Stories from Bovina’s Cemeteries - The children of James and Nancy Coulter

In September 1836, the family of James and Nancy Coulter faced a crisis that was all too common for early settlers of Bovina – and just about anywhere else.  Their three children died in just two days.  On the 22nd, Elizabeth, who was a month shy of her fourth birthday and Nancy, who was two and a half, died.  The following day, their fourteen month old brother Andrew T. joined them in death.  Like the story of the Cathels family that was featured in this blog last November, we cannot identify what illness took these little children.  They are buried in the old Associate Presbyterian Church cemetery on Reinertsen Hill Road, next to their grandparents, Francis and Nancy Coulter.  Nancy D.'s stone is very hard to read.  Their brother Andrew's stone is no longer exists (or is unreadable).

Elizabeth Coulter's stone

Nancy D. Coulter's stone

So in the fall of 1836, James and Nancy found themselves childless.  That state of affairs did not last long. At the time of her children’s deaths, Nancy was pregnant.  She went on to have another ten children, all boys, including a second son named Andrew.  James and Nancy lost four more children during their lifetimes. Their youngest child, W. Lieper, died just short of a year old in 1855.  Thomas M. Coulter was eight at his death in 1858.  These children also were buried near their grandparents in the Associate Presbyterian Church cemetery.

W. Leiper Coulter's stone

Thomas M. Coulter's stone

Two of  James and Nancy Coulter's sons, John A. and Solomon G., served in the Civil War, and Solomon became a fatality of that war in 1864 (see this blog for February 12, 2012 for short biographies of these two brothers).  Their second Andrew died on New Year’s Day 1867 – in my house as it so happens - of consumption.  James and Nancy were survived by six of their thirteen children at their deaths - Nancy died in 1891 and James in 1898.  They are buried in the 'new' Bovina Center Cemetery, next to the memorial stone for their son Solomon.  Also buried in the Bovina Cemetery are four of their sons: the aforementioned Andrew, James (1837-1917 - the son born four months after the lost of his three siblings), Francis (1840-1902) and the last of their children to pass away, Edward (1851-1932).

For more about James and Nancy, see this blog for May 5 and 17, 2011.