Anyone foolhardy enough to attempt a genealogy of Somerset County's Coon family immediately confronts the problem that bedeviled William S. Coons back in 1937 when he began his Koon-Coons Families of Eastern New York. "Our work has been made exceedingly difficult," he wrote, "first by the fact that three distinct and entirely unrelated families are involved, second by the confusion of these family names both in the original records and in modern use. Descendants of all three families are sometimes found living in the same locality and with some of them using the spelling of the family name which rightly belongs to one of the other families instead." "Two of these three families were of Dutch, German or Swiss origin - one originally Coens (or Kuntz), and the other Coen (or Kuhn). We have only a few notes on Dutch or Swiss branches, but find that most of our early Kuntz and Kuhn families came to New York with the German Palatines in 1710…. The Coen-Kuntz family became mostly Coons, though one important branch first became Koons and then split into Koon and Koonz. This family is descended from Matthias Kuntz, one of the German Palatine immigrants…. The Coen-Kuhn family became mostly Coon, though some retained the German 'k' and became Koon, while many added an "s" and became Coons. This family descended from Samuel Kuhn, another of the German Palatine immigrants of 1710…. The third family we have not included in this volume…. It is the MacCoon family, which is of Scotch origin and came to New York from Rhode Island…. It, also, became mostly Coon…." Little wonder that a New Jersey Coon genealogy has not been attempted. It is possible (though not certain) that Warren's Coon family is descended from German Palatine immigrants, a supposition based entirely on geographic proximity to a family of similar-sounding surname that lived "in the mountains" above Bound Brook in the 1730s and 1740s. It was in the year 1709, as rumors spread that England's Queen Ann would provide free transportation for emigrants to America, that some 13,000 ragged, penniless Germans descended on the British Isles. They lived in the streets of Liverpool and London until resettled by the authorities, some few sent to Ireland, many more to America. Others bypassed England, sailing directly from Germany to the New World in ships furnished by the British. During two years, 1708 and 1709, more than 30,000 Palatine Germans (Protestant Germans from the Rhenish Palatine, an area straddling the banks of the Rhine River, between France and Germany) arrived in America, making new homes in the Carolinas, southern New York (Ulster and Orange counties), northeastern New Jersey (Bergen county) and Pennsylvania (where they became known as the Pennsylvania Dutch). A list of Palatines settling in New York and New Jersey (taken from Governor Hunter's Ration List) includes Johann Jacob Kuhn, Samuel Kuhn, Conrad Kuhn, Valentine Kuhn, Henry Kuhn, Peter Kuhn and Herman Kuhn. Some of these families settled in Somerset County. By 1720 "a goodly strain of German blood" was to be found in Bridgewater, near Pluckemin village. As early as 1724 a Lutheran church made of logs had been built on Pig Mountain, a mile or so northeast of the village, on property later owned by Grant Schley and now known as The Hills, about 500 feet above the valley. The earliest record of the Mountain Church is dated 1714, when an itinerant minister began to lead services for German settlers in the northern regions of Somerset County. The log church was in use until 1756. A small cemetery, later abandoned, was nearby. Jacob Janeway, a Bound Brook merchant whose account book for the years 1735-46 has been preserved, lists various transactions with persons surnamed Coonce, Coone, Coons, Cunce, Koonce, Koone and Koones - spelling was mostly phonetic in those days. Mentioned are Adam, the son of Nicholas, Elizabeth, daughter of Nicholas, Michael, son of Nicholas, Nicholas (or Nikolas) himself, Thomas, and his son, Michael. Nicholas at one time lived near North Branch and is also said to be "of the mountains." Thomas, also "of the mountains," lived "on Jones Grinways place." Jonas Greenaway lived on William Dockwra's 3,000-acre patent on the south side of the Passaic River (above Union Village) as early as 1742. (See Warren History, Vol. I, No. 9, p. 4) Thomas was a Janeway customer during the years 1735 - 1744. Thomas Coon Senior was born c. 1700, died February 25, 1761, and was buried in the Bound Brook Presbyterian Church graveyard. His will, dated February 20, 1761, recites his residence in "the North Precinct of the County of Somerset & Province of East Jersey," that is, somewhere in what was then Bridgewater and later Warren. To his "dearly beloved wife" Catherine, Coon bequeathed the best bed in the house and "the furniture belonging thereunto," one iron pot, a frying pan, tea "kittel," "all the Puter that her father gave her," a riding horse and a saddle, and two four-year-old heifers (one called Spot and the other Pink). Mentioned also are his sons, Moses, Thomas, John, Michael, Benjamin and Abraham, who was "not capable to take care of himself," his granddaughter Hannah Urmston, and his granddaughters Ann and Mary Morrol, the children of his daughter Joan, wife of Philip Morrol. Executors were his sons Thomas and Benjamin and "my trusty friend," John Roy, Esq. The will was witnessed by neighbors Jacob and Anthony Cosart and his son in law, Thomas Urmston. An inventory of the estate made on March 16, 1761, by Robert Dennes (Dennis) and Abraham Van Tuyl, lists personal property valued at £322, a goodly sum in those days, ranging from three bonds and a note worth £143 to two books worth four shillings. According to one record, Thomas' son Benjamin was born at Mt. Horeb in 1739 and died there on November 9, 1811. He married Elizabeth (1729-c. 1784) and they had Levi, b. about 1750, d. August 7, 1826, Benjamin, b. about 1752, Nathan, b. about 1754, Benjamin, b. about 1758, William, b. about 1758, d. before 1807, Nathan, b. about 1764, Rachel, b. 1760/70, died 1842, Mary, b. 1756, d. Nov. 3, 1840, and Hannah, b. June 15, 1762, d. June 15, 1859 (all of the Mt. Horeb area). But see Warren History, Vol. II, No. 2, for an article about the final resting place of Benjamin Coon and his wife Abigail (perhaps a 2nd wife). Thomas' namesake, Thomas Coon, Jr., was born in 1723 and died August 14, 1785. A farmer and mill owner, he married twice, first to Hanna (1724-March 7, 1769), by whom he had nine children, and second to Elizabeth (1737-August 30, 1804). The children of Thomas and Hanna Coon were: Azariah, b. 1750, d. 9/23/1794, m. Catharine, b. 1744, d. 12/11/1791, 2nd Sarah, b. 1765, d. 10/11/1796; John, married Mary, b. 1754, d. 8/24/1776; William, a blacksmith; Izarell (Israel), b. 1757, d. 8/7/1809, a veteran of the Revolution, m. Sarah, b. 1768, d. 11/30/1812, the daughter of Rev. Abner Sutton, parents of 10 children, and buried in the Mt. Bethel Baptist cemetery; Joseph, a farmer and grist mill operator; Aaron, b. 1760, d. 10/27/1844, farmer and grist mill operator, m. Susannah, b. 1765, d. 2/26/1842; Catharine, d. 7/1785, married Anthony Cozart (Cozad), 1740-1790, and had son Thomas Coon Cozad; Hannah, m. Benjamin Corrington (or Coddington); Liddy (Lydia), b. 1763, d. 10/1/1813, married Deacon Samuel Cozad (8/26/1760-3/7/1841). Thomas and his second wife are buried in the Bound Brook Presbyterian cemetery. The story of Hanna's tombstone will be found in Warren History, Vol. I, No. 3. Thomas Coon's will, dated July 11, 1785, left to his wife Elizabeth "one bead and bedding and one cowe and the little rome at the west end of the house with the fireplace and to have a good and honourable accommodation [for] her during her widowhood to be paid by my sons Joseph Coon and Aaron Coon equally…." To Joseph and Aaron he left "the place where I now dwell and the mill…."John Worth and Anthony Cozad were named executors, David Grant, Thomas Miller and Jeremiah Giddes were the witnesses. Israel Coon (1757-1809) served as a matross (gunner's assistant) in the 1st N.J. Artillery during the Revolution and in 1777 was a corporal in Capt. James Heard's company, which was assigned to Lee's Legion, an organization of Virginia cavalry commanded by Light Horse Harry Lee. In 1819 Coon's heirs received a land bounty of 400 acres in Virginia for his services. Israel and Sarah Coon had 10 children: Abner, Thomas, Elizabeth, Mary, Israel, Azariah, David, George, John and Charlotte. In 1809 the New Jersey Supreme Court considered the case of Coon vs. Moffitt, an appeal from the Somerset County Court of Common Pleas. In the case, Sarah Moffitt filed suit against David Coon "for making an assault upon Elizabeth Moffitt, [her daughter], and debauching and getting her with child." Exactly who the parties were is open to conjecture, but that they were Warren residents is fairly obvious. The trial was held on Oct. 9, 1807. Elizabeth Moffitt testified that she lived at home, that David began to visit in 1805, that her father died in 1806, "that last March, a year ago, the criminal connection first commenced between the witness and the defendant…, that the defendant continued his visits about a year, that the witnesses child was born the 15th of December 1806, at her mother's, that the witness was and still is under age…." County records contain the inventory of the estate of William Moffett, d. 9/16/1806, made by David Kelly and John King, sworn to by Abraham Van Tuyl and John Moffett. There are Moffetts buried in the Mt. Horeb cemetery. © Warren Township Historical Society |