaders, since the mild winter's floods had covered the great flat stretches
between him and the enemy, spreading out a formidable, apparently uncrossable,
military barrier that would hold away any of his enemies until the floods
news of the fall of Vincennes threw the people of Kaskaskia and Cahokia into a
panic, and George Rogers Clark, his own force whittled down to about one
hundred men, would have been totally helpless if Hamilton had chosen that time
to move against him. The prudent thing
for Clark would have been to retreat, content with the damage their exploits
had done to British prestige.
Clark and his Virginians held a different view of the matter. Here we are, on the banks of the
Mississippi, there is Hamilton at Vincennes, 180 miles away across vast
freezing floods.
they reasoned, we'll attack.
Peter Coger: "Whilst at this place an Express arrived to Col. Clark from Fort
Vincinnes. We immediately took up the
line of march for that place..."
local militia were induced to join Clark's Virginians and Kentuckians, and by
February 6, 1779, he and about 180 men set out, in the middle of winter, across
the icy floods, for Vincennes.
the first few days, the water was low, game was plentiful, and the men were in
high spirits. But by February 13, high
water had widened the Little Wabash, and two whole days were needed to ferry
the expedition across to the other bank.
At this point their luck began to run out.
surface waters were deeper and men sloshed along through icy, waist-high
floods. Game had vanished, driven to
higher ground, and supplies ran low. On
the seventeenth, the Embarrass River blocked the march, sent men floundering
north and south along its bank looking for possible fords. By the eighteenth the command was across,
pushing on through slowly deepening water to the Wabash itself, hauling the
sick and exhausted along with them in canoes; but they could not pass over the
Wabash until February 20.
a stray Frenchman from Vincennes was captured, and from him Clark learned that
Henry Hamilton had no suspicion of the waterlogged troop coming from the
west. On the twenty-first, the march
covered little more than three miles, with men half-wading, half-swimming
through shoulder-deep water, rifles and powder held high above their
heads. The next day showed virtually no
progress as the men grew weaker and weaker from scant rations and their days of
exposure to winter weather.
23 brought a crisis, as some of the men hung back, their hoarse voices croaking
of inability or unwillingness to go farther.
Clark merely took to the water once more, shouting "Follow me!" while
Captain Joseph Bowman skirted the rear with 25 riflemen who had orders to shoot
any stragglers.
seems to have been the worst part of the march, with water still
shoulder-high. More and more men had to
be towed in canoes. Those on their feet
tripped and fell in deep water, then clung to a rotten log or sodden tree until
stronger hands rescued them.
last dry ground was reached, a small strip hidden by trees two miles from Fort
Sackville. At this point the troops
boldly lit fires, dried out their clothes, and ate the last rations, their
spirits little lifted by news from another captured Frenchman that some 200
more Indians had joined Hamilton in the fort.
And Clark's ammunition was almost gone.
news cuts the legs out from under some men, merely numbs others. To George Rogers Clark and his men it always
seemed to act as a stimulant. Now he
reacted strongly and at once.
hiding his weaknesses from the Frenchman, he sent him on to Hamilton in
Sackville with a very simple message:
Clark was going to capture Sackville that night; friends of the United
States should stay quietly in their homes; and those still holding to England
should join the garrison in the fort.
done, Clark cheerily formed his men into two small divisions and marched them
into Vincinnes and down the main street, drums beating. Once in the streets, he divided and
sub-divided his shrunken ranks, sent them swinging through side streets, back
to the main thoroughfare, into side streets again, trying to create an
impression of far larger numbers than he actually had.
"Upon our arrival a battle took place which
resulted in the recapture of the post by our troops.
"Declarant understood that the post had been in possession of
the americans under the command of Capt. Helm, who had been forced to surrender
it to the British and Indians."
trick was successful. No habitant fled
to Fort Sackville. Instead, eager men
guided the invaders to secret caches of ammunition, and soon Clark's sodden,
leathery men were filling pouches and powder horns from this unsuspected
windfall. Rumors reached the fort, and
the Indians faded out over the palisades and through sally ports and
embrasures, their interest in Hamilton and his command evaporating in the misty
February air. One chief was so
overwhelmed by whispers of endless American legions swarming into Vincennes that
he opened futile negotiations to join Clark and his men.
sunset, Clark marched his group out of the settlement and toward the fort,
drums still beating, and opened rifle fire against it.
the first light, Hamilton's guns began to thud out from the high Sackville
bastions, but Clark's men still refused to follow precedent. Either unaware of or unimpressed by the
theory that frontier troops cannot stand up against artillery fire, the
riflemen began picking off the gunners methodically, and by the end of the day,
after some parleying, Hamilton and his little force surrendered.
"After the retaking Declarant understood
that the command of the post was again given to Capt. Helm, who with this
troops Declarant understood came from Old Virginia."
"A party of Indians who had been out on a War Party returned
shortly after the recapture of the fort bringing with them a number of
prisoners, before the Indians became notified of the fort having changed
masters, some of them were taken and immediately killed."
The victory was made complete when
Captain Leonard Helm slipped up the Wabash to capture a waterborne supply
column hurrying to the fort.
Except in exertion expended and
territory covered, the campaign had been a small one; but it nailed down the
whole Illinois territory for Virginia, and hence the United States, for the
rest of the war.
"At Fort Vincinnes the time for which
Declarant and his brother Jacob had entered the service of the United States
expired and they ware honorably discharged having served twelve months."
in the spring of 1780 Peter Coger substituted for a tour of three months in the
place of John Keiser in a company of militia in Rockingham County commanded by
Captain Jeremiah Ragan.
"We marched to the lower
part of Virginia marching through Richmond.
The occurrences of the campaign has principally passed out of his
recollection, but he recollects that on one occasion himself and 10 or 12
others of the men stopped in a field to pick blackberries, that while so
engaged a small squad of British Light Horsemen attacked but being fired upon ceased to pursue us and
we made the best of our way to the regiment who had halted on hearing the sound
of the guns.
"We explained and marched on and crossed the Appomattox River—in
crossing the boat capsized and one man was drowned. (On reaching Frederixbourg) declarant was discharged having
served three months."
Coger was drafted immediately on reaching home, and marched to the area below
Richmond, in North Carolina, where they
remained guarding the country for three months.
in the Spring on 1781, he was drafted again for the last time, and took part in
the seige of Lord Corwallis' troops at Yorktown.
The Seige of
in the month of July in the year 1781 Peter Coger was drafted in Rockingham County, Virginia, under the
command of Captain George Crisman. He thereafter took part in a
march from Rockingham County to Fredericksburg. Once there, "... a plan of
general rendezvous was (received by) Genl. George Wildon." At Fredericksburg, he was attached to a
regiment under the command of Colonel Darke.
"On one occasion we were compelled to wade a deep creek, but we
had no fighting until we were informed that General Washington was besieging
Lord Cornwallis at Yorktown. At this time our regiment lay at Portsmouth Va.
from thence we marched by forced march to join the main Army at York, we continued
at this plan besieging the enemy."
First Letter: "Was stationed on the hill where the Capitol now stands. There seen Genl. Washington, Genl. Wayne,
the Marquis LaFayette, was there about three weeks when the enemy entered the
city, and they retreated in the direction of Culpepper Courthouse but received
orders to counter-march to New Kent Courthouse. Which was obeyed—they was there attached to forces under command
of LaFayette and Genl. Wayne and pursued the enemy to Yorktown, remained there
until the surrender of Lord Cornwallis, was there discharged and returned to
his residence in Rockingham Va."
From One Family's Eyewitness To History:
Battle of Yorktown was the final major action of the American Revolution,
concluded by the surrender of British troops on Oct. 19, 1781. During the action American and French land
forces under General George Washington, collaborating with a French fleet
commanded by Admiral Comte de Grasse, surrounded the British under Charles
Cornwallis, 1st Marquis Cornwallis, second in command of the British forces in
North America. The siege lasted twenty
days. The surrender of Cornwallis
resulted in the resignation of the British Prime Minister, Frederick North, 2nd
Earl of Guilford, and brought into power more conciliatory leaders.
new British leaders accepted the terms of the Treaty of Paris, signed on
September 3, 1783, which officially ended the war.
to the action at Yorktown, Cornwallis had moved north from North Carolina in an
unsuccessful effort to draw the pursuit of American forces led by General
Nathanial Greene. In Virginia the
British advanced against militia under the French commander the Marquis de
Lafayette, but Cornwallis would not enter the interior regions and subsequently
withdrew to Williamsburg, where he received orders to establish defensive
positions on Chesapeake Bay. The
British fortified Yorktown and the town of Gloucester, on the opposite side of
the York River. Lafayette and a small
force of Americans, who had followed Cornwallis to Yorktown, notified
Washington, encamped in West Point, New York, of the British position and
after receiving the news Washington decided to launch a surprise attack on
Cornwallis. Leaving some 3000 troops
behind to defend the forts along the Hudson River and to mislead the British
command in New York City about his main objective, Washington set out for
Virginia about the middle of August.
His force numbered about 7000 men, including French regular troops under
the Comte de Rochambeau. They arrived
at Williamsburg on Sept. 14, 1781.
Meanwhile a French fleet under de Grasse had succeeded in blockading
Chesapeake bay, thus preventing a possible British escape. In addition, about 3000 French troops had
landed from de Grasse's ships and joined Washington's army.
American and French troops reached Yorktown on Sept. 26. Some 15,000 strong,
they laid seige to the British positions.
American assault forces captured two British strongholds on the night of
October 14, and a British counterattack proved ineffective. Recognizing the hopelessness of his position,
Cornwallis requested a truce on Oct. 17 and signed articles of surrender two
days later. A British reinforcement of
7000 troops under Sir Henry Clinton turned back to New York after receiving
news of the surrender on October 24.
achieved the victory at Yorktown by coordinating his widely scattered land and
sea forces, and his effort is generally considered one of the most skillful
military operations in history.
Although peace wasn't officially proclaimed until 1783, hostilities
virtually ceased after the siege.
Home at Last
on leaving the service for the last time in 1781, Peter Coger returned to his
home in Rockingham County, Virginia, and was married to Mary Mackelvain.
page eight of the Book of Marriage Bonds of Rockingham County, Virginia, for
1778-1816, is the following entry:
"I do hereby
certify that Peter Coger and Mary Mackelvain were Lawfully Married by
Publishment, Given under my hand
3, 1781.
year of the Commonwealth.
after their wedding, Peter and Mary moved to Franklin County. Peter Coger was
given a deed in Franklin County on the 13th Day of November 1793, for 97 1/2
acres of land.
In a letter from James B. Koger to
Steve Coger dated February 9, 1985, James B. Koger states:
"The last I heard from Okey Cogar was
something very interesting. He said that he had come across records back in
Virginia that when Michael Coger sold the land that had been deeded to him by
his father Jacob Koger, before he (Michael) left for Kentucky to take up his
land grants there, that he divided his proceeds with his brothers Peter and
Jacob Koger, Jr. It was with this money that both Peter and Jacob, Jr. could
buy property and set up living in Franklin County, Virginia. I asked him where
I could find these documents, but never got an answer. I did hear that he had
been sick, but that is all I know."
1782, on the 21st of October, Peter Coger signed as a witness on a deed from
his father Jacob, giving land on Stone's Creek in Henry County to his brother,
Jacob's son Henry.
April 3, 1797, records state that he purchased 160 acres of land on the
Blackwater River in Franklin County.
letter from James B. Koger to Steve Coger, dated September 21, 1980, states,
"Okey Cogar states that Peter had several slaves and when he
moved to Franklin County, he took them along with him."
two separate actions, Peter Coger and his wife Mary, cited as Polly, gave away
200 acres, 100 each time, in February of 1816: 100 acres on Blackwater River,
and the other hundred simply listed as in Franklin County. Neither listing states to whom the land was
Book One of Land Grants in Nicholas
County, Virginia, on page 135, states;
"Cogar, Peter 65 acres at White Elk in year of 1823."
to a letter written from the Veteran's Administration to Miss Emma Coger in
1937, government records show that in 1824, Peter and his family moved to the
White Elk River in Randolph County, and then to Lewis County, Virginia.
comparing the Census Records for the period with the moves of Peter Coger and
his family, we can, with some certainty, tell which of the Cogers later living
in this region were the children of Peter and Mary "Polly" Coger. Their son William was born around 1782;
Jacob was born about 1783; Thomas about 1788; Peter, Jr., about 1790;
Benjamine, about 1793; and John, about 1797.
Their only daughter whose name has come down to us is Catherine, but her
birth date is unknown. There may have
been other daughters, but we have no records to indicate their married
names. We do know that Peter Coger was
allowed a pension on his war service, and that it was executed December 3,
1832, at which time he was living in Lewis County, Virginia.
1837 Peter Coger was residing in a remote corner of Kanawha County, in what is
now West Virginia.
pension list of Revolutionary War soldiers still receiving pensions in 1841
lists Peter Coger as living in Lewis County, Virginia, with an Adam Starcher,
who was apparently one of his son-in-laws.
to a book on the McElvain family by Delores Cogar Bright of Woodbridge,
Virginia, Phoebe Coger, the tenth child of Peter Coger and Mary McElwain
married Adam Starcher on August 28, 1828 in Kanawha County, now Calhoun County,
West Virginia.
Bright lists that Adam and Phoebe were the parents of nine children: 1.Sarah
(Sally) Starcher married Asa Hamrick; 2. Thomas Starcher was killed shortly
after the beginning of the Civil War; 3.
Jacob Starcher was first married to Minerva Stahlman and second to
Margaret Coger; 4. William Starcher died on February 1, 1866; 5. Henry Starcher
married 1st Sara Elizabeth Slider and 2nd Matilda Greathouse; 6. Peter Simon Starcher married Sarah Wilson;
7. John (Jehu) Starcher married Susanna Kirby; 8. Mary (Polly) married John
Bailey; 9. Elizabeth (Betty) married George
William Gibson.
Starcher and Phoebe Coger and most of their children are buried in the Gibson
Cemetery near Arnoldsburg, West Virginia on the West Fork.
do not know when, where, or how Peter and Mary Mackelvain Coger died nor where
they were buried.
The following represents, verbatim, three
letters dictated by Peter Coger in which he recalled his service to his
country, both before and during the American Revolution. These letters were dictated late in Peter
Coger's life expressly for the purpose of obtaining a government pension, which
was subsequently granted. As much as
possible, the original spelling punctuation have been retained. Blank spaces indicate illegible words.
State of West Virginia
County of Lewis
On this 3rd day of December A.D. 1832 personally appeared in open court
before the justice of the Court of Lewis County now setting, Peter Coger
resident of the county of Lewis in the state of Virginia aged 79 years who
being first duly sworn according to law doth on his oath make the following
declaration in order to obtain the benefit of the Act of Congress passed June
7, 1832. That he entered the service of
the United States under the following named Officers, and served as herein
stated. In Rockingham County in the
state of Virginia on the 1st July 1777 he volunteered as a private in a company
commanded by Capt. Jeremiah Ragan. ¾ Harrison Leiut. Ensign name forgotten. March from thence through Augusta and
Greenbriar Counties to the Great Kanawha River and descended to Point Pleasant
at the mouth. When he arrived the fort
was Garrisoned by Col. A. Kellars troops.
He seen when there Capts. Arbuckle, Stewart, and Hill. Cornstalk the celebrated Sachem was at this
time detained at the fort as a hostage together with Red Hawk and some other
Indians of distinction, was at Pt. Pleasant when the affair took place which
led to the death of the Indian hostages.
Seen Cornstalk, Red Hawk, and Eleuipsica shot by the incensed
soldiers. Declarant remained at the
fort at Pt. Pleasant awaiting the arrival of Genl. Hand from Fort Pitt with
those forces they expected to form a junction at Pt. Pleasant and then proceed
under his command on an expedition against the Indians on the North side of the
Ohio. Genl. Hand arrived without an
army and the expedition was abandoned.
and Declarant was in January 1778 discharged by his Capt. and returned
home having served 7 months. Then on
the first of April 1779 he again entered the service of the United States as a
private volunteer under Capt. Abraham Bowman, Leiut. Isaac Bowman. Daniel Dust Ensign. Marched from Rockingham Co., Va., to Fort
Pitt (now Pittsburgh) was there attached to the forces under command of Col.
G.R. Clark, embarked and proceeded down the Ohio river to the Burnt Chimneys
below the Falls of the River¾there they landed¾and fearing that the savages might find and destroy
their boats¾they sunk them and continued their march to
the Illinois river¾crossed the same and took possession of the
Illinois Fort. Part of the forces were
stationed there during the winter. the
others went up the Mississippi to Coho Station and remained there until
spring. The following Spring the troops
formed a junction and marched to the Wabash Country, where they had a skirmish
with the French and Indians, a small company who had taken Capt. Helm and his
soldiers, who were from Old Virginia, a battle took place, firing kept up
during a whole night, we wounded and killed some of the French and Indians and
rescued Capt. Helm and his men.
Remained there until Oct. was then discharged by his Capt. and returned
to Rockingham Virginia having served 18 months. Again in the month of July in the year 1781 he was drafted in the
said county of Rockingham under Capt. George Crisman, and marched from thence
to Fredericksburg Va. a plan of general
rendezvous was there received by Genl. George Wildon. Was there attached to Regt under command of Col. Darke. Marched from thence to Richmond was
stationed on the hill where the Capitol now stands. There seen Genl. Washington, Genl. Wayne, the Marquis LaFayette, was
there about three weeks when the enemy entered the city, and they retreated in
the direction of Culpepper Courthouse but recd orders to counter march to New
Kent Courthouse. which was obeyed¾they was there attached to forces under command of
LaFayette and Genl. Wayne and pursued the enemy to Yorktown, remained there
until the surrender of Lord Cornwallis, was there discharged and returned to
his residence in Rockingham Va. this
was towards the last of Oct. in 1781.
Declarant served this tour 3 months and about 20 days. His discharges have all been lost. Declarant was born in Pa., Taken to Va. when
an infant. Resided in Rockingham County
Va. until some years after his services in the Revolution then moved to
Harrison County Now Lewis in the said state.
Where he still resides.
He has no documentary
evidence by which to prove his services.
Knows of no man who can testify to the same. Unless Isaac and John Mace who he supposes could testify to part
of his services.
He hereby relinquishes every
claim whatever to a pensioner annuity except this present and declares that his
name is not on the pension roll of the agency of any state. Sworn and Subscribed this 3rd day of Dec.
X Coger
To the 7 several
interrogatories propounded by this court in pursuance of the regulations adopted
by the War Department he answers as follows, to wit, to the first he answers
and saith
1st He was born in the state of Pennsylvania the name of the
county he has forgotten. In the year 1753
2nd I have no record of my age, I recollect the account given me of
my age by my parents.
3rd I was living when I went into the service in Rockingham County
4th The first and second terms I volunteered. The 3d I was drafted.
5th Washington, Wayne, LaFayette, Mackintosh, Hand, General
Officers. Cols. A. Keller, Darke, Clark, & Capts.
Arbuckle, Stewart, Hill, Keilrun, Ragan, Bowman, and Crisman.
6th My discharges have all been lost by whom they were signed I
cannot recollect.
7th John Mace and Isaac Mace live in the neighborhood where I
reside and can testify to my
character for veracity and their belief of my services as a soldier of
the Revolution.
We John Mace and Isaac Mace
residing in Lewis County in the State of Virginia hereby certify that we are
well acquainted with Peter Coger who has subscribed and sworn to the above
declaration that We believe him to be 79 years old that he is respected and
believed in the neighborhood where he resides to have been a soldier of the
Revolution, and that we concur in that opinion¾
John X Mace
X Mace
Sworn and subscribed the day
and year aforesaid.
State of West Virginia
County of Lewis
Personally appeared in open
court before me Edwin S. Duncan Judge of the Circuit Superior Court of Lewis
and Chancery for the County of Lewis, State of Virginia Peter Coger, aged as he
says upwards of eighty years, and made the following Declaration: for the purpose of being reinstated upon the
pension role and to obtain the benefit of the law passed the 7 of June 1832
providing for the Soldiers of the Revolutionary War.
Who after being duly sworn
according to law Declares that he entered the service of the Untied States, in
the year 1777. That he volunteered his
service in a Company of Militia. In the
county of Augusta in the state of Virginia commanded by Captain Ragan. That they commenced their march in the month
of July or August. From Staunton, to
the Warm Springs to Savanah Fort, now Lewisburg in the county of Greenbriar,
State of Virginia, to Big Kenhawa, to Point Pleasant. Whilst we lay at this place Cornstalk the Indian Chief was
Killed. We remained here guarding the
Western Frontier of Virginia until the time for which we had volunteered
expired and we were discharged having served the United States six months. That in the month of April 1778 he again in
company with his brother Jacob, Entered the service of the United States, under
the command of Capt. Abraham Bowman, that both himself and his brother Jacob
Volunteered for the term of one year Expressly to Join the Expidition
undertaken by Col. George Rogers Clark, against the British and Indians in the
Illinois Country, that by an arrangement with Capt. Bowman Declarant &
Brother joined the Regiment at Wheeling at the time Declarant Volunteered in
this service he was a citizen of Rockingham County & state of Virginia, and
Volunteered in said County. We embarked
on board of keel boats at Wheeling and decended to the Falls of the Ohio, we
landed at the Falls and built cabbins on the Island and left a number of
families, and some soldiers for their protection. We then embarked and decended to the Burnt Chimneys here landed
and sunk our boats and commenced our march by land to the Illinois a very
tedious and fatiguing journey, on the night of the last days march we marched
all night and about Cock Crow in the morning we completed our landing on the
opposite side of the Illinois river, having had only one small boat to ferry us
all across. We marched directly to the
fort and took possession then of (it).
Our approach had been conducted so quietly and secretly that the fort
had no notice of their danger until it was too late to make resistance. In this Fort we found a Governor and his
lady who ware made prisoners and Declarant understood that the Governor was
sent as a prisoner to the Governor of Virginia, we remained here but a few
days. Col. Clark placed this fort under
a guard and marched with the main body of his troops to a place called Coho of
which we took possession. Whilst at
this place an Express arrived to Col. Clark from Fort Vincines. We immediately took up the line of march for
that place, upon our arrival a battle took place which resulted in the
recapture of the post by our troops.
Declarant understood that the post had been in possession of the
americans under the command of Capt. Helm, who had been forced to surrender it
to the British and Indians, After the
retaking Declarant understood that the command of the post was a gain given to
Capt. Helm, who with his troops Declarant understood came from Old
Virginia. A party of Indians who had
been out on a War Party returned shortly after the recapture of the fort
bringing with them a number of prisoners, before the Indians became notified of
the fort having changed masters, some of them were taken and immediately
killed. At Fort Vincines the time for
which Declarant and his brother Jacob had entered the service of the United
States expired and they ware honorably discharged having served twelve
months. At the time declarant entered
the service he was promised bounty land but to this day he has not received
either land or money or any other pay.
Owing to ill health of both declarant and his brother Jacob who had the
fever and Ague, they did not reach home until July 1779, that early in the
spring of 1780 he substituted for a tower of three months in the place of John
Keiser in a company of militia in Rockingham County State of Virginia commanded
by Captain Jeremiah Ragan and Lt. ______ Smith. We marched from to the lower part of Virginia marching through
Richmond and joined the Regiment.
Declarant does not recollect the names of his field officers. They ware strangers to him. the company officers ware his
neighbors. The occurances of the
campaign has principally out of his recollection, he recollects that on one
occasion, himself and 10 or 12 others of the men stopped in a field to pick
blackberries, that while so engaged a small squad of British Light Hors.
attacked them but being fired upon ceased to pursue us and we made the best of
our way to the regiment who had halted upon hearing the sound of guns. We explained and marched on and crossed the
Appomattox River. in crossing the boat
capsized and Drowned one man. We
decended the country to a considerable distance and then returned up the
country to Frederixbourg when Declarant was discharged having served the United
States as a substitute for John Keiser three months. About one month after the Declarant had been discharged as a
substitute he was regularly drafted into the service of the United States, in
the county of Rockingham State of Virginia for a tour of three months and
placed under the command of Capt. John Hopkins and Lieutenant Daniel Dust. The company met at Col. Smith's in
Rockingham County. they marched by the
most direct rout for the North Carolina line thence down the country below
Richmond and remained in this section guarding the country until the three
months expired when Declarant was discharged near the Appomattox River having
faithfully served three months at this time, in the Spring of the Year 1781,
Declarant was again drafted into the services of the United States for the term
of six months, in the county of Rockingham and State of Virginia, and placed
under the command of Captain George Chrisman, and Lieutenant Jacob
Linkhorn. Our company rendezvous at the
hous of John Crisman brother to Captain Crisman, marched by the most direct
rout to Frederexbourg, Va. during this campaign we often in danger of being
engaged with the enemy which we avoided by retreating. On one occasion we were compelled to wade a
Deep Creek, we had no fighting until we were informed that General Washington
was besieging Lord Cornwallis at Yorktown.
At this time our regiment lay at Portsmouth Va. from thence we marched by forced march to
join the main Army at York, we continued at this plan besieging the Enemy until
the time Declarant had been drafted for expired and he was discharged having
served six months at this time, which when added to his former service Rendered
to the United States making the term of two years and six months. Declarant knows of no person now living by
whom to prove his services further than is set forth in the affidavit of his
two friends, to wit Tunis M'CWane and Isaac Mace, the affidavits are herewith
filed in. Declarant being at this time
a citizen of the county of Kenhawa state of Virginia for reason why he applies
to the court says that he is a very old and infirm man that he lives near the
line dividing the two counties that from his hous to Kenhawa a considerable
part of the way is a wilderness and he is unable to get on and off.
Peter Coger. Pensioner ¾ receivs $80 P annum
On this 18th of August 1834, Mr. Coger gave the following
narative of his service as a Soldier in the War of the Revolution.
He states that he dont know his age¾that he was raised in Rockingham County Virginia and
was drafted at the age of sixteen years and marched from Rockingham County
under Capt. Jeremiah Ragan to Point Pleasant on the Ohio River where an
engagement was had with the indians in which the _________ Chief "Cornstalk"
was killed and that he saw him fall, dont recollect how long he was drafted
for, but thinks he was in this service something like two or three weeks¾. (Note this battle at this point with Cornstalk was
in 1774, WGS.)
In the year 1780 he enlisted in Rockingham County under
Capt. Abraham Bowman, went on with Capt. Bowmans Company to Fort Pitt, and from
there we went down to the falls of the Ohio by water, and built a garrison
where Lewisville now stands, and from thence descended the Ohio to a place
called "Brick Chimneys", sank our boats, and went by land to the Illinois,
attacked the French ________. Captured
the ________, made a prisoner of the Governor and sent him to Washington City,
with a part of the army. the balance of
the Army remained at the french town until Fall, when Capt. Bowman's company
was sent to the "Coho" on the Mississippi River, where we remained until
Spring. From thence we returned to the
Illinois, and thence to the Wabash. At
this latter place he was discharged (cant tell for what length of time he
enlisted) and returned home. after
which he was drafted under Cap. Geo. Chrisman and went against Cornwallis. (Declarant) served out this term (cant tell
how long) and was again drafted under Capt. Harris and "went against Cornwallis
again" cant tell how long he was in service. ¾and was drafted two or three
months afterwards and went against Cornwallis.
After all the Service he went was out after the tories under Capt.
Harris on the south branch. That Doct.
Robt. Smith Declarant agreed to give him the first years draw. He drew $200 and only paid him eighty
I do certify that the (herein) contains the truth the
whole truth and nothing but the truth.
P.B. Byrum Peter
Saul Arnold A.
Cobey W. Galingletin
Messr Isaac Mace proved the
service of Mr. Coger. & Coger
proved Mace's service. Both cases are
(pending ) in court.
Franklin County, Virginia
At a Court held for Franklin
County August 4th, 1817
This Bond was acknowledged
by the obligers within named to be their act and deed and ordered to be
Teste: Calbe Tate
This Indenture, made this 13th day of February 1817, by
and between Peter Coger and Mary, his wife of Franklin County, of the one part
and Abraham Abshire of the same county, of the other part.
Witnessed that for and in
consideration for six hundred dollars to him in hand paid, the receipt herof,
he doth hereby acknowledge hath given, granted, bargained and sold and by these
presents, do give, grant, bargain, sell, deliver and confirm unto Abraham
Abshire, his heirs and assigns forever, a certain parcel or track of land,
lying and being in the County of Franklin, on the waters of the Marggottee
Creek on the north side of Charles Knob.
Containing One Hundred acres, be the same more or less and bounded as
follows: Beginning at a Locust tree,
thence running down a ridge North 5 west 230 poles to a Double Chestnut, thence
North 58 west 58 poles to a red oak, thence south 42 west 158 poles to a
chestnut oak, thence south 32 degrees, east 34 poles to the beginning. Together with reversion and reversions,
remainder and remainders and every part and parcel thereof.
To have and to hold, the above granted land and premises
with appierte, names, priveledges, profits and advantages there unto belonging
or in any way apportaining unto the said Abraham Abshire, his heirs or assigns,
forever. And the said Peter Koger and
Mary, his wife, doth for themselves and their heirs, covenant, grand and agree
to with the said Abraham Abshire, his heirs and assigns, that they the said
Peter Koger and Mary, his wife and their heirs, the above granted land and
premises, with the appurtences, the said Abraham Abshire, his heirs and
assigns, shall and will by these presents, warrant and forever defend. In witness whereof, the said Peter Koger and
Mary, his wife, have hereto set their hands and official seals, the day and
bear above written.
X Koger ¾ seal
witness Mary
X Koger ¾ seal
George Wright mark
Note: This deed is of particular interest, inasmuch as it begins with the spelling of the surname as Coger, yet in three other references and the seal thereafter, it is spelled Koger.
December 31, 1937
file reference:
reply to:
Miss Emma Cogar BA-J/ILL
6 Block Street Peter
Hyattsville, Maryland S.
Dear Madam:
is made to your letter in which you request the Revolutionary War record of
Peter Cogar, and cite a pensioner Peter Cogar of Lewis County, West Virginia,
in 1842
record of Peter Coger is furnished herein as shown in the papers on file in his
claim for pension, S. 10481, based upon his service in the Revolutionary War.
Coger was born in the year 1753, "in the State of Pennsylvania" or "on the
Hawksbille in Shenandoah County, Virginia", both statements made by the
soldier. The names of his parents are
not shown. He was taken to Virginia as
an infant, and was reared in Augusta and Rockingham Counties in that state.
a resident of Rockingham County, Virginia, Peter Coger volunteered in July
1777, served as private in Captain Jeremiah Ragan's Virginia company, marched
to Point Pleasant and continued in service six months. He enlisted in April 1778, served as private
in Captains Abraham Bowman's and Abraham Kellar's companies in General George
Rogers Clark's expedition against the Indians, was in the battle of Vincennes
and was discharged May 8, 1779. He
enlisted in the spring of 1780, and served as private in Captain Jeremiah
Ragan's Virginia company for 3 months, shortly after which he enlisted and
served three months in Captain John Hopkins Virginia company. He enlisted in the spring of 1781, served as
private in Captain George Cressman's Virginia company, was stationed a part of
the time near Fredericksburg and was discharged after the surrender of Lord
Coger returned to his home in Rockingham County, Virginia shortly after the
war, moved to Franklin County, Virginia, in 1824 moved to Elk River in Randolph
County, thence to Lewis County, Virginia.
Coger was allowed pension on his application executed December 3, 1832, at
which time he resided in Lewis County, Virginia. His name was borne on the pension roll as Peter Coger. In 1837, the soldier was residing in a
"remote corner of Kanawha County, Virginia".
Coger made no reference to wife or children.
He stated that his brother, Jacob Coger, entered service with him in
1778 and served under General George Rogers Clark against the Indians, and that
they returned to Rockingham County, Virginia together. There is no claim for pension of file based
upon services in the Revolutionary War of Jacob Coger, or Cogar.
truly yours,
the Administrator.
I omitted last payment of pension ¾ as pen. was reduced in 1837 ¾ Jacob & Peter Coger are shown in the "Illinois
Regt." entitled to land from Va.
Dunmore's War
John Murray, fourth Earl of Dunmore, and the
last royal Governor of Virginia, was born in 1732. He was appointed Governor of New York in January, 1770, and of
Virginia in July, 1771, arriving in the latter Colony in 1772. In the summer of the ensuing year, he
visited the frontiers of the Colony and spent some time at Pittsburg. Indian hostilities were renewed in 1774, and
that year is famous as that of "Dunmore's War." He was the only royal Governor that ever led a military
expedition into the Ohio Valley.
Loyal to the British cause, Dunmore was driven from Virginia in 1775 by Revolutionary patriots. He escaped in a British man-of-war. In 1786 he was appointed Governor of Bermuda, and died at Ramsgate, England in May, 1809.
To meet the general uprising of the united Indian tribes
of the Ohio in 1774, Virginia made ready for war, the din of preparation
resounding along her borders. Lord
Dunmore left Williamsburg, and passing over the Blue Ridge Mountains, assisted
in mustering an army.
A force of two thousand three hundred veteran troops was
collected in two divisions, called the northern and southern wings, to march by
different routes, then to be reunited on the banks of the Ohio River.
The southern division, numbering eleven hundred men under
the command of General Andrew Lewis, was divided into two regiments commanded
by Colonel William Fleming of Botetourt County and Colonel Charles Lewis of
Augusta County. The troops gathered at
Camp Union, afterward Fort Savannah, now Lewisburg, the county seat of
Greenbrier County.
The last to arrive were two companies, one from Bedford
and a second from Washington County, the latter under command of Captain Evan
Shelby who would later become Governor of Kentucky.
On the 6th of September, 1774, Colonel Charles Lewis left
camp at the head of six hundred Augusta County troops with orders to proceed to
the mouth of the Elk River to where Charleston is now located, and there to
construct canoes in which to transport the army's supplies to the mouth of the
Great Kanawha River. Major Thomas
Posey, the Commissary-General, and Jacob Warwick, the butcher, had charge of
the supplies, which included four hundred pack horses, one hundred eight head
of beef cattle and fifty-four thousand pounds of flour ground on mills in the
Shenandoah Valley. On the 12th of
September, General Lewis left Captain Anthony Bledsoe with the sick at Camp
Union, and with the remainder of the army, numbering five hundred and fifty
men, struck the tents and took up the line of march through the
wilderness. The advance was overtaken
at the mouth of the Elk, and there those who had fallen sick were left in the
care of Captain Slaughter; and the army
thus reunited proceeded down the north side of the Great Kanawha to its
junction with the Ohio, arriving on the 6th of October.
The northern wing, personally commanded by Governor
Dunmore, and numbering twelve hundred men, was collected chiefly from the
counties of Frederick, Berkely, Hampshire and what is now Jefferson
County. Three of the companies had
served with McDonald and on their return enlisted in Dunmore's army.
The westward march began by way of Potomac Gap, and upon
reaching the Monongahela River, the force was divided. Colonel William Crawford with five hundred
men proceeded overland with the cattle, while Governor Dunmore with seven
hundred men descended the river by way of Fort Pitt. Both columns reached Wheeling ¾ then Fort Fincastle ¾ on the 30th of September. The combined forces at once descended the Ohio to the mouth of
the Hockhocking river, where they halted and built Fort Gower, the first structure
of its kind reared by Englishmen in Ohio.
The spot on which General Lewis' army encamped at the
junction of the Great Kanawha and Ohio Rivers was one of awe-inspiring
grandeur. Here they saw hills, valleys,
plains and promontories, all covered with gigantic forests, the growth of
centuries, standing in their native majesty, unsubdued by the hand of man. To this spot the Virginians gave the name of
Camp Point Pleasant, from which that of the present day town has been
derived. Thus, the first week of
October, 1774, the two wings of Dunmore's army lay upon the Ohio, yet separated
by a distance of more than sixty miles.
The Battle of Point Pleasant
When General Lewis reached the mouth of the Great
Kanawha, he was very much disappointed at not meeting Governor Dunmore. Shortly, however, messengers arrived with
dispatches from Dunmore including and order for the southern wing of the army
to rendezvous with the northern wing at the Shawnee towns on the Sciota, far
out in the Ohio wilderness. Lewis' men,
however, were much fatigued after a wilderness march covering one hundred and
sixty miles. Adding to that, pens had
to be constructed to contain the cattle they had brought with them. Lewis replied to Dunmore on October the 8th,
informing him of those facts, and proposing in stead to join him as soon as all
of the food supplies and powder reached Point Pleasant. On the next day, Sunday, October 9th, 1774,
the Chaplain preached the first sermon ever delivered at the mouth of the Great
Kanawha River.
Early on the morning of October 10th, two soldiers, named
Robertson and Hickman, went up the Ohio in quest of deer. When about three miles from camp, near the
mouth of Oldtown Creek, they discovered a large body of Indians just rising
from their encampment. The Indians
fired on the soldiers, killing Hickman.
Robertson escaped, and upon his return to camp, he informed General
Lewis that he had seen a body of Indians covering four acres of ground. Within an hour after the discovery of the
Indians, a general engagement began, the battle line extending down the bank of
the Ohio toward the Kanawha and a distance of one half mile past that point.
Colonel Charles Lewis, brother of General Lewis, led the
advance and fell mortally wounded at the first volley. Lewis' troops wavered under an incessant
fire, while Colonel Fleming advanced along the bank of the Ohio. Though he, too, was severely wounded,
Fleming remained at the head of the column and thus checked the Indian
advance. The struggle continued with
unabated fury until late in the afternoon, when General Lewis, seeing the
futility of dislodging the Indians, detached three companies with orders to
proceed up the Kanawha River, where under cover of the banks of Crooked Creek,
they should attack the Indians in the rear.
The movement was executed as planned, securing the victory for the
Virginians. At about sundown, the
Indians retreated across the Ohio River toward their towns on the Sciota.
The Battle of Point Pleasant left seventy-five Virginians
killed and one hundred and forty wounded.
Indian casualties were never ascertained, nor was the total number
engaged ever known. Their numbers were
composed of warriors from the different nations north of the Ohio ¾ the Shawnee, Delaware, Mingo, Wyandotte and Cuyuga
tribes, led by their respective chiefs at the head of whom was Cornstalk, king
of the Northern Confederacy.
Never, perhaps did men exhibit more bravery in making a
charge and fortitude in withstanding one, than did these undisciplined soldiers
of the forest on the field at Point Pleasant.
It is said that the voice of Cornstalk could be heard above the din and
roar of the battle.
Colonel Fleming was left in command at Camp Point
Pleasant. On that site he reared the
walls of Fort Randolph, and the place was never afterward deserted.
"Of all the Indians, the Shawnees were the most bloody and terrible,
holding all other men, Indians as well as Whites, in contempt as warriors in
comparison with themselves. This
opinion made them more restless and fierce than any other savages; and they
boasted that they had killed ten times as many white people, as had any other
Indian nation. They were a well formed,
active and ingenious people, were assuming and imperious in the presence of
others not of their own nation, and were sometimes very cruel." So wrote Captain John Stuart in his Memoirs of the Indian Wars and Other
Occurrences, in the early nineteenth century.
In 1771, seven nations of Indians-Shawnees, Delawares,
Wyandots, Mingos, Miamis, Ottawas, Illinois ¾ and others, formed a
Confederacy that was the most powerful to menace the frontiers of British
civilization in the colonies.
The Shawnees were the most powerful of these tribes. The
most powerful of the Shawnees was the famous chieftain Keigh-tugh-gua, which translates to "Cornstalk." In 1774, when the white men were pressing
down into the Kanawha and Ohio River valleys, the Indian Confederacy prepared
to protect their lands.
The Indians formed a line across the point from the Ohio River
to the Kanawha River. The whites and Indians each numbered about twelve hundred
men. Chief Cornstalk's voice echoed
above the sounds of battle, 'Be strong! Be strong!' The broad-shouldered
six-foot chieftain led his followers bravely, but they were no match for the
white man's musketry. When the Battle
of Point Pleasant was over, one hundred and forty whites and at least twice
that many Indians lay dead. The Indians
retreated westward into what is now Ohio.
A fort was built at the junction of the Kanawha and Ohio
rivers to keep the Indians from returning to Virginia.
Cornstalk made peace with the white man. In November
1777, at the instigation of the English, the Indians were massing for a new
attack. Cornstalk and his fellow
tribesmen didn't want another war, which they would surely lose. On November 7,
Cornstalk and Red Hawk, a Delaware Chief, came to the fort to try and negotiate
a peace before the battle began. Cornstalk told Captain Arbuckle, who was in
command of the garrison, that he was opposed to joining the war on the side of
the British, but that all the Indian nation except himself and his tribe were
determined to take part in it. However,
as Cornstalk put it, he and his tribe would have to run with the stream.
For his peacemaking trouble, Cornstalk, Red Hawk and
another Indian were taken hostage in an attempt to prevent the Indians from
joining the British.
Cornstalk's name once chilled the heart of every white
man on the Virginia frontier, and struck terror into every resident of the
mountain cabins. His name was
associated with several frontier massacres.
He was gifted with skills in oratory and statesmanship, he was very
brave, and he was considered to be a genius in military strategy. (It was Cornstalk's fighting tactics, adopted
by the Americans, that led them to defeat the British in a number of battles.)
Colonel Benjamin Wilson, who once heard Chief Cornstalk
speak at a treaty council, said of the Indian leader, "When he arose, he was in
no way confused or daunted, but spoke in a distinct voice, without stammering
or repetitions, and with peculiar emphasis.
His looks while addressing Lord Dunmore [British governor of Virginia
before the Revolution], were truly grave and majestic; yet graceful and attractive. I have heard the first orators in Virginia ¾ Patrick Henry and Richard Henry Lee ¾ but never I heard one whose powers of delivery
surpassed those of Cornstalk."
Cornstalk, and his fellow Indians held as hostages, were
well treated and given comfortable quarters.
In fact, the chief even assisted his captors in plotting maps of the
Ohio River Valley. On November 9,
Cornstalk's son, Ellinipsico, came to see his father, and he, too, was detained
at the fort.
The next day,
those in the fort heard gunfire from the direction of the Kanawha River. Investigation showed that two men, Gilmore
and Hamilton, who had left the fort to hunt deer were ambushed by Indian
snipers. Hamilton managed to escape but
Gilmore was killed and scalped.
When the bloody corpse was returned to the fort, the
soldiers there, in a fit of fury, charged past their protesting officers and
forced their way into the building where the Indians were being held. Even though the bushwhackers who killed
Gilmore were from another tribe, the frenzied soldiers called for the blood of
Cornstalk and the other hostages. As
the soldiers advanced through the door, Chief Cornstalk rose up and, standing
erect, faced them. The sight of the
bronzed, six-foot chieftain bravely facing them caused the mob to pause, but only
momentarily, before they fired, killing the Indians. The great Cornstalk went down, but not before eight musket balls
tore into his flesh.
Red Hawk attempted to escape up the chimney, but was shot
down. Ellinipsico was slain as he sat
on a stool. The other Indian was slowly
strangled to death. AS Chief Cornstalk
lay dying, he looked up at his crazed assassins, his eyes flashing with
vengeance, and said, "I was the border man's friend. Many times have I saved him and his people from harm. I never warred with you, but only to protect
our wigwams and our lands.
"I refused to join your paleface enemies with the
Redcoats. I came to your fort as your
friend and you murdered me. You have
murdered by my side, my young son."
The blood flowing from his wounds seemed to stop. He continued, "For this, may the curse of
the Great Spirit rest upon this land.
May it be blighted by nature. May
it even be blighted in its hopes. May
the strength of its peoples be paralyzed by the stain of our blood."
Then he lay down and died, his eyes still glaring at his
The bodies of the other Indians, including Ellinipsico,
were dumped unceremoniously into the Kanawha River. Chief Cornstalk was buried in a marked grave near the fort on
Point Pleasant, overlooking the junction of the Ohio and Kanawha Rivers.
In his book Winning
The West, Theodore Roosevelt wrote, "Cornstalk died a grand death, by an
act of cowardly treachery on the part of his American foes; it is one of the darkest stains on the
checkered pages of frontier history."
"...Grandpa John M. Coger's father's name
was John Coger—his wife was Sarah Jane Sands. His father was William Coger...
and the same would be Asa Coger's..."
Braxton County
"William Coger married Betty Kingary, September 18, 1804, and
moved to what is now Webster Springs. He lived there a short time and moved to
Hacker Valley where he reared a large family of sons and daughters. His sons
were John, who lived in Braxton several years and then moved to the state of
Kansas in 1864, Tobias, William C., Benjamin, Tunis..."
Newton Miller
legal references to William Coger are few and occasionally confusing. Different birthdates appear for him on
different census records, which show him aging anywhere from five to
twenty-five years between the ten-year censuses.
for genealogical researches in this family, our William Coger was the only one
of his generation with his given name.
In later generations there were many William Cogers, implying that he
was a respected grandfather with many namesakes.
One of the earliest written reference
to William Coger is as "eldest son of Peter Koger," in the will of a Godfrey
Hamilton (or Hambleton) of Botetourt County, dated June 19, 1795, and probated
July 11, 1795.
this time we do not know the relationship between William Coger and this
Godfrey Hamilton, who wrote two wills that still exist, both of which refer to
members of the Coger family. At the
date of the second will, William was about fourteen years old. This will states, in part,
"the overfolush (sic) shall go to
Catharina Koger the woman that had lived with me and to William Koger eldest
son of Peter Koger to be devided in equal shares except one bed which the said
Catharina Koger is to have before any of my property is sold..."
William Coger's great-uncle
Nicholaus, who had been killed by Indians while building a log cabin in 1743,
the same year his daughter Anna Catharina Koger had been born. Many Koger/Coger genealogists believe that
it was this Catharina mentioned by Hamilton.
years earlier, on November 1st, 1786 the same man, his name spelled Godfrey
Hambleton, wrote an earlier will, which stated, "in consideration of the love
and good will and affection which I have and do bear towards my loving
son-in-law Jacob Koger (note that according to Okey Coger, by this time
Nicholas's son Jacob was signing his name as Jacob Cowger, so it seems more
likely that this is Hans Jacob's son Jacob-DSC) of the said county and colony
aforesaid have given....my goods and chattels now being in my present Dwelling
earlier will was witnessed by Peter Koger, Elizabeth Poore, and David Brasher,
and was dated November 1, 1784.
Koger, of 505 Colgate Street, Vestal, New York, in a letter to Steve Coger
dated August 17th, 1980, writes:
"...In 1784 Hambleton refers to Jacob Koger
as his 'loving son-in-law' and gives this Jacob `all and singular my goods and
chattels now being in my present dwelling house' in Botetourt Co., Virginia.
Witnessed by Peter Koger. Proved by the oath of Peter Koger and Elizabeth Poor"
"The second document is also from Botetourt County, Virginia,
dated June 5, 1786. Godfrey `hath bargained sold and delivered unto Jacob Koger
of the said county and state, all my lands that I now possess in this county,
with the plantation that I now live and properties that the said Jacob Koger
has in Kanducky'...This was also witnessed by Peter Koger."
"It seems obvious that Jacob Koger (son of I-Jacob the
immigrant) must have been married to a daughter of this Godfrey Hamilton. But she is not mentioned in the 1784
document either as wife or daughter. So perhaps she is dead then but Jacob is
still close to old Godfrey and perhaps even lives with him."
"So Godfrey signs over to Jacob his household goods. Then
somehow Jacob acquires land in Kentucky (Never heard of this before. Wonder if
it could have been up around Lexington where his brother Michael went about
this time?) So it seems that Godfrey and Jacob make a deal to switch land
holdings. Perhaps Godfrey wants Jacob to remain there in Botetourt County on
Godfrey's land and continue to make a home for him."
"Now, I think that we all have begun to agree that Peter and
Jacob, both sons of I-Jacob, have a close relationship and seem to stick
"Later Jacob Koger marries Sarah Walker and this Godfrey
Hamilton is on the bond. I suggest this is a second marriage for Jacob, and the
close relationship with G.H. continues."
"Then in 1795 we have the last will and testament for Godfrey
Hamilton (Hambleton) in which he mentions William Koger as the oldest son of
Peter Koger and also a Catherina Koger as `the woman that lives with me.'"
Koger in the letter goes on to suggest that the Catherina Coger mentioned in
Godfrey Hamilton's second will may the daughter of Peter Coger, rather than
Nicholas, and thus William's sister:
"It would make sense to me that Jacob,
having taken a new wife, might entrust the care of Godfrey Hamilton, his first
father-in-law, to his nephew and niece, the children of Peter Coger, if they
all lived in close proximity to each other."
"Children in those times were given great responsibility...in
their early teens...and Jacob Koger seems to have taken on the responsibility
of Godfrey Hamilton and was compensated for this according to these documents."
In the records of Franklin County,
Virginia, are the following entries:
first Mary Coger is probably William's sister.
The second Mary is the daughter of Jacob Koger, Peter's brother, and
therefore William's first cousin. Sarah
is the widow of that same Jacob, and therefore William's aunt. William's uncle Jacob had died on May 21,
1797, six months before.
August 1814, William Coger enlisted as a Private in the Virginia Militia
Companies of Captain John M. Holland and Captain John L. Jennings. This was the war called the "War of 1812",
and he enlisted for a period of six months. He was discharged on February 20,
From One
Family's Eyewitness To History by Sarah Coger:
Coger was born about 1782, and was the eldest son of Peter Coger, the
Revolutionary War veteran. He was born
in western Virginia, and raised in and around Botetourt County.
August, 1814, he enlisted as a private in the Virginia Militia Companies of
Captain John M. Holland and Captain John L. Jennings.
Congressional elections of 1810 had returned a vigorous new group of men to
Washington, D.C. Drawn largely from the
South and West, these men, called the "War Hawks," including Henry Clay, John
C. Calhoun, and Felix Grundy, wanted more land for settlement. Calling for war with Britain to defend
American sovereignty and honor, they proposed an attack on Canada both to
affront Britain and to stop British support of the Indians, who under the
Shawnee Chief Tecumseh opposed American westward expansion. The War Hawks also wanted to annex Florida,
held by Britain's ally, Spain. Thus, on
June 18, 1812, Congress declared war.
began near the Canadian border. The
swift action of British General Isaac Brock led to the American surrender of
Detroit and Fort Michilimackinac and the complete defeat of the poorly prepared
American army at Queenston Heights, near Niagara. The next year, on September 10, an American naval squadron under
Oliver Hazard Perry captured the British fleet on Lake Erie. On October 5 the troops of William Henry
Harrison defeated a combined force of British and Indians in the battle of the
Thames, just north of Lake Erie.
the Americans burned York (now called Toronto), capital of Upper Canada. Newly rising American hopes were dashed,
however, by failure to take Montreal.
Furthermore, despite victories of single American ships in the Atlantic,
such as that of the Constitution over the Guerriere in 1812, the Royal Navy
succeeded in blockading the entire eastern coast. U.S. trade was ruined. In
addition, the defeat of Napoleon in 1814 freed Britain to send more seasoned troops
to North America.
by 1814, the quality of American troops and the vigor and skill of their
leaders had improved markedly. That
summer American forces under Jacob Brown and Winfield Scott withstood heavy
British assaults at Chippewa and Lundy's Lane, near Niagara. On September 11, an American naval victory
on Lake Champlain forced 15,000 invading British troops to retreat to Canada.
south, on the coast, the British sailed 35,000 troops from Bermuda to
Chesapeake Bay, where they defeated a much larger force at Bladensburg and
proceeded to burn the Capitol and White House in Washington in retaliation for
the American attack on York. They
failed, though, in their plan to take Baltimore.
negotiations were begun as early as 1813, but the military stalemate
accelerated the tempo of bargaining. At
first both sides made unrealistic demands—the U.S. wanted Britain to end all
offensive maritime practices, and Britain demanded a neutral Indian buffer
state to be carved out of the American Northwest. Since neither side had won
the war, they compromised by returning to the status quo before the war.
peace treaty was signed at Ghent, Belgium, on December 24, 1814, and ratified
by the Senate February 16, 1815.
Between these dates a last battle was fought on January 8, when a
British army, landed at the mouth of the Mississippi River, was routed in the
battle of New Orleans by U.S. forces under General Andrew Jackson.
treaty didn't secure U.S. maritime rights, but the end of the Napoleonic Wars
meant that they were no longer threatened.
Britain never impressed American seamen again. The U.S. didn't win Canada, but Indian opposition to expansion
was broken, and Florida was soon ceded by Spain. The U.S. emerged from the war with a new sense of national
purpose. Canadians also gained
increased national awareness and a heightened distrust of republican
and Elizabeth Kingerly (or Kingary, as there is evidence that she was the
daughter of Peter and Mary Kingary) Coger had eight children; Tobias married
Frana Fisher; John, our ancestor, married Sarah Jane Sands; Tunis married Mary
E. Kimbleton; William Jr., called "Skelt Bill", married Mary Bender; Benjamin
married Mary Ann McCourt; Catherine married John Bender; Mary "Polly" married
Zachariah Howell; and Sarah married John Cowger (we do not know if this is one
of the descendants of the immigrant Nickolas, whose children changed their
name's spelling to Cowger).
1850 census of Braxton County, Virginia, lists William and Elizabeth as both
being seventy years old, placing their births in 1780.
1860 census of Webster County, Virginia, lists William as seventy-eight, living
with his son William Junior, and placing his birth is 1782. (This William Jr. had a son named Asa, which
also appears to be a popular name with the Coger family).
1870 census for Webster County lists William as living with his son Tunis, and
lists his age as one hundred and three, placing his birth in 1767. However,
this would also have his birth fourteen years before his parents married, and
so this age is not considered to be correct.
existing history of Braxton County contains a list of citizens who lived over a
century. Topping the list is William Coger, whom it states lived to be 108.
also on the list are Jacob Coger, who lived to be 106, and Mary Coger, who
lived to be 104.
he stated he was 103 in 1870, and he died at 108, it is possible, though surely
uncertain, that he died in 1875. We
have no records of his or his wife's death.
William Coger was discharged from his
duties in February of 1815. On the
following several pages are the existing records of William Coger's service
during the War of 1812.
Godfrey Hamilton Will
In the name of God amen I
Godfrey Hamilton of Botetourt County being sick and weak in body but of perfect
mind and memory thanks be given unto God calling to mind the mortality of body
and knowing that is appointed for all men once to die do make and ordain this
last will and testament that is to say principally and first of all I give and
recomand my Soul in the hand of Allmighty God that gave it and my body I
recomand to the earth to be buried in decent Christian burial at the Discretion
of my Executors and as touching such an estate wherewith it had pleased God to
bless me in life I give devise and dispose of the same in the following manner
and from First I devise that all my land and household furniture and moveable
stock shall be sold and my lawfull debts be payd out of it and the overfolush
shall go to Catharina Koger the
woman that had lived with me and to William
Koger eldest son of Peter Koger
to be devided in equal shares except one bed which the said Catharina Koger is to have before any
of my property is sold and I apoint my friend John Hartman and James Mallan the
sole Executors of this my last will and Testament and I do hereby utterly
disallow revoke and disannul all and every other wills & testaments by me
in anywise before named ratifying and confirming this to be my last will and
testament and no other In witness
whereof I have pereunts by my hand and seal this Nineteenth day of June in the
Year of our Lord One thousand and seven hundred and ninety five.
GH Hamilton
Signed Sealed Published
Pronounced and declared by the said Godfrey Hamilton as his last will and
Testament in the presence of each other have hereto subscribed our names
Henry Snider Godfrey
GH Hamilton
Philip Shertzer
11 July Botetourt Court 1795
This instrument of writing
purporting to be the last will and Testament of Godfrey Hamilton decd
was executed in court and proved by oath of Henry Snider and Philip Shertzer
witnesses thereto subscribed thereupon ordered to be recorded
Botetourt County Circuit
Court Clerk's Office
(Recorded in Deed Book 3, Page 432)
To all People to whom these Presents shall come that I
Godfrey Hambleton do send Greeting know ye that I the said Godfrey Hambleton of
Botetourt County and Colony of Virginia Planter for and in consideration of the
Love and good will and Affection that I have and do bear towards my Loving
Son-in-Law Jacob Koger of the said
County and Colony aforesaid have given granted and by these Presents do freely
give and grant unto the said Jacob Koger
his Heirs Executors or Administrators all and singular my Goods and Chattles
now being in my present Dwelling House in the said County and Colony aforesaid
of which before the Signing of these Presents I have delivered he the said Jacob Koger an Inventory signed with my
Own Hand and bearing Date to have and to Hold all the said Goods and Chattels
in said Premises or Dwelling House to him the said Jacob Koger his Heirs, Executors, Administrators, from henceforth
as his and their proper Goods and Chattels absolutely with any manner of
Condition in Witness I have hereunto set my hand and Seal this first Day of
November one thousand seven hundred and eighty four.
GH Hambleton {seal}
Signed Sealed and Delivered
in the Presence of
Peter Koger
David Brasier
Elizabeth X Poor
October Botetourt Court
1786 This Deed of Gift was proved by
the Oaths of Peter Koger &
Elizabeth Poor & ordered to be recorded.
Teste H. Smyth D.C.
The following affidavits and letters represent William Coger's efforts
over a period spanning more than twenty years to obtain a warrant for bounty
land granted to soldiers of the War of 1812.
State of Virginia
County of Braxton
On this 26 day of November AD One thousand Eight hundred
& fifty personally appeared before John B. McCourt, a justice of the peace
within and for the County and State aforesaid, William Coger aged 70 years, a
resident of the County and State aforesaid, who being duly sworn according to
law declares that he is the identical William Coger who was a private in the
Company commanded by Captain Holland on the way to Norfolk and for a time under
him at that place but he being sent home sick he was attached to Captain John
Jennings' Company from Halifax in the 7th Regiment of
Virginia Militia commanded by Col. David Saunders under the command of General
Porter in the war with Great Britain declared by the United States on the 18th
day of June, 1812. That he was drafted
from Franklin County in the State of Virginia in the month of August 1814 for
the term of six months. That he
continued in the service until the close of the war when he was honorably
discharged, but which discharge he has lost.
That said discharge was given at fort Barbour at Norfolk at the close of
said war.
He makes this declaration for the purpose of obtaining
the bounty land to which he may be entitled under the act granting land to
certain officers and soldiers who have been engaged in the military service of
the United States passed Sept. 28, 1850.
William X Coger
No. 64074
Auditor's Office
2, 1852
William Koger, a Private in Captains John
M. Holland & John L. Jennings' Companies Virginia Militia, Service from 10 August
1814 (indef). and paid to 20 February 1815, the expiration of the Service. He is reported sick on the role. I have written the applicant's name as it is
spelled on the rolls.
Examined Jany 2, 1852 H.W.
Beverly, Va.
June 9th, 1852
Jas. E. Heath
Comr. of Pensions
Dear Sir
Mr. Henry C. Moore of this county informs me that about
the middle of January 1851 he sent to your department ¾ applications for bounty lands in the names of
Benjamin Hamrick, Thomas Coger, William Coger, John Clifton, James Miller, John
Howell and Christian Bickle. That at
the time he received receipts for the same & that he has not heard from
said applications since. You will
please let me know what has been done with the same.
State of Virginia
County of Lewis
On this 14th day of June A.D. One
thousand eight hundred and fifty-five, personally appeared before me a Justice
of the Peace within and for the County and State aforesaid, William Coger, aged
75 years, a resident of Braxton County in the State of Virginia, who being duly
sworn according to law, declares that he is the identical William Coger who was
a private in the Company Commanded by Col. D. Sanders in the War with Great
Britain, declared by the United States, on the 18th day of
June, 1812, for the term of six months, and continued in actual service in said
war for fourteen days; that he has
heretofore made application for bounty land under the act of Sept. 28th
1850, and received a bounty land warrant no. __________ for 80 acres, which he
has since legally disposed of and cannot now return.
He makes this declaration for the purpose of obtaining
the bounty land to which he may be entitled under the act approved March 3d,
1855. He also declares that he never
applied for nor received under this or any other act of Congress, any bounty
land warrant except the one above mentioned.
William X Coger
We, Samuel Armstrong and Felix Albert, residents of Lewis
County in the State of Virginia, upon our oaths declare that the foregoing
declaration was signed and acknowledged by William Coger in our presence; and that we believe from the appearance and
statements of the said applicant that he is the identical person he represents
himself to be.
The foregoing declaration and affidavit was sworn to and
subscribed before me the day and year above written; and I certify that I know the affiants to be credible
persons; that the claimant is the
person he represents himself to be and that I have no interest in this claim.
Given under my hand, as a Justice of the Peace as
aforesaid the day and year above written.
Clark, J.P.
Lewis County
I, John Morrow, Clerk of the County Court of Lewis
county, certify that Robert Clark is a Justice of the Peace in and for the
aforesaid County and State duly commissioned and qualified and was such at the
time of taking the acknowledgment of the foregoing declaration and affidavit
and that the foregoing signature purporting to be his is genuine.
testimony whereof I have hereunto affixed the {Seal} seal of the said Court and
subscribed my name this
30th day of June, 1855
Morrow C.C.
30th 1855
Enclosed you will find the application of Wm. Coger for
Bounty Land under the Act of March 3d 1855.
He desires his warrant be forwarded to me.
obt. Svt.
Hon. L.P. Waldo
Comr. of Pensions,
Washington City,
from a letter from Miss Lillie Squires, of Gem, West Virginia, to Arlis Coger,
dated July 11, 1967;
"...Our mother talked a lot about her folks.
She had a good memory. I looked in my scrap box, I found some clippings you
might be interested in. I found where I had wrote names of my mother's five
"I had said to her tell me back as far as you can. Grandpa John
(John Milton Coger, Asa's brother) Coger's father's name was John Coger—his
wife was Sarah Jane Sands. His father was William Coger, his wife was Mary
McKingery—and the same people would be Asa Coger's parents and grandparents.
"I will send you Uncle Jackson and Grandpa's obituaries. They
are brothers of (your) Asa Coger that went west.
"My sister says she remembers Cell, Neal, and Asa went
West. She thought there was a Coger
woman that married a John Edwards. Eliza Coger, wife of J. N. Coger, this would
be Newt Coger, he might be a nephew or a brother (Newt was Jackson Newton
Coger, son of James and Grandson of John-DSC).
"Mattie my sister will soon be 89, she said Cell Coger was the
one she thought left with Luther Skinner. One of the Cogers that went west
married Asa Stump's sister (This was Marcellus-DSC). He went to visit them
"...I think Grandpa's old generations are from Webster County,
West Virginia. He went back there a
lot. He did like to hunt."
Coger's birthdate is uncertain, because, as usual, different dates are given in
different census records, but it was probably about 1804. Very few records have been found concerning
him, other than those censuses.
is known now of his early life. We know
that in later life he loved to hunt and fish, as Inez Coger says, so that we
can probably assume that his youth was spent learning the finer points of these
pursuits in the Western Virginia hills.
We know that much of the Indian threat had passed away by the 1810's,
but that part of the country was still pretty much an untamed place.
Coger Hinds, in a family history she wrote in December 1963, stated:
"My great-grandfather, Jack Coger, lived in
West Virginia, along with numerous Coger clan, before and during the Civil War.
"My great-grandfather was a typical backwoodsman, choosing to
live away from crowded settlements, mainly by hunting and fur trading, and
fishing, wherewith the family inherited its general love of fishing.
"He was also well skilled in primitive woodwork as were many of
his descendants. He had the reputation
of being a quick-tempered, irascible, uncommunicative and difficult person. His
wife was quite the reverse, being a kindly, lovable lady. They were the parents of ten sons."
C. Cogar, of Gassaway, West Virginia, grandson of John's son John Milton Coger,
wrote in 1979, "All the name I have for
my great-grandfather is `Jackie,' and in my opinion that is a nickname."
Coger, great-grandson of John Coger, stated late in his life that he remembered
talk of eleven brothers, one of whom joined the Union, and who was assigned to
non-combat roles, including driving a supply wagon. "Because all of his
brothers were on the other side, they didn't make him fight," Max said.
record of any war service has been found for John Coger. He would have been too
young for the War of 1812, and too old for the Civil War.
there are several listings for John Cogers, or Kogers, in various sources. All of them have been claimed with some
authority by other branches of the Coger/Koger family.
Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies: Series I: Volume 22 and
32, list a John Coger among Colonel W. C. Quantrell's `severely wounded' troops
after a battle on the Canadian River on October 13, 1863. A John Coger, who is believed by family
genealogists to be John William Coger, son of Abraham, grandson of Henry,
great-grandson of Jacob the immigrant, was one of Quantrell's lieutenants
before the war, and we assume that this is the same one.
Jack Coger was listed incorrectly as killed by the troops of Colonel William B.
Stokes, of the Fifth Tennessee Cavalry, near Lancaster, Tennessee, on February
7, 1864. Family researchers are
convinced that this was John Davis Coger, son of David, grandson of Joseph,
great-grandson of John, great-great-grandson of Jacob the immigrant.
Sands family were apparently neighbors of the Cogers in Braxton County,
Virginia, and John married Sarah Jane Sands in about 1824 or 1825.
and Sarah's oldest son of which we are certain is James Coger, who was born in
1826. A Jordon Coger, born in 1824,
also lived in Braxton County, but it is believed that his parents were Benjamin
Coger and Mary Hosey Coger. The legend
of ten or eleven sons is so strong among Asa's grandchildren, it is almost
impossible to discount it. But we just
don't know all of their names, or which one joined the Union army.
Census report for District 4 of Braxton County, Virginia, taken on the 17th of
August, 1850, by Assistant Marshall Jack Yancey, shows the following entry;
we see listed eight of John and Sarah Coger's sons, and one daughter,
Emsy. The 1860 Census, recorded on the
twentieth of July, shows the following;
County Marriage Records show that Emsy Coger, age 21, married George Hoover,
age 26. Other records list the
marriages of Emsy's brother Marcellus to Louisa Stump on December 24, 1861, and
her brother John M. to Mariah L. Haymond, on October 12, 1854.
Emsy's brother James's children, records list that Louisa, age 19, married
Nathan Rogers, 25, on June 3, 1869; Rebecca, 18, married Paul Tweeter, 23, on
October 3, 1872; and Jackson, age 21, married Eliza J. Jones, 20, on November
25, 1873.
records for Braxton County show that John and Sarah Coger's son Cornelius lost
his wife Jenny, daughter of Nimrod and Elizabeth Lake, on November 23,
1855. She was 25 years old. The end of 1855 seems to have been a very bad
time for Cornelius, called `Neil' by his brothers. His son Nimrod died on December 7, at the age of one year, and
his daughter, Sarah, age four, died four days later, on December 11. We do not know now what epidemic was passing
through Braxton County, but it seems likely that a deadly one was present.
A. Coger, son of Marcellus and Louisa, died on October 15, 1867, and his cousin
Mary Coger Edwards, wife of John Edwards, and daughter of James and Agnes
Coger, died on June 5, 1880.
Military records tell us that John and Sarah's son Salathiel died of smallpox
on March 11, 1863, in the Army camp at Washington, Virginia. Old family
traditions state that John and Sarah's youngest son, whom they called `Babe,'
had `died in camp', so that it seems likely that Babe and Salathiel are the
same person.
C. Cogar, of 700 Kanawha Street, Gassaway, West Virginia, seems to feel that
they are different people. In a letter to Steve Coger dated September 1, 1979,
he states "Salathiel and Babe died in
Prison Camp during the Civil War."
also states that John and Sarah had ten sons, (C. C. Coger says nine boys and
one girl—Max Coger, late in life, said eleven sons, and he did not know of any
daughter) and that nine joined the Confederacy, while the tenth joined the
Union. The son who joined the Union
Army is said by tradition to have died in a Confederate prison camp, after
which time the family never mentioned his name again. This unwillingness to mention the unfortunate son's name brings
to mind Inez Coger Hinds description of John Coger as a quick-tempered,
irascible, uncommunicative and difficult person.
Coger and her brothers and sisters were John Coger's great-grandchildren, yet
none of them knew that John and Sarah lived out their lives less than
twenty-five miles from their own home place near Hindsville, Arkansas.
records still exist which show the service to the Confederacy of John Coger's
sons James, Cornelius, Asa, Jackson, and Salathiel. Of these sons, only Asa
served as an officer, as a Second Lieutenant. Tradition among Asa's descendants
states that this was because Asa, alone among his brothers, could read and
write well.
C. Cogar states that his grandfather, Asa's brother John Milton, "was chosen to
remain in the territory about the home and look after the other boys' families,
by living and killing game and seeing that they had something to eat."
to the records, James, Neil, Asa, Jackson, and Salathiel all enlisted together
on August 20, 1862, in Company "G" of the 62nd Regiment, of the Virginia
Infantry. As stated above, Salathiel died of Smallpox in the Confederate
Camp. The other four brothers survived,
although they were all eventually captured by the Union Forces and served time
as prisoners of war, before their releases near the end of the War.
Wegner, in a letter to Steve Coger dated November 16, 1979, states:
"'Dude' Coger (Franklin Monroe Coger, son of
Marion Clay Coger) before he died said that one of Asa's brothers had his feet
badly burned by Union soldiers—so badly that he couldn't travel with the family
to Kansas."
1865, the remains of the family returned home to Salt Lick Creek on the Little
Kanawha River, in Braxton County, now West Virginia.
from a letter from C. C. Cogar, of 700 Kanawha Street, Gassaway, West Virginia,
to Steve Coger, dated September 1st, 1979:
"My Great-grandfather with most of his
family moved to Kingston, Arkansas right after the civil war, and my
grandfather bought the home farm, and my father lived there until he died. My
son owns the place now. There were nine boys and one girl in my grandfather's
after the reunion of those family members who survived the War, John and Sarah
Coger, several of their sons, and their families, and other Coger cousins and
relatives, left their Virginia home forever.
know that John and Sarah, and their sons Asa, Neil, Marcellus, and Henry, and
their families, came west, while John M., James, and possibly Jackson, stayed
in West Virginia.
cannot know the strains and strife that they moved away to leave. They had
returned, after the war, to a former home where they were now Rebels in a land
of Yankee sympathies. It may be that bushwhackers and carpetbaggers made them
very unwelcome in their own country. At any rate, they moved, by flatboat,
wagon, horseback, and foot, to Kansas, near Oskaloosa. This was not far from Lawrence, which had
been destroyed in a massacre in 1863, by the raiders of William Quantrell,
which included another John Coger, and which was just beginning to attain its
former prominence.
According to Inez Coger Hinds:
"In 1865, after the war had ended,
Grandfather Asa, and the remains of the Coger Family, brothers, cousins, etc.,
sold their possessions, and with their individual families migrated to Kansas,
which was relatively new country at the time...
"They traveled by wagon train to the Ohio River, and by flatboat
down the river, then by Wagon Train again to Kansas, where they settled at
"They lived there several years, as my father's (Damon Coger's)
early schooling was at that place.
"Being natives of the West Virginia hills, they were unhappy on
the Kansas plains, and, after suffering the disaster of a terrible grasshopper
invasion, the likes of which they had never seen before, they again sold their
possessions, intending to return to West Virginia.
"Their route led them through the North Arkansas hills, which
reminded them of their native West Virginia."
know that John's sons Asa and Neil, with their families, moved with him to
Kansas, and then to Arkansas. It is said that the storms on the flatlands of
Kansas were so bad that plows and other metal farming tools had to be stored
underground at night so that they would not attract lightning.
Cogers were in Kansas for at least seven years. Census records show that Cornelius Coger's son Sam had been born
in West Virginia in late 1865 or early 1866, but that his next daughter, M. J.
(Mary Jane), was born in Kansas in 1867.
Asa Coger's sons Steve, Henry, and Clay, were born in Kansas,
respectively in 1868, 1870, and 1874.
So John and Sarah Coger's sons families were in Kansas at least from
1867 to 1874.
the 1880 Census for Kings River Township, Madison County, Arkansas, is the
following entry:
small letter after the age indicated the marital status; M for married; W for
widower; S for single. The three columns of abbreviated state names refer to
the birthplaces of the individual, his father, and his mother,
respectively. As John, Sarah, and Neil,
were born in that part of Virginia which only later, after the Civil War,
became West Virginia, they listed simply Virginia.
this point the only information referring to John and Sarah are mentions in
letters and deeds included in the following pages. We do not know when they died, or where they are buried. The last letters we have from those generations
imply that John and Sarah were still living on a farm near King's River, in
Madison County, north Arkansas.
June 28, 1888, John and Sarah deeded over their farm to their son Cornelius,
who lived with them during the time they lived in Arkansas. The land is described as 122 acres in
Section 6 of Township 16 North of Range 24 West.
seems fairly safe to assume that they died in the 1890's, and are buried
somewhere in this area, with their funeral attended by their sons Asa, Henry,
and Neil.
Allyn Coger Pitchford states in a letter to Steve Coger dated November 16,
1979, that:
"John and Sarah were living near...
"Frank Coger who lived near Kingston. (Frank was the) oldest son
of Asa and Elizabeth Susan Hopkins Coger, at the time of their death."
1850 Federal Census ¾ Braxton
County, Virginia (now West Virginia)
Name |
Age |
Sex |
Occupation |
Identification |
William Coger |
70 |
Farmer |
son of Peter Coger & |
Elizabeth |
70 |
Mary Mackelvain |
Peter Coger (Jr.) |
60 |
Farmer |
son of Peter Coger & |
Mary |
55 |
Mary Mackelvain |
Mary |
18 |
Thomas |
13 |
Eliza |
11 |
John Coger |
48 |
Farmer |
son of William C. Coger & |
Sarah |
46 |
Elizabeth Kingary |
Cornelius |
22 |
Asa |
20 |
John |
18 |
Jackson |
15 |
Henry |
13 |
Emsy |
11 |
Marcellus |
8 |
Salathial |
6 |
James Coger |
24 |
Farmer |
Son of John Coger & |
Agnes |
24 |
Sarah J. Sands |
Louisa E. |
1 |
1860 Federal Census ¾ Braxton
County, Virginia (now West Virginia)
Name |
Age |
Sex |
Occupation |
Identification |
Jordon Coger |
36 |
Farmer |
son of Benjamin Coger & |
Delila |
33 |
Mary Hosey |
Isaac B. |
1 |
John |
8 |
Nancy |
Peter Coger (Jr.) |
62 |
Farmer |
son of Peter Coger & |
Mary |
60 |
Mary Mackelvain |
Thomas G. |
32 |
Margaret |
20 |
James Coger |
34 |
Farmer |
son of John Coger & |
Agnes |
34 |
Sarah J. Sands |
Louisa |
11 |
Jackson |
10 |
Isaac |
8 |
Mary |
6 |
Rebecca |
5 |
John Coger |
56 |
Farmer |
son of William C. Coger & |
Sarah |
56 |
Elizabeth Kingary |
Emsey |
21 |
Marcellus |
18 |
Sal |
16 |
Asa Coger |
38 |
Farmer |
son of John Coger & |
Elizabeth S. |
27 |
Sarah J. Sands |
Franklin |
7 |
Sarah |
6 |
Mary |
2 |
Rachael |
4/12 |
Andrew Coger |
27 |
Farmer |
son of John Coger & |
Tobitha |
19 |
Sarah J. Sands |
Matilda |
2 |
John M. Coger |
28 |
Farmer |
son of John Coger & |
Mariah |
23 |
Sarah J. Sands |
Louverna |
3 |
Lucy |
1 |
Jacob Coger |
77 |
Farmer |
Son of Peter Coger & |
Margaret |
70 |
Mary Mackelvain |
Francina |
25 |
James W. |
26 |
Charles |
23 |
Mary E. |
7/12 |
Cornelius Coger |
23 |
Son of John Coger & |
Mary |
20 |
Sarah J. Sands |
Andrew Jackson Coger was born on September 8, 1834,
probably on his family farm on Salt Lick Creek, North of Sutton, in what was
then Lewis, later Braxton County, Virginia. One must assume he was named for
then-President Andrew Jackson. On March 19, 1858 he married Tobitha Jane Sands.
Records indicate he preferred the use of his middle name, Jackson, or sometimes
On August 20, 1862, he was enlisted as a "Quarter
Sergeant" in the army of the Confederate States of America by Captain G.W.
Imboden, reporting for active duty on September 4, 1862. His older brothers
James, Cornelius and Asa and younger brother Salathiel likewise joined the
Confederate Army. The brothers were attached to (1st) Co. I, 1st Regiment,
Virginia Partisan Rangers, later (2nd) Company G, 62nd Regiment, Virginia
Mounted Infantry, under the command of Captain Conrad Currence. As was often
the case, the entire unit was made up of young men from their home county.
Jackson's older brother John M. Coger may have also
served the Confederacy, but had a place of duty in or near Braxton County.
There is no indication that younger brothers Marcellus and Henry Dutton Coger
served in the war.
Military records indicate Andrew Jackson Coger was absent
from duty due to illness in January through April, 1863. He was reported "left
sick at Buffalo Gap Hospital" on March 17, 1863. Like many civil war soldiers,
he was probably suffering the effects of tuberculosis.
Andrew Jackson Coger and brother James Coger were taken
prisoner by Union forces on September 20, 1863 and held in the Atheneum
Military Prison in Wheeling, West Virginia from September 20 to October 20,
1863. Records indicate they were arrested by Union Captain Harris at
Sullersville and released by Union Captain Thorpe on October 20, 1863. Often,
such releases were the result of negotiated prisoner exchanges. At the time of
his capture, Jackson was recorded to be 29 years of age, five feet, eleven and
one half inches tall, having dark complextion and hair, and blue eyes. He
reported his occupation as that of a farmer.[1]
Older brother Asa Coger was commissioned a 2nd Lieutenant
of (2nd) Company G, 62nd Regiment, Virginia Mounted Infantry. He was
captured by Union troops on March 9, 1865 and subsequently confined in the
Atheneum Military Prison in Wheeling, then sent to Camp Chase, Ohio on March
17, to Point Lookout, Maryland on March 26, and finally to Fort Delaware,
Delaware on April 28, 1865. He was released upon signing an "Oath of
Allegiance" to the United States at Fort Delaware in June, 1865.
Tragically, the youngest of the Coger brothers,
Salathial, the one they called "Babe," did not live to return home from the
Nicknames: Virginia 1st Cavalry Regiment Partisan Rangers
62nd Virginia Partisan Rangers
Virginia 62nd Cavalry Regiment
Organization: Organized
for the war with a mixture of infantry and cavalry companies on September 9,
1862. Companies 1st D, 1st G, 1st
H, 1st L, 1st M, N, O, P and Q transferred to the 18th Cavalry Regiment
ca. December 15, 1862. 2nd Companies A,
B, F and I assigned from the 25th Infantry Regiment ca. January 25, 1863.
1st Company A became Staunton Artillery Battery
in about February 1863. Regiment
mounted in late 1863. Company C, 41st Cavalry Battalion, assigned
as 2nd Company
L. 2nd Company M assigned September 18,
1864. Apparently
disbanded in April 1865.
First Commander: John D. Imboden (Colonel)
Field Officers: Robert L. Doyle (Lieutenant
Samuel H. Hall (Major)
George W. Imboden (Major)
David B. Lang (Major, Lieutenant
George H. Smith (Colonel)
Assignments: Northwestern Virginia Brigade, Department of Northern
Virginia (March-July 1863)
Valley District, Department of
Northern Virginia (July-December 1863)
Imboden's Command, Valley
District, Department of Northern Virginia (December 1863-January
Northwestern Virginia Brigade,
Department of Northern Virginia (February-June 1864)
Imboden's Brigade,
Ransom's-Lomax's Cavalry Division,Valley District, Department of Northern
Virginia (June 1864-April 1865)
Battles: Imboden's Expedition into Tucker County, West
Virginia (November
8-14, 1862)
Jones'-Imboden's West Virginia
Raid (April 20-May 21,1863)
Gettysburg (July 1-3, 1863)
Greencastle, Pennsylvania (July
5, 1863)
Williamsport (July 5, 1863)
New Market (May 15, 1864)
Lynchburg Campaign (June 1864)
Monocacy (July 9, 1864)
near Bunker Hill (September 5,
3rd Winchester (September 19,
Fisher's Hill (September 22,
Woodstock (September 23, 1864)
Cedar Creek (October 19, 1864)
Organization: Organized by the
assignment of the cavalry companies of the 1st
Cavalry Regiment, Partisan Rangers, ca. December 15, 1862. Apparently disbanded in April 1865.
First Commander: George W. Imboden (Colonel)
Field Officers: David E. Beall (Lieutenant Colonel)
Alexander Monroe (Major)
Assignments: Northwestern Virginia Brigade, Department of Northern
Virginia (March-July 1863)
Valley District, Department of
Northern Virginia (July-December 1863)
Imboden's Command, Valley
District, Department of Northern Virginia (December 1863-January
Northwestern Virginia Brigade,
Department of Northern Virginia (February-June 1864)
Imboden's Brigade,
Ransom's-Lomax's Cavalry Division, Valley District, Department of Northern
Virginia (June 1864-April 1865)
Battles: Jones'-Imboden's West Virginia Raid (April
20-May 21,1863)
Gettysburg (July 1-3, 1863)
Waynesboro, Pennsylvania (July 5,
Williamsport (July 5, 1863)
New Market (May 15, 1864)
Lynchburg Campaign (June 1864)
Monocacy (July 9, 1864)
3rd Winchester (September 19,
Fisher's Hill (September 22,
Cedar Creek (October 19, 1864)
(2d) Company G, 62nd Regiment, Virginia
Mounted Infantry
Confederate States Army
Conrad Currence (killed 5/15/1864)
Henry Allen (died 1863) F.J. Berry (died 1862) J.H. Berry James L. Berry (killed 5/15/1864) William Berry (died 1864) J.J. Blake Henry Boggs James Bragg Asa Coger (promoted to Lieutenant) Cornelius Coger Jackson Coger (promoted to 4/Sgt.) James Coger Salathiel Coger (died 3/16/1863) B.C. Conrad Newton Conrad (killed 1864) T.B. Cunningham J.C. Dennison John Dennison (died 1863) G.W. Dyer (died 1863) J.J. Dyer S.Y. Farrar William Gardner (killed 1863) |
J.W. Hacker Benjamin Hamilton William Harren Andrew Heater (killed 5/15/1864) John Heater K.R. Heater William Heater James Hefner Michael Hefner (died 1863) S.C. Hefner Frank Holden Frederick Hoover G.W. Hopkins (died 1863) J.W. James William James Samuel Jones (killed 1864) John Lake Richard Lake J.D. Lenenson (died 1863) J.P. McNemar Joseph McPherson Thomas McPherson |
T.M. Moore S.B. Myers T.W. Myers (killed 1863) G.B. Ocheltree Jonathan Ratliff Charles Riffle T.W. Saunders (killed 5/15/1864) Thomas Saunders P.W. Shields F.F. Singleton J.W. Singleton John S. Singleton Jackson Skinner James Spicer Harvey S. Spiller Asa Stump W.L. Ware Levi Waybright Addison Williams Thomas O. Williams (killed 1863) D.H.
Wine |
The 62nd Regiment, Virginia Mounted Infantry, completed its organization September 9, 1862. It was composed of cavalry and infantry until December, 1862, when the cavalry companies were united with other companies to form the 18th Regiment Virginia Cavalry. Four companies that had formerly belonged to the 25th Regiment Virginia Infantry were assigned to this regiment about January 25, 1863. (1st) Company A became Capt. McClanahan's Company, Virginia Horse Artillery about February, 1863, and (2nd) Companies L and M were later assigned to the regiment. It was known at various times as the 1st Regiment, Virginia Partisan Rangers; the 62nd Regiment, Virginia Partisan Rangers; the 62nd Regiment, Virginia Infantry; the 62nd Regiment, Virginia Cavalry; and Imboden's Regiment, Partisan Rangers.
Five Coger brothers ¾ Asa, James, Andrew Jackson, Cornelius and Salathiel ¾ were enlisted as members of (1st) Company I, 1st Regiment, Virginia Partisan Rangers, on August 20, 1862 in Braxton County, Virginia (now West Virginia) by Captain G.W. Imboden. All but Salathiel survived to see the end of the war.
1870 Federal Census ¾ Braxton
County, West Virginia
Name |
Age |
Sex |
Occupation |
Identification |
James Coger |
44 |
Farmer |
son of John Coger & |
Agnes |
44 |
Sarah J. Sands |
Jackson N. |
19 |
Isaac C. |
17 |
Mary A. |
15 |
Emsey J. |
3 |
Andrew J. Coger |
35 |
Farmer |
son of John Coger & |
Tobitha J. |
28 |
Sarah J. Sands |
Matilda E. |
11 |
Sarah J. |
9 |
Elzary |
8 |
William H. |
5 |
Susan M. |
4 |
Samuel M. |
2 |
Marcellus B. Coger |
29 |
Farmer |
son of John Coger & |
Louisa E. |
30 |
Sarah J. Sands |
Sarah A. |
7 |
A.J. Cogar was born September 8, 1834; departed this life August 27, 1906. aged 71 years, 11 months and 19 days; was united in marriage to Martha J. Sands March 19, 1858.
To this happy union was born eleven children, five boys and six girls, three of whom have died and gone to heaven. He leaves an aged wife and eight children to mourn his departure, besides a host of near relatives and friends. He gave his heart to God in his younger days and lived a consistent christian from early life and died in the faith, and we feel sure he is in heaven today. A few hours before his death he ask us to raise him up in bed. He talked to us and said "My prayers have been answered, I am going home where there is no sickness nor sorrow felt nor fear where I am going; there is a home for us all." and asked us to help him lay down again and bade all good bye that was standing 'round his bed by shaking hands and then closed his eyes in death.
One word to his relatives and friends, let us so live and put our trust in God that we may meet Bro. Cogar where parting is no more
Notes: This obituary of Andrew Jackson Coger contains two significant errors: First, the spelling of the surname "Cogar." For reasons which are unclear, spelling of the name changed to the latter version sometime in the early 1900's in Braxton County, West Virginia. A similar evolution occurred in Webster County and other parts of the state. Andrew Jackson Coger, however, retained the traditional spelling. Second, the wife of Andrew Jackson Coger was Tobitha Jane Sands.
Excerpt from a letter from Lillie
Squires, of Gem, West Virginia, to Steve Coger, dated August 30, 1974 Relating
to Asa Coger, eldest brother of Andrew Jackson Coger:
"My great-grandfather went to Arkansas with
part of his family. I only heard mother speak of them but I often heard her
speak of Uncle Asa and Aunt Susan.
"My grandfather Coger was born in 1832. My mother was his second
child. My mother spoke of her great-grandfather (this would be William
Coger). I believed him to be in Webster
County, West Virginia.
"We have Grandfather Coger's family records. He and mother always spell it Coger but I
spell it Cogar.
Excerpt from a letter from Jessie
Parsons, 826 Walnut Street, Belpre, Ohio, to Maud and Lillie Squires, about
1967, again relating to Asa Coger, brother of Andrew Jackson Coger:
"Grandfather Cogar's brothers that I can remember were Jackson,
Jim, and Neal. There may have been others, but I wouldn't know.
"You knew Jackson of course since he lived up near your home.
His wife's name was Jane.
"Jim and wife Agnes lived at Shaversville, W. Va., and were
buried there. I don't remember that I ever heard Neal was married. He lived
mostly in Arkansas and made trips back and forth to West Virginia, but after
his last visit and return to Arkansas, Grandfather (John Milton Coger) never
heard from him again.
"You spoke of the name Asa, he may have been a brother, I don't
know, never hearing him spoken of. There was one name I remember I heard
Grandfather mention a few times. It was simply "Babe" but who it was I have no
idea. I was only a kid when this part
of the family was living and only scraps of memory come to me..."
Coger was born on Christmas, 1829, probably on his father's farm on Salt Lick
Creek, North of Sutton, Braxton County, Virginia. In 1852 he married Elizabeth
Susan Hopkins, apparently from the census records a girl from a neighboring
The 1850 census shows the Hopkins
family listed right before Asa's;
(The remainder of this Census
Record is shown in the section on John Coger)
Coger enlisted in Braxton County on August 20, 1862, in Company G of the 62nd
Regiment, Mounted, Virginia Infantry.
On September 4, 1862, he became a Second Lieutenant.
to Inez Coger's 1963 family history, her grandfather Asa Coger was one of ten
brothers who fought in the Civil War. She wrote that nine of the brothers
fought for the Confederacy, and one joined the Union.
Coger (Asa's son) stated in about 1974 that he had always understood that Asa
had ten brothers, that there were eleven boys in the family. He did not remember having heard of any
sisters at all.
"I heard my dad a number of times say that
his father had ten brothers, there were eleven boys. But I never heard him mention girls at all. The only boy I can remember him mentioning
was Cornelius. I remember him from
seeing him. He died when I was about
three or four years old."
"Of the one brother that tradition said joined the Union Army,
my dad said that brother wasn't in actual combat, he drove a supply wagon,
because all of his brothers were on the other side, they didn't make him
fight. The Northerners didn't make him
fight because he had ten brothers in the south. It was funny that my dad never did mention any girls."
Max Coger
Coger family lived at this time in what was the Northwest corner of the state
of Virginia, at a place called "Coger's
Station," on Salt Lick Creek, in Braxton County. The place was later named Gem, after George E. McCoy, who married
one of the daughters of Asa's brother, John Milton Coger.
part of the state had seceded from the rest of Virginia to become the new Union
state of West Virginia. And so the nine
Confederate brothers could not visit their homes during the War, as the homes
were now in enemy territory, where they were looked upon as traitors.
is known that Andrew Jackson Coger and several of his brothers joined Company G
of the 62nd Regiment of the Mounted Virginia Infantry, which participated in
the battle of Gettysburg, on July 1-4, 1863, considered by most historians to
be the turning point in the Civil War.
From Sarah Coger's One Family's Eyewitness To History:
to win a battle which would crumble Northern resistance, General Robert E. Lee
invaded the North in June, 1863. When Lee's Army of Northern Virginia was
crossing the Mason-Dixon Line into Pennsylvania, Lincoln relieved General
Joseph Hooker of his command, replacing him with General George Meade on June
28. Discovering that his Army of the Potomac was in Maryland while the
Confederates were far to the north, Meade quickly marched Northward.
this battle, the charge of the Confederate General Pickett, in which he lost
almost half of his 15,000 men, was largely the result of a terrible tactical
error. General Robert E. Lee, believing
the union army's center on the rise called Cemetery Ridge was weak, had ordered
a frontal assault, but in this, Lee had guessed wrong. The Union Commander,
General Hancock, had 80 cannon and 9,000 men, well entrenched there, plus the
advantage of holding higher ground. In the ensuing slaughter, 21 Union and
Confederate Generals were killed or wounded.
confederate and union forces were scattered, and the Gettysburg battle had
taken place by accident. Most of General Pettigrew's North Carolina Brigade was
marching barefoot, its shoes long since worn out. On June 30, the "Gettysburg
Compiler" newspaper had blithely carried an advertisement for men's fine calf
boots, wellingtons, brogans, and other footgear. Pettigrew was ordered on a
nine-mile forced march from Cashtown to seize the shoes. The Confederate
presence drew Union eyes, followed by Union skirmishers, and the inevitable
full contact. Neither Lee nor Meade wanted a confrontation at Gettysburg. Meade
had chosen a site near Pipe Creek. Lee preferred Harrisburg, 30 miles away.
armies rushed reinforcements to the scene, precipitating a battle neither had
planned. The first day, the Confederates took Gettysburg, forcing the
northerners to retreat to the heights south of town.
next day, July 2, the Union forces occupied a convex front running from Culp's
Hill in the north down to Cemetery Ridge, then south to Little Round Top Hill.
From the west and north, Lee launched unsuccessful attacks against both Union
flanks. When Major General George Pickett arrived with 15,000 fresh Confederate
troops, Lee planned another attack for the next day.
July 3, Lee concentrated 159 cannons and Pickett's soldiers on Seminary Ridge,
a mile from the union center on Cemetery Ridge. Lined up axle to axle, the
Confederate artillery began firing at 1:00 p.m. Unfortunately, their shells missed the union lines and instead
fell in the rear. At 3:15, Pickett
began his famous charge against Cemetery Ridge. Union artillery and musket fire decimated the exposed Southern
ranks, but they continued on up Cemetery Ridge. At the top, in hand-to-hand
fighting, Pickett's men were finally repulsed, with over two-thirds dead or
attack had begun slowly, with Pickett's three brigades halting on the
gently-sloping terrain which led down from Seminary Ridge, to assemble in
parade formation. On a one-mile advance across the open field to Cemetery
Ridge, Pickett's ranks were steadily decimated by rifle and artillery fire.
Only a few hundred had made it the full distance up the reverse slope to reach
the Union line, and they were promptly killed or captured. General Longstreet,
Lee's Corps Commander, had told him the attack was impossible to carry out, but
Longstreet was overruled.
futile infantry charge helped to fill 17 miles of ambulance wagons in Lee's
retreat into Virginia the next day.
Lee's casualties numbered over 28,000.
Pickett's failure, Lee admitted defeat and retreated. Meade failed to pursue
the Confederates, allowing them to reach safety in Virginia.
soldiers numbered 88,000, against 75,000 Confederates. The North lost 3,155
killed, 14,529 wounded, and 5,365 missing; the South lost 3,903 killed, 18,735
wounded, and 5,425 missing. By losing at Gettysburg, Lee had lost the war for
the South, while Meade—by allowing Lee to escape—had failed to win the war for
the North.
do not know at this time, what other famous battles of the Civil War Asa Coger
and his brothers took part in.
written down by family historians tell about life for the family back home in
enemy territory.
"...there was a lot of Civil War stories
told by Uncle Frank, the eldest of the Asa Coger children, who was 10 years old
when the war began. Stories of burying
bacon and other food, of hiding livestock in caves, etc, in order to save their
skimpy provisions from foraging soldiers of either side, who would take
everything they could find and leave families to starve; of his dad, a soldier who
had to hide out in a cave when he had a home leave, to escape bushwhackers who
made it their business to kill, burn, and destroy, without regard to which army
they might be a part of."
Inez Coger Hinds
"Frank was the oldest boy, and he was
supposed to have smuggled food to the Confederates that were holed up in the
hills there somewhere in West Virginia on the Virginia border somewhere. They said one day a Union officer picked him
up on his horse, and let him ride with him.
He had been taking a load a food, the soldier began letting him ride
back home with him, telling him about how bad war was, too bad one bunch of men
had to kill another bunch of men and so on."
Max Coger
Asa's youngest brother shown on the censuses, died of Smallpox in the
Confederate Army camp at Washington, Virginia, on March 11, 1863, eight months
after joining the Confederate army.
"Truly, those were perilous times for women
and children as well as soldiers, and the country was a long, long time in
recovering. Those war hardships hung
over into my dad's lifetime, and into the lives of us, his children. Let us hope that the children of today may
not know the hardships of war's privations, but that they may grow up surrounded
by the comforts, opportunities, and blessings of peace."
Inez Coger Hinds
Andrew Jackson Coger, and his brothers, had survived the battle of Gettysburg,
at least he and his brother Asa became ill, possibly developing tuberculosis.
Asa resigned his commission as a Confederate officer on February 19, 1865, and
returned home, as an ex-Rebel crossing into Yankee territory.
"I don't know what he had.
I just kind of figured it might of been TB. It was very well known that Cornelius died of TB. He (Cornelius) died at our house."
Max Coger
very ill, Asa was arrested there as a spy on March 9, by the 17th West Virginia
Infantry. According to his capture
papers, Asa was six feet tall, with blue eyes and a fair complexion.
the next four months, he was imprisoned in four different prisoner of war
camps. Immediately after his "capture" he was sent to the prisoner of war camp
known as the Atheneum, in Wheeling, West Virginia. On March 17th he was
transferred to Camp Chase, Ohio, then nine days later he was transferred to Point
Lookout, Maryland. His final destination during his imprisonments was Fort
Delaware, Delaware, where he took the Oath of Allegiance, and was released in
June of 1865.
Asa was imprisoned at Point Lookout, his third son, Damon Allan, was born back
at the home place, on April 18th, 1865.
"My grandfather evidently did his fighting
around close to where they lived, because my dad was born close to the end of
the Civil War, not the day it was over but the year it was over."
Max Coger
to Dyers Index to Land Grants in West Virginia, Asa's home consisted of 60
acres in 1855. His father John's farm
was 50 acres, while his brother James owned 185 acres, all on Salt Lick Creek,
in Braxton County.
the end of the war, Asa's brother, Cornelius, had been captured in Webster
County on December 20, 1864. After
being sent to Clarksburg, West Virginia, he was wrongly listed as a deserter in
a report within the Confederate Army dated January 31, 1865. Neil was released in January of 1865, and
also returned home.
do not know the conditions the former rebels met when they returned to their
homes in what had become enemy territory, after the war. We can assume that there were some ill
feelings in an area that, perhaps more than any other, was torn by the civil
war. West Virginia was a state that had
seceded from a state that had seceded from the union.
know that the family split, and that Asa and some of his family left the state
forever. We know that those Cogers who
remained in West Virginia, for whatever reason, changed the spelling of their
name to Cogar, and still today spell it that way.
families of Asa Coger, Marcellus Coger, Henry Dutton Coger, Cornelius Coger,
and their father, John Coger, left Virginia forever. Marcellus came to Evening Shade, in Sharp County, Arkansas, and
raised a family of two sons and one daughter.
The others moved, as stated above, to a place near Oskaloosa, Kansas.
We know that they stayed in Kansas
for at least seven years.
"...they said that the lightning was so bad
that it would even burn their plows in the field. They've told me that story, all of them have, I've heard that
story a number of times. They had lightning
rods on their houses."
Max Coger
One letter still exists from those years
in Kansas. It was written by Frank Coger, oldest son of Asa, and also partly by
his father Asa, to Asa's brother John Milton Coger, back in West Virginia:
Oskaloosa, Kansas
14, 1870
Dear Uncle:
I seat my self to let you now that we are all well at present
hoping that these few lines come safely to hand they may find you and family in
good health. It has bin a long time sense we have heaired a word from you or
enny one from Va. Air you still alive?
I hope you air and will ancer this letter. We have had a nice winter so far. We have had but one snow. It lasted abut two days. We have put up an addition to our house, now
25 ft by 14 ft with shed 8 ft by 16 ft for a kitchen. Pap is going to write so I'll quit. I'll send you some pieces cut from Oskaloosa Independent. Please write soon, yours Truly,
M. Coger
John—I dont no what to rite to you to
interest you. We air still alive and have enuf to eat and about out of det and
som property and have 80 acres of good land, 40 acres under cultivation, 7 cows
to give us milk this somer, a span of mules, wagon and harness, 25 head of
hogs, a house 14 by 25 three rooms, stable 14 by 24, smoke house 10 by 12, saw
and grist mill on our plase. H. D. Coger (his brother Henry Dutton-DSC) has 80
acres of land lies rite by the side of ours and is doing well, all in good
health. We had a ball at our house the 4th of march, 25 coupel in attendence
and great many boys and dogs. I have
the fiddeling to do and I aint much on the play tho I have bin cep busy this
winter. I make from 4 to 5 dollars per nite.
I wish you was here to help me and next Friday nite I am cald on
to play agane.
Markets: Corn 30 to 35 cts per bu
Wheat 100 to 125 cts
Coffee 25 to 30 cts
25 to 50 cts
Oats 20 to 30 cts
Eggs 20 to 30 cts
25 to 28 cts
Coten Cloth 10 to 20 cts
Calico 10 to 15 cts
Cows fresh 40 to 50 dollars
Horses rang from 30 to 200 dollars
Can you take time to drop us a line? We would be glad to heair from you. Rite or I will come out and set up a boot strop about the seat of
your pants.
A. Coger
in 1874, they left Kansas with the idea of returning to West Virginia, but
settled in the North Arkansas hills, which reminded them of their West Virginia
home. According to Inez Coger Hinds,
although John and Sarah, and their sons Asa and Neil with their families,
stayed in Arkansas, "the other members of the clan returned to West Virginia."
don't know which brothers came to Kansas, and Arkansas, only to return to West
Virginia. We know that Asa's brother
James survived the war and lived to an old age near Shaversburg, West Virginia;
their brother Andrew Jackson Coger and his wife Jane lived all their lives in
Braxton County; and their brother John Milton Coger, subject of the above
letter, married Mariah Haymond and lived to raise a large family in Braxton
do know that Henry settled in Eureka Springs, Arkansas, and raised a family
there. We know that the brothers
remained in touch by letter, and by visits.
Apparently Neil and his family visited back and forth, and James'
daughter-in-law Eliza, wife of his son Jackson Newton Coger, moved to Arkansas
and died there at an advanced age.
may be that Marcellus Coger, who had apparently come west earlier than the rest
of the clan, and had settled in Arkansas, in Sharp County, had communicated
with his father and brothers the beauty of North Arkansas. But if so, such letters no longer exist, and
we simply do not know. Cell was
married, to Louisa Stump, before he left West Virginia, and served as Deputy
Sheriff in Evening Shade, Arkansas, as well as being a businessman. He and his wife raised two sons, and a
to a story in a letter from Willie Allyn Coger Pitchford to Steve Coger dated
May 11, 1980:
"I know Grandpa Asa was a hunter for Dad
(Asa's son Luther) the story about he and Uncle Neal went hunting and he
actually wrestled a black bear over near Bulls Shoals...(In a bear hunting
accident) near Mtn. Home he lost his trigger finger."
stories tell that the Coger brothers once killed 60 bear in one winter, and
that they would stay gone from home for weeks at a time on various types of
hunting trips.
states that Asa Coger ran several stores, including drug stores, in West
Virginia, and in Huntsville, Arkansas.
As stated above, Asa's sons George Steven, John Henry, and Marion Clay
had been born in Kansas.
"My grandfather Asa, settled at Huntsville, Ark., where he
bought a farm nearby and also a small drug store in Huntsville. Since leaving
W. Va., three more boys, Steve, Henry, and Clay, had been born into the family.
The other members of the clan returned to W. Va."
"Grandfather Asa had his name on his drug store window as "A.
Cog" on one pane, and the "er" on the other.
"A fellow came by and read slowly, " A Codger. Who in the hell is a codger?"
"Grandfather was afterward known as "A. Codger."
Inez Coger Hinds
letters were written from the Arkansas Family to Coger and Hopkins families at
Coger Station, and those which still exist are reprinted on the following
pages, in chronological order:
(From Elisabeth and Asa to
her brother John Hopkins)
19, 1878
Dear Brother
I seat myself to let you no that we are all tolerable well and
was glad to here that you was well. Now
I will perceed to write about my interest.
I had rether the land was devided by three or four disinterested men and
then devide it by casting lots. Then there can be no rong about it. Be as Pa (Caleb Hopkins) left me a portion
of his property I want it and want every cent of it. I will send you a pour of atorny and I want you to tend to it for
me and if there is any crops on my part I want you to tend to it for me just
the same as it belong to you. And when
ever there is a chance to sell it do so.
A. J. H. (her brother Andrew J. Hopkins, of Flatwoods, West Virginia)
wanted me to sell it at public sale but I dont no that would be best. I just want you to tend to it to the
best of your judgement and pay yourself
for your trouble and send me the remainder.
Now I want you to tend to it as you think best. It looks like it ought to be worth as much
as 10 dollars per acre, but you will no better about it than I. I want you to
do the very best you can for you no that I never did get any thing from
home. As to Fanny I dont no her
address, but I can find out the next time I hear from Grandad's (John Coger's). Then I will write.
I will close for the present.
We have had it verry wet here this spring tho it has the aperance of
being dry now. The crops look
promising, fruit in abundance. Neals
(Cornelius Coger) folks were well the last time we herd from them. Henrys (Henry Dutton Coger) was well the
last we herd from them. Everything here
is low and money scarse. There appears
to be plenty to eat and ware here and people very well satisfied.
There appears to be a stear here in the course of religion and I
am in hops many more souls will be led from natures darkness to the marvelous
life and liberty as it is in Christ Jesus.
Give my love and best respects to all inquiring friends and retain a
large portion for your self and family.
So no more but remain yours down tell death. Farewell for the present.
E. S. Coger
I want to know what has become of Neals girl in your next letter
and if old man Hoover (this would be Asa's Sister Emsy's husband or father in
law-DSC) is dead.
(The next letter was from
Elisabeth and Asa Coger to her brother John Hopkins)
Huntsville, Madison
County, Ark
December 17, 1879
Dear Brother
I received yours of the 5th which I was glad to hear you was
glad to here. But I am like you, I have
bin waiting to have better news to write to you. But alas I have to pen the same bad news. Asa is not as well as when I rote
before. The rest of ours is well. Father and Mother (John and Sarah) and Neals
family and Henrys was all well the last I heard from them. Well I dont know what news to write to
interest you. Our courthouse burned
down the other day. We traded our
property in town for a home in the country one mile from town. Money seems to be tolerbel plenty here and
everything looking up.
Now to business. Well,
John, I picked on you to settle my business because I thought you would fix it
fare and square. Now it looks like $100
a big shave on the land and I think you might do a little better but I dont
want you to loose one nicle on my business.
Now if you want the land I want you to have it and I want you to do by
me as you would want me to do by your family if they was in my fix now. If you
had not been able to do a days work for three years and been confined to your
bed for 9 months, your family would no what I have to under go. Now if you think you cant do any better send me the one hundred dollars
but I think you might put fifty dollars more to it. And as to James (Coger, Asa's brother) you had better settle it
fare not that I think he could make it by law or any other way because I think
he is hard up to make a fuss. Now if he
had owed me one hundred dollars and was in the same condition as Asa he would
have asked him for it. I intend to pay
all of Asa's just debts. I think if James had done as he ought to he would have
wrote what Asa had give that note for and would not have treated a brother
so. Now I think God will provide for me
and the children. How I fere by the
time you get this Asa will be no more without he gets spedy release. We have tried evry think we no with no
effect. Now I will cose trusting in God
to take care of us all. Farewell
Now, John, I will make you another propisition. You may send me
$100.00 and if it is ever setelted in your favor send me 100 hundred more.
S Coger
"I think he (Asa) must have been sick when they came to
Arkansas. I don't know what year he
died. My dad said that he was sick. My
dad said that he could remember when they were clearing the fields, all that
land was wilderness then and they had to clear it out, and they'd be goofing
off and he would walk in on them without them knowing he was there. That was when he was sick just shortly
before he died."
Max Coger
In 1880, a typhoid fever epidemic
hit the family, and Asa Coger died on the 14th of April, four days before his
son Damon's fifteenth birthday.
"When Dad (Damon) was 14 the family suffered
a severe seige of typhoid fever and grandfather Asa and their daughter, Millie,
died, leaving Grandmother Susan with a large family to finish raising."
Inez Coger Hinds
census taken shortly after Asa's death that year shows all of his children
living in the same general area of War Eagle Township, Huntsville Village,
Madison County, except his daughter Mollie, who had died five years before, on
September 11, 1875. Addie Lear and
Sarah E. Jay, shown in the census, are Asa's daughters Adeline and Betty.
letter from Ann Eliza Coger, daughter of Cornelius Coger, at Kings River home,
to John M. and Mariah)
August the 6 = 1880
Kinston Madison
Co. Ark
Dear Uncle and Aunt
It is with pleasure I take my pen in had to drop you a few lines
to let you know that we are all well at present and hope when those few lines
comes to hand they will find you all enjoying the same blessing. I hardly know
what to write but I will give you a little news from this Country. Corn looks
fine, wheat was good. Oats not much account
fruit in abundance of all kinds.
I will now give you the prices of produce old corn 60 cts a bushel
wheat 50 cts per bushel bacon 8
cts per pound. milk cows from 10 to 15
dollar young cattle sell tlible well.
health is not very good.
generally we have preaching nearly every Sunday in about a mile of us.
There has been a protracted meeting going on here which lasted six days and
nights during that time there was severn souls converted. grandma and grand pa (John and Sarah Coger)
is both well both have joined the
baptist church grandma said to tell you
that she was trying to live a religious life and She hoped to meet you in
heaven. She said tell you that she was
glad to hear the happy change which you have made. She wants to know whether uncle Jackson and uncle James (John and
Sarah Coger's sons still in West Virginia) is prepared for a better world or
not. We was at aunt Susans (Elizabeth
Susan Hopkins Coger) not long ago and read the letter that you wrote to her.
father (Cornelius Coger) said if you would come out to here this
fall he thought you and him could make verry good wages hunting close to Eureka
/ Venison is worth from 8 to 10 cts per pound thare and deer is tolible plenty
about there and lots of turkeys. He has
killed four red deer this Summer. She
said tell uncle Jackson and James (James Coger, John and Sarah's son) that he
would like for them to come to
Well, aunt I would like to see you once more on earth but the
lord only knows whether we will ever meet any more in this world or not but if
we don't I hope we will meet in heaven where parting will never come. Tell aunt Jane (Jackson's wife) and aunt
Agie (James' wife) that I would like to see them. Tell the girls to write to me and I will answer every letter I
receive from them. I want to know
whether aunt Bettie Singgleton is married or not tell her to write to me. grandma and grand pa (John and Sarah) Says
they would like to see you all once more but they did not expect to meet with
you any more untill they would meet you in heaven where sorrow pain and death
is felt and feared no more.
no more at present.
please write
excuse bad
writing and spelling
Eliza Coger
and Mariah Coger
"I wish I could help you with more substantive material about
Grandma Coger, but the best I can offer are my own childhood recollections.
"I recall that she was a deeply religious person, had an
indomitable will, and favored a reclusive lifestyle. An ever-present point of pride with her was that she read at
least one chapter of the Bible every day.
She lived most of her later life with us, but she made frequent visits
of varying duration to her other children, usually Uncle Steve or Uncle Rufe.
"Grandma's craftsmanship as a seamstress was legend. This was her only hobby, and she continued
her exquisite needlework until her
death. One of her masterpieces was an
embroidered Masonic Apron which she made for Dad to wear at ceremonial Lodge
functions. It was truly a work of art.
"Grandma received a confederate pension of $22 per month. She kept only $5 of it for herself,
stubbornly insisting that Mom and Dad apply the remainder to the family
budget. Her only "vice" was the yearly
consumption of a quart of whiskey laced with a half pound of rock candy. This was her special present from us at
Christmas time, and it lasted her "for medicinal remedies" until the next Christmas.
"These are a few of the more vivid recollections I have of
Grandma, and I regret that I do not have something more substantive to offer
you. Unfortunately for posterity, most
of us thought little of history in our youth, when tomorrows meant forever."
S. R. Bob Coger,
of Marion Clay Coger
"Grandmother, of Irish extraction, loved her morning toddy, a
small amount of whiskey, with hot water, sugar, and nutmeg. Which habit with and before a group of
little boys generated what was called the family curse, the same being an
inordinate love of liquor, and all the boys paid dearly for its indulgence,
except Frank, the oldest, who married and joined the Church (Methodist) early
and never suffered from its influence."
Inez Coger Hinds
Several Letters were written
by Elizabeth Susan Coger and her oldest son Frank, after Asa's death.
(From Frank Coger to Asa's
brother, John M. and Mariah Coger)
Huntsville Madison County
April the 4th 81
Dear Uncle and family
I received your kind and welcome letter last Sunday which found
us all well except myself. I brused my
had and it rise and got so bad I had it split open. It is better now but it
will be sometime before I will be able to work any. Well I will try and tell you what all of your kind folks is
doing. Uncle Henry has located at
Eureka Springs, bought property there.
Uncle Neal has rented his place and is going to stay at Eureka this
Grandad and Mother (John and Sarah) is still living on their
place on King River. They have plenty
to live on. Ann Coger (Neal's daughter)
married a short time ago to a man by the name of Carter. Mother's (Elizabeth Susan Coger) farm lies
joining mine. She has rented part of
her place and the boys is going to tend the rest. Bettie (Frank's sister) and her man lives in Fort Smith. Reg (Reagan Jay, Bettie's husband) is Deputy
U. S. Marshall. They have one child, a
boy. Addie (Frank's other sister) and
her man lives near Cole Hill on Ark River.
They have two children both boys.
As for myself I am knocking along about as usual. I am puting in 15 acres of new ground this
spring. I have two hands working for me
by the month. I pay one $11.75 per
month and the other $11.00. I still
team some. I make for $2.00 to $2.50 a
day. We have had a very cold winter. Times is good here. The country is improving pretty fast. Everything seems to be in a flourishing condition. Prices corn 25 to 30 cts a bu, wheat 85 to
90 ct a bu, bacon 7 cents lb, potatoes 50 ct bu.
Eureka Springs is still the wonder of the world. Thousands testify to the wonderful curative
power of these waters. I culd tell you
cures that would seem so incredible that I believe you would think I was
lieing. There will be a railroad
running there soon. The cars runing in
20 miles of the place now. The place is
improving very fast. Stay away a month
and you hardly know the place. Uncle
Hen (Asa's brother Henry) says common hands get $1.00 to $1.50 a day,
carpenters and stone masons $2.00 to $3.00 a day. I have no doubt but these waters would benefit if not interely
cure Aunt Mariar (John Milton Coger's wife, back in West Virginia). It is
highly recommended for disease except consumption in that case it heals the
lung so fast that it is apt to kill a person.
If used in small quantities, persons has bin benefited. Eureka is 25 miles from Huntsville. Produce is cheep at Eureka. It is a cheep place to live.
Write soon. Love to all
inquiring friends. Tell them write to
me and I will reply. I was aiming to
tell you about our schools, Sunday Schools, and churches. But I have filled my sheat and my fingers is
give out. So I will not commence
Give my love to Uncle John
Hopkins. Tell him to write to me. Tell Uncle Jim (James Coger) I guess Grandad
(John Coger) can beat him a shooting.
Tell all my uncles aunts cousins I wold like to see them. I guess they would not know me now. I weigh
175 pounds wear a heavy mustach and whiskers.
(From Elizabeth Susan Coger
and her son Frank to John M. and Mariah Coger)
the 30 1882
Dear Brother and Sister
After a long delay I seat myself to write you a few lines to let
you no we are all well hoping these few lines may reach and find you all
injoying the best of health and doing well generly. I dont know what will interest you. Henry (Asa's brother) is at Eureka. His youngest boy come up the other day and some come over from
Kings River and the folks is well at both places. Mother (Sarah Jane Sands Coger) has had a kanser on her hand but
it is about well now. Neal is with the
old folk. Henry has been working on the
railroad at two dollars per day (Neal and Henry are Asa's brothers). We have a verry good prospect for crops here
and fruit and mast and vegerbles of all kind.
Now I will give you the market.
Wheat is from 50 to 60 cents, corn 75 cents, bacon 12 1/2 cents, coffee
six pounds to the dollar, sugar 9 pounds to the dollar, other goods in
Well I dont want you to be as long about writing as I have. Give me the news in general, Any thing from the old country is neise to
hear. I want you to come and see us if
you can, I want to see you all very
bad. I sent you a Eureaka book. I want to no wheather you got it or no.
Tell me if any of your children is married and if Maria's (Asa's
brother John M.'s wife) sister Nancy is living and how my brother John (John
Hopkins) is geting a long for I no he has a lonsom time in this world. But our troubles in this world works out for
us and exceding weight of glory now if we never met in this world let us
persevear on til we strike glad hands in glory. Farewell to all. Hoping
to meet in heaven.
E. S. Coger
Well Uncle John as Mother
has not filled all her space I thought I would write a few lines. I am going to ask some questions. Where does Uncle Jim (James Coger) live
at. Is Uncle Jackson (Coger) live where
he did when we left. Where is Newte and
Ike (James Coger's sons, Frank's first cousins) at. Have they much family. Tell all of my kind folks I still hold them
in remembrance dear and wold be glad to get a letter from any of them. We have fine prospect for fine crops. Wheat is cut and mostly thrashed. I had 72 bu. I think we will have extra fine crops of everything, grass is
already cut, early corn is roasting ear, the fruit crop is fine, vegatables
cant be beat. Well I rote you a letter
sometime ago and sent you the Madison County Record. If you get in the notion some of time to retir let me know. You get the paper regular.
M. Coger
(Elizabeth Susan Coger to
John M. and Mariah Coger)
February 15, 1886
Dear Brother and Sister
As I am very lonsom today I will try to redeem myself. It has been a long time since I received your
letter. I waited until I went to see
Father and Mother (John and Sarah Coger).
They was well and had plenty but oh how lonly to see them by ther selvs. They have rented to Anns (Neal Coger's
daughter Ann Eliza) man this year. Now
the rest of us is well hoping you are the same. We have had the bigest snow this winter I ever saw. It was 24 inches on a level. Times is hard here and money is scarse, but
we have a prospect of times opening up better in the spring. Ther is a prospect of a railroad passing
through our town. It was serveyed
through my place and they havbe got 10 or 12 miles completed on the west end
now. There is plenty of hog and homny
in our country and to spare.
Now as it is the blessed Sabath day we must say something about
our hope for a future home. If it was
not for that blessed hope what would be our condision in this world of sin and
sorrow. I feel that my prospect is
brite for heaven and I hope to meet you all on that sunbrite clime. Father and Mother (John and Sarah Coger) is
traveling the road of the blest. Henry
and Neal (Asa's brothers) is out of the care of safty. Pray for us all that we may meet in
glory. Now I will close for my pen is
so bad I dont expect you can read this at all.
S. Coger
Now as to my business. Do as you think best as long as what is
there will pay expenses for I will not pay anything else.
"I called her "Grandma," my dad and mother called her "Ma."
Everybody called her Ma except the kids and we all called her Grandma. I remember very well when she died, that was
in 1923. My dad went to the
funeral. She died at Berryville, while
living with Clay. She lived with us
most of the time."
Max Coger
Susan Hopkins Coger died on June 13, 1923.
Below is a copy of an obituary written by one of her nieces in the
Braxton Democrat, published in Braxton County, West Virginia.
Mrs. Elizabeth Susan (Hopkins) Coger was born in Gochland, Virginia,
June 24, 1832, and departed this life June 13, 1923, in her 91st year, at
Berryville, Arkansas. She was the
daughter of Caleb and Mary Ann Hopkins, who moved from Virginia to Braxton
County in 1840 and settled on Salt Lick Creek, near Coger Station, on the
farm on which W. J. Hopkins now resides.
She was married to Asa Coger in 1852. She was a sister of the late Andrew J. Hopkins of Flatwoods,
and the last of the family to pass away.
She was a good Christian woman, choosing in her youth the Christian
life, and was faithful to her Savior unto the end. She died Triumphant in the Lord and has
entered into that rest that remains to the people of God. She made preparations for her
departure. Enclosing her picture
in an envelope and addressing it with her own dear hands, she directed
that it be sent to me after her death. "Blessed
are the dead which die in the lord from henceforth; yea, sayeth the spirit, that they may
rest from their labors; and their works do follow them." Her niece; Minerva
Hopkins Posey