Grundy County IL Archives Biographies.....Coles, John H 
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Deb Haines ddhaines@gmail.com March 25, 2006, 11:40 pm

Author: Bio/Gen Record LaSalle/Grundy 1900

JOHN H. COLES.

The writer may be in error, but, having been for many years a close observer 
of all sorts and conditions of men, and having to some extent studied the 
influence of occupation on character, he has long been of the opinion that the 
daily life of the shoemaker is conducive to thought. Thought is conducive to 
right understanding, and hence the fact that shoemakers are exceptionally well 
informed upon all public questions would appear to require no further 
explanation. It should be understood, however, that shoemakers who work in 
their own shops are referred to, shoemakers who are masters of all parts of 
the trade, not "operatives" who do odd bits of shoemaking in big factories and 
know little about any other portions of the work. In his idle intervals the 
shoemaker reads, and while he works he thinks and argues, and he is usually 
able to give a good reason for any opinion he may advance. As a consequence 
his humble shop becomes the center of local political discussion and is a 
point from which political opinion of a sensible type is disseminated 
throughout his neighborhood. Usually, as with the subject of this sketch, the 
shoemaker is entrusted with responsible office.

John H. Coles, notary public, justice of the peace and police justice, has 
been a resident of Gardner, Grundy county, Illinois, since 1857. He was born 
in Delaware county, Pennsylvania, February 5, 1822, and his father, Enoch 
Coles, was a native of Westchester county, New York. The family is of English 
origin and the original American ancestor came over in 1642. Two brothers came 
at that time and one of them settled in New York and the other in New Jersey, 
and from the former the subject of this notice descended. Enoch Coles was 
married to Margaret Henderson, a native of Delaware, and about 1818 he removed 
to Pennsylvania, where he lived out the remainder of his life. After her 
husband's death, the wife of Enoch Goles and the mother of John H. Coles 
removed to Germantown, Pennsylvania, where she died.

John H. Coles was one of sixteen children, only seven of whom were living in 
1899. He was reared, educated and married in Pennsylvania. His first wife, who 
was Mary Elizabeth Hart, died in Gardner in 1861. In 1863 he was married to 
Mrs. Martha J. Dunmore, whose maiden name was Sutton. Mr. Coles was the father 
of five children by his first wife, three of whom are living; and four by his 
second wife, all of whom are living. The eldest by his first marriage now 
living is Mrs. Mary Van Dusen, of Pontiac, Illinois. The others are John 
Alfred, of Clay county, Kansas, and William F., of Ottumwa, Iowa. George and 
Henry, children by this marriage, are dead. The eldest by his second marriage 
is Elwood A., of Greenfield township. The second is Mrs. Jessie M. Clover, of 
Morris, Illinois. The others are Herbert M. and Nathan E., both of Morris, 
Illinois.

John H. Coles learned the trade of shoemaking of his father, who followed that 
trade as the business of his life, and has worked at it most of the time 
since. He has been a justice of the peace and police magistrate for nearly 
thirty years, was the first police magistrate of Gardner, the first president 
of the board of trustees of his town and has been town clerk for twenty-five 
years. He was the first notary public in Greenfield township and now has his 
ninth consecutive commission. Politically he has been a Republican since the 
organization of that party. All his life he has been a pronounced temperance 
man and he has been a member of the Methodist Episcopal church, since 1843.


Additional Comments:
Source:  Biographical and Genealogical Record of La Salle and Grundy County, 
Illinois, Volume 11, Chicago, 1900, p748-749

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