Bureau County IL Archives Biographies.....Cole, Rev. John
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Virginia Perry vperry@midwest.net January 1999

Biography of Rev John COLE, Bureau County, Illinois

Rev. John Cole, Greenville, was born in Cumberland County, Ky., January 9,
1812. He is the son of Samuel and Mary (Brown) Cole. Samuel Cole was born 
January 23, 1778. He was married to Mary Brown December 6, 1798; she was born 
January 5, 1779, and died November 11, 1851.  They were the parents of ten 
children, of whom the following are now living: Benjamin, who was born June 17, 
1809, and now resides in Kansas; John, of Bureau County; Nancy, born October 
24, 1816, now in Texas, and David, born April 22, 1823, now of Clay County, 
Ill. Sampson  Cole, the oldest son, was born July 8, 1801. He came to Bureau 
County in 1831, when he removed to Arkansas, then to Texas, and finally to 
Los Angeles, Cal., where he died in 1881. In about 1822 John Cole removed to 
Memphis, Tenn, with his parents, and a short time after this to Arkansas, 
where the father died. In 1825 the family settled in Union County, Ill, where 
our subject remained till the spring of 1830, when he settled in what is now 
Champaign County, and in November 16, 1831, he came to this county, and has 
since resided here. During the Black Hawk war he enlisted at Hennepin, but 
most of his service was at Fort Wilbur, in LaSalle County.   When  first 
settling in this county it was in Hall Township, but about a year later he 
settled in Selby, where he resided till 1866, when he removed to Tiskilwa, 
and December 20, 1882, came to the farm one-half mile south of New Bradford, 
where the family owns 432 acres, one of the best stock-farms in the county. 
Mr. Cole’s occupation has mostly been that of a farmer, but for some years 
he was engaged in the mercantile business in Tiskilwa. Mr. Cole’s early life 
was spent on the frontier, and among the Indians, and so he was thoroughly 
fitted to fill the part of a pioneer in the settlement of this county. His was 
one of the early marriages of Bureau County, as he married September 30, 1832, 
to Jane Tompkins, who was born in Carter County, Tenn., September 19, 1817. 
She is the daughter of William and Elizabeth (Owens) Tompkins. William Tompkins 
was born November 20, 1772. He settled in Champaigh County, Ill. In 1829, and 
entered land where Urbana now stands. In 1831 he removed to Bureau County. In 
1834, while returning to this county from Tennessee, he died in Champaign 
County. Of his family of thirteen children but four are now living, viz: Martin, 
born July 3, 1809, now of Mineral, Ill.; Elizabeth Holbrook, born February 19, 
1814, now resides near Tiskilwa; Mrs. Cole and Elijah Tompkins, of Clarke County, 
Iowa, born October 22, 1822.  Mr. and  Mrs. Cole are the parents of the following 
named children: Elizabeth, born January 20, 1834, wife of G. B. Wheeler, of 
Kansas; Maria J., born December 31, 1836, wife of William Chenoweth, of 
Arispetown; Mary L., born April 5, 1844, wife of Robert Patterson, of 
Arispetown; Samuel, born June 6, 1848 and Charles W., born May 13, 1850. The 
two latter are farmers in Greenville town. In politics Mr. Cole was Democrat 
till 1856, since which time he has been Republican. For about forty-seven 
years he has been a member of the Methodist Epicopal Church, and most of the 
time a minister, and has probably preached more funerals that any one else 
in this county, and has married a number of couples, children of those he had 
married in early life.

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