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Children of Daniel and Mary, called Polly, (Bigelow) Cole:
15336.121 Aljarman Cole, b 1817; d Wankon, WI.
15336.122 Edwin Cole, b 1819; d before 1880 MN;
was married.
15336.123 Seymore Cole, b 21 Feb 1822; d 1893 Poinset,
SD, m Mathilda Slocum.
15336.124 Alvin Cole, b 1823; d Waverly, IA.
15336.125 Vernon Cole, b 1825; d Gillette, WI.
15336.126 Permilla Cole, b 1827 Ashford; d Ashford;
m______ Bemis.
15336.127 illegible name, b 1829 Ashford; d Edgerton,
MI.
15336.128 Byron Cole, b 1831 Ashford; d either
Marion, MI or Waupaca, WI (conflicting reports).
15336.129 Miriam Cole, b 22 June 1833 Ashford; d
22 Jan 1892 Riceville, NY.
Sources:
Bigelow Family Genealogy Vol II , p 80-81;
Howe, Bigelow Family of America;
Records of Bigelow Society historian/genealogist;
The Bigelow Family Genealogy, Vol. I.
Subject: Mary "Polly" Bigelow
Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2009 16:25:23 -0800 (PST)
From: Michelle Meltzer < michellealta@yahoo.com >
Hello,
My inquiry to you is concerning Polly Bigelow who was married to my
3rd great grandfather Daniel Mansfield Cole. I have a death date of 22 Sept
1834 for her that is collaborated by your site and the biographical sketch
I found there. However, there is an 1880 Federal Census showing them both
alive in their 80's living with their youngest son. Do you have any proof
of Polly's death? A cemetary? Picture of a headstone? Anything to prove she
died when she did? I'd appreciate any help you can give me. Thank you.
Michelle
This census may be referring to Mary Bemis (d 1881) and the son of
Daniel and Nancy was the youngest (Ozra Cole).........ROD 2009
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.
DANIEL MANSFIELD COLE
was born in the town of Dummerston, Windham Co., Vt. He was the
eldest of four children, __ two sons and two daughters. He being
the eldest, and his father a cripple, the cares and duties of mature years
and the responsibilities of manhood were thrown upon his shoulders while
yet a mere boy. His opportunities for acquiring an education, owing
to the lack of free schools and the limitations of poverty, were very poor
indeed. At the age of twenty-one he was married to Miss Polly BIGELOW,
of the town and county aforesaid. After attaining to his majority
he went to Boston, and engaged with his uncle in stevedore business.
After continuing in this business for some time, he engaged with a gentleman
by the name of COBB as overseer of a gang of men then engaged in the construction
of the locks of the Champlain Canal. While engaged in this capacity
by the accidental and premature discharge of a heavy blast, was thrown across
the canal amid timbers, dirt, and stones. He was picked up for dead;
but life was not extinct; and good nursing and: a rugged constitution, together
with the lapse of time, restored him to his original strength. After
his return to health, his younger brother having left home, he returned
to work his father's farm; but his mother being now dead, and his father
again married, Daniel resolved to seek a home in the then wilderness of
western New York. After a long and tiresome journey by stages and
the Erie Canal, which was but recently opened, he arrived at the house of
Job BIGELOW, in the town of Ashford, Cattaraugus Co., on the 26th of
November, 1826.
One incident of note we mention here, as showing the condition of the
roads in that early period, and some of the incidents liable to occur while
passing over them. While the wagon containing his family and goods
was jolting from root to log, and from log to root, one of the children
fell from the load and was plunged head foremost entirely beneath the ooze
of one of the intervening sloughs.
On arriving in this county with his wife and five children all the money
left him was one lonely fifty-cent piece: The first thing to be done
was to provide a shelter for his family. In pursuance of this object
he left them at Job BIGELOW's and immediately commenced the construction
of a log house upon a one-hundred-acre tract of land, -- which is the same
he now owns, and which has been his home for fifty-two years. The
house was built of logs, chinked with basswood split out for that purpose,
and the crevices calked with moss gathered from logs in the adjoining woods.
This latter work was done by the wife and children. The floors were
made of basswood split in slabs for that purpose, spotted on the underside
to lay level on the joists, and then adzed off on top. This work
was speedily accomplished, and the winter of 1826-27 was passed in their
own house in the wilderness of Cattaraugus. It may be a subject of
some wonderment to the reader of this biography how he sustained his family
without money. The mystery is easily explained. Mr. COLE was
a good carpenter and joiner, while along the Cattaraugus Creek there lived
at this period a number of settlers from the Mohawk, who had settled there
during the intervening years since the war of 1812. These people
cleared the bottom lands along that stream, and improved them until at
the period of which we write they had abundance of grain, which they were
both willing and anxious to exchange for work in erecting buildings, of
which they stood in great need. His knowledge of this branch of industry
was the means of providing the necessary support of the family, until his
own land could be made to produce to that end.
We now pass over a few years in which nothing particular occurred, beyond the felling of the forests and clearing of land, interspersed with the accidental killing of an only cow and the sickness and death of one of the oxen composing his team, until the time when sickness and death enters the family and removes the wife and mother, who died of typhus fever, on the 22d day of September, 1834. Left alone with a family of nine children in the then but little better than a wilderness, the thousand-and-one wants of such a family without a mother's hand to guide, together with the wastes and losses which are too apt to be the rule in a family where each and all are acting without a head to direct or a hand to guide, as was the case with this, the father being obliged to be absent from home a large share of the time earning money to support his family, while the farm and its management, to a large extent, was left in the hands of the oldest boy; all these conspired to make life and its surroundings look dark, indeed. On Dec. 26,1835, he was again married to a sister of his first wife, Miss Nancy BIGELOW; but a brief period elapsed before death again entered the home and removed the wife and mother, who died of consumption on the 23d day of May, 1838. Again left alone with ten children he struggled against time and tide, with the buffetings of fortune and the chilling touch of an unfriendly world for five years, when he was again married to Miss Polly BEMIS, June 18, 1843.
At the date of this last marriage we find his family somewhat scattered; the four oldest children, all boys, had left home, and in various capacities were working their way through the world, while his financial prospects looked dark, indeed. He had been unable thus far to keep the interest paid on his land indebtedness. He had been for a long time himself laid up by a blow of a broadaxe; the necessary attendance of a physician upon himself and family during so much sickness, with loss of time and debts contracted for living and funeral expenses, conspired to make him financially worse off than nothing. But with his third marriage came a few hundred dollars in cash and a hand to guide the household affairs, and a will to surmount all obstacles; debts began to lessen, and with the increased products of the farm, with an occasional job at his trade, the next decade turned the dollar to balance in his favor; since which time he steadily increased in wealth until now, though not rich in the world's estimation, yet he is above want and able to enjoy the comforts, if not the luxuries, of life.
During all his sojourn of fifty-two years, since first settling in this county, he has borne a responsible part in all the affairs of his town, especially in laying out new roads and constructing bridges, until the infirmities of age compelled him to relinquish not only public but private matters, and resign all into hands more able to bear them. And now eighty-four years old, crippled with rheumatism, and bent with years, he is "only waiting till the shadows are a little longer grown." His children are all living, except one, who was murdered by the Indians in Minnesota in 1862. Among his surviving children are found one doctor, one lawyer, one minister, one blacksmith, one sailor, and one carpenter; the others are engaged in agricultural pursuits.
from ashford3.htm
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