California Biographies

Transcribed by Peggy Hooper

This file is part of the California Genealogy & History Archives 
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cagha/index.htm

Source:
History of the state of California and biographical record of the San Joaquin 
Valley, California. An historical story of the state's marvelous growth from 
its earliest settlement to the present time.
Prof. James Miller Guinn , A. M.
The Chapman Publishing Co., Chicago 1905
Notes: Missing Page: 865-866,983-984,1175-1176


CHARLES MERWIN COE. The Coe family came originally from Wales, where Henry 
Coe was born and reared to manhood. He was die first emigrant in the family, locating first 
in New Jersey and later in New York, where he became a farmer. A man of ability, he won 
a prominent place in local affairs in his community, joining the state militia, in which he 
served as major. In his family was a son, Julius, who was born in Gloversville, Fulton county, the 
town then being known as Stump City. In manhood he became a glove manufacturer in that 
place, a pioneer in that line, continuing in that location until 1867. when, on account of failing 
health, he came to California. He located near Knight's Landing, and later removed to the 
Mussel Slough country, where he purchased a farm of three hundred and twenty acres. This 
property remained his home until his death at the age of sixty-four years. His wife, formerly 
Catherine Simpson, survives him and makes her home in Hanford, at the age of seventy-eight 
years. Her father, a native of England, immigrated to this country and became a farmer in 
New York state. Mr. and Mrs. Coe became the parents of seven children, of whom five are 
now living. 

The oldest in his father's family, Charles Merwin Coe was born in Gloversville, Fulton county, 
N. Y., March 23, 1847, and was reared on a farm in Jefferson county until attaining the age 
of fifteen years. He received his education through an attendance at the district and high 
schools of his vicinity, and although desirous of taking up the study of medicine was con- 
strained by circumstances to learn the trade of glove-making. He became an expert glove man- 
ufacturer, and was later traveling salesman for different glove factories in Gloversville, travel- 
ing over the middle west, the west and northeast. In 1870 he came to California and located 
in Vacaville, Solano county, where he made his home for two years, at the end of which time, 
through the indications that the Southern Pacific Railroad would make settlements in the 
Mussel Slough district, he came south and homesteaded one hundred and sixty acres, took a tree 
claim for one hundred and sixty acres and bought one hundred and sixty acres of railroad land, 
all adjoining. He immediately set out trees, put up buildings and began an active improvement 
of his extensive property. With others he took an active part in the organization of the Lake- 
side Ditch Company, of which he afterward became a director. Two hundred and forty acres 
of this property are now under irrigation from that ditch and two hundred and forty under the 
People's ditch, the land being devoted to alfalfa and grain. The railroad company forced him to 
pay the price of $15 per acre, instead of the folder price of $2.50 per acre. In 1889 he sold 
this property and located in Tulare county, purchasing one hundred and sixty acres five miles 
southwest of Visalia. principally bottom land along the Kaweah river. This is under the 
Farmers' ditch, of which he is a director and was formerly president. Fifty acres are devoted 
to the cultivation of alfalfa, while the rest is given over to grain and stock, raising Shorthorn 
cattle and Berkshire and Poland-China hogs. He has a fine farm, well situated and productive, 
and fair in natural beauty, being thickly studded with giant oaks. He has added various im- 
provements and gives to its cultivation all the energy and ability of which he is capable. 

In Gloversville, N. Y., Mr. Coe married Catherine Flogg, a native of Germany, and they have 
two children, of whom Leonard, who graduated from the United Medical College of San Fran- 
cisco and practiced in Fresno, Cal., died in Colorado at the age of twenty-seven years; and 
Charles Smith, who graduated from the College of Physicians and Surgeons of San Francisco, 
is practicing his profession in Palo Alto, Cal. Mr. Coe is a stanch Republican in his political 
convictions and gives his best efforts to advance the principles he endorses. He is a communicant 
in St. Marv's Catholic Church of Visalia.