Biographical Sketch of Truman COATES, M.D. (1904); Chester County, PA Contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by John Morris <jMcDmorris@comcast.net>. Copyright. All Rights Reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/pa/pafiles.htm ********************************************************* Source: "Historical Homes and Institutions and Genealogical and Personal Memoirs of Chester and Delaware Counties, Pennsylvania", Vol. 1, edited by Gilbert Cope and Henry Graham Ashmead, published by The Lewis Publishing Company, 1904, pp. 333-4. "TRUMAN COATES, M. D., a physician of Oxford, Chester county, Pennsylvania, is descended from a line of men and women who bore an important part in the early history of the state. The Coates family seems to have possessed in marked degree those qualities of courage and of steadfastness that distin- guished the Society of Friends. It is to these worthy ancestors that Dr. Coates owes the spirit that has enabled him to live his life and come to professional success under a physical disability that would render most men a helpless burden. "His earliest American ancestor, Moses Coates, was born in Ireland, of an English family that had crossed the channel to escape religious persecution. He married Susanna Weldon, in Cashel Meeting of Friends, Cashel, county Tipperary, province of Munster, 3 mo., 1, 1715. About two years later Moses Coates presented a certificate to Haverford (Pennsylvania) Monthly Meeting, from Carlow, Ireland, attesting his birth and marriage. In 1731 he purchased five hundred and forty acres of land on the site of North Phoenixville, Charlestown township, Chester county, and settled there. He appears to have been an man of unusual capacity and more than average education and was a surgeon by profession. He figures as an influential personage in the annals of Chester county, and the village of Coatesville was named for his grandson, Moses Coates, who was the second child of Samuel Coates, the second child of Moses Coates. A farmer all his life, he was also successful as a man of business, and his sons became owners and operators of the iron works to which the early growth of Phoenixville was due. Moses Coates, second son of Samuel and grandson of the emigrant Moses Coates, was credited with inventive genius, and among the appliances contrived by him are said to have been an apple paring machine, a self-setting saw, and a horse rake. Among the children of Moses and Susanna Coates were: Thomas, Samuel, Moses, Jr., Elizabeth, who became the wife of John Mendenhall; William, who died young; Jonathan, Aaron and Benjamin Coates. "Thomas, eldest child of Moses and Susanna (Weldon) Coates, was born 12 mo., 22, 1716, and married Sarah Miller, 3 mo., 21, 1741. Sarah Miller was the daughter of Henry and Sarah (Deeble) Miller, who came from Bradaich, Devon- shire, England, in 1702 Sarah (Deeble) Miller was a daughter of George and Dorothy Deeble of Alcombe, parish of Damster, county of Somerset, England, where they were married in the public meeting at Mynehead, in the county of Somerset, and came to America, settling in the province of Pennsylvania, in what is now Upper Providence township, Delaware county. Samuel, fourth child and third son of Thomas and Sarah (Miller) Coates, was born 9 mo., 13, 1749, and married Abigail Thatcher. Warrick, first child of Samuel and Abigail (Thatcher) Coates, was born 1 mo., 29, 1780, and married Eleanor Pusey at London Grove Friends' Meeting, Chester county, Pennsylvania, 4 mo., 6, 1803. Warrick, Jr., fifth child and fourth son of Warrick and Eleanor (Pusey) Coates, was born 4 mo., 2, 1811, and married Ruthanna Cook, at Penn Hill Friends' Meeting, by Friends' ceremony. "Warrick Coates, Jr., was born to a farmer's life in Londonderry township, Chester county, Pennsylvania. He received an education usual to the time and circumstances, and afterward cultivated his farm in Upper Oxford township, to whence he had removed upon his marriage, 3 mo., 24, 1842, until 1877, when he retired, passing the remainder of his life in Russellville, where he died 3 mo., 15, 1897, and his wife Ruthanna died 5 mo., 15, 1899. "He was a member of the Society of Friends, and a Republican. His wife was Ruthanna Cook, a daughter of William and Susanna (Cutler) Cook. She was descended on the paternal aside from Peter Cook, and through her mother was in the line of Benjamin and Sarah (Dunn) Cutler. Warrick Coates, Jr., died 3 mo., 15, 1897, and his wife died 5 mo., 15, 1899. "Truman Coates, third child and second son of Warrick, Jr., and Ruthanna (Cook) Coates, was born 1 mo., 21, 1852. He was an active boy on his father's farm, where many sheep were raised. He early showed a fondness for these animals, and when he was only nine years old began the care of the flock. After attending the common schools in the neighborhood, he went to the Chestnut Hill Academy, then to Millersville State Normal School, at Millersville, Lancaster county, Pennsylvania. He continued working on the farm during his vacations until he was seventeen years old, when he had measles. It was in the spring that the disease came upon him, and after his recovery he took cold working in ploughed ground. Paralysis set in, and slowly he lost the use of the lower half of his body. He was forced to the use of a wheel chair, upon which he passed his days as a medical student. In it, too, he was married, and he is still confined to it in the practice of his profession. In 1887 he entered the medical department of the University of Wooster, Cleveland, Ohio, from which institution he was graduated July 26, 1888, and he has been practicing medicine ever since. In 1892 he entered the Polyclinic Hospital and College for Graduates in Medicine at Philadelphia. Again in 1895 he took general clinical instruction as well as special clin- ical instruction in the diseases of the eye, ear, nose and throat. Since the spring of 1896 his practice has been chiefly along the line of those special- ties. He is now, and has been for the past ten years, one of the censors of the Medico-Chirurgical College of Philadelphia. He is a member of Friends' Meeting in the borough of Oxford, and he has worked out its principles of simplicity and non-resistance into a practical philosophy of life. He was born a Republican, but is too independent a thinker to be bound by party ties. In religion, medicine or politics he is a seeker for light, and takes reason as his guide. "He married Sarah Boone Thomas, of Salem, Ohio, 10 mo., 26, 1882. She was a graduate of the Salem High School, and had received private instruction in the languages. She was a daughter of Jacob and Rebecca John (Lee) Thomas, who came of a line of farmers in Berks and Chester counties, Pennsylvania. Among her more remote ancestors, Mrs. Coates counts Daniel Boone, Abraham Lincoln and General Robert E. Lee."