Coleman Boren

Coleman Boren, 1808 - 1858, age 49, was born 14 October, 1808, on the family plantation on Sulphur Fork of Red River, near Port Royal State Historic Park, just east of Clarksville, Tennessee. He had grown to manhood in Illinois, and was an early convert to Mormonism, having served by appointment of Brigham Young as President of the Mount Pisgah, Winter Quarters, Iowa, branch of the church, assisting the Mormon pioneers on their westward exodus. Coleman Boren was also a pioneer, settling in Utah Valley (Provo). ---------------------- Before I start to go thru his life, though, I would like to mention a couple of things I read from this book that Rita put together. As I read the biography, I got a feeling of the type of man he was. I love to share some of the stories and incidents about Coleman while he lived in Provo...what type of a fellow he was. He was about 5 foot 9 inches. I'm 5 foot 10 inches, so he was about my height. Very strong, very masculine. I imagine most pioneers in that day were. He was dark complexioned, probably from working out in the sun all of his life. He wore a mustache. He had an extremely strong voice. In fact, in the biography they mention that he had quite a good singing voice. Being one of the first saints, he was obviously a very religious man. One of the stories in this biography tells that instead of just sitting down to the table and saying a prayer over the food, the whole family would take their chairs, turn them around and put the back of the chair up against the table, then they would kneel down on the floor, fold their arms and bow their heads in front of the chair. They would offer a prayer, then got up, turn the chairs around, sit down and have their meal. They did this (every time they ate. Another indication of how strongly he felt towards the church was when the people were asked by the church to turn in all the property they owned. He, apparently, was quite a well-to-do person in Provo. He had at one time three homes and orchards and farmland, and he turned all of this over to the church when he was asked. All his cattle, all his personal belongings, everything he owned, he turned over to the church. As I road thru the biography, there were a couple of instances that kind of relate to the typo of character he had. Of course, living here in the valley with some of the Indian tribe's, there was always a little bit of friction that would occur. Once as he was looking at his peach orchards, one of the first peach orchards planted here in the valley, there were some Indians looking at the fruit on the trees. Never having seen a peach tree or the fruit, they didn't quite know what to make of it. Apparently, he could talk a little Indian--they could speak a little English, so they could communicate without too much difficulty, He asked the Indians if they would like to taste the fruit to see what it was like. One of the Indians, a grown man tasting a peach for the first time, bit into it and was immediately delighted with the taste of the fruit and decided he would like to take a whole bag of this fruit home. And, I guess, being kind of a diplomatic man, Coleman said to him, "Well, I tell you what. You go out and got me a deer and bring it to my house and I will let you have a bag of these peaches." So, the Indians rode out in a cloud of dust and in a short time, they were back at his house, dumped a door on his front stop. They had a big deerskin bag and he let them go out and pick the poaches off the crop. Apparently, they stuffed the bag just as full as they could with them and the poach juice, according to the biography, was running out of the bag and off the Indians went. A couple of days later, they were back again with another door wanting another bag of peaches. So, for this one season, he had quite bit of venison. There was another example of the way he felt about them, this valley and the people who lived here. He had quite few friends. Apparently he grew grain. Some covered wagon trains were coming thru the valley on the way to California. They stopped and asked to buy some grain from him. Grain then was selling for about $3 per 100 lbs. They offered the $3 per 100 lbs. to buy the grain. He said, I would prefer to keep the grain and sell it to the people here in Provo who need it. They offered him $6 per 100 lbs. He said "no" that he still felt that he did not want to sell it. They offered $12 and then $24 a 100 for this grain that could sell for $80. He told the wagonmaster, "Look, this grain I grew here for the people in the valley. I will sell it to the people in the valley for $3 a 100. If they don't have the money, I will give it to them, but I am not going to sell the grain even for $24 a 100 to the wagon train who are going to California. "Now, whether that was a wise business decision or not, it was sort of an insight to the type of gentleman he was. He, apparently, was also quite well received by people in Provo here. He was an officer in the legion or in the army they had here. The biography points out that to be an, officer, you must demonstrate that you are a leader of men, must be well liked by the men, so this is sort of an indication of how the townspeople felt about him. Also, the records show that he sat on quite a few juries. So, again, the people must have felt that he was an honest man and they would depend on him to make a fair decision. Okay, that's just a little bit of the type of gentleman he was as he was living here in the valley. I would like to now quickly go thru this map first. I thought maybe the kids would be interested in seeing exactly what we are talking about. He was born in Tennessee (down here) in 1808, Robertson county. Now Robertson county is this little black spot right here, right next to Kansas. Right on the border. In 1808 there were not a lot of records kept. Probably there were no records kept of the younger people so we don't really have a lot of what he did from the time he was born until the time his name was first (uttered on the record when he was married. During this time, of course, there were a lot of Indian uprisings. The war of 1812 occurred during the time he was growing up. The United States was starting to stretch its muscles and talking back to England a little bit. The war of 1812 was with the British, and here really, the beginning of the western era was starting about now....the time he was moving up. Apparently he was quite a good shot with the bow and arrow. It didn't mention what he was like with a rifle or a long rifle. I imagine most of them knew how to do that when he was living in Tennessee. One thing, when you think about Tennessee, you think about Daniel Boone. And one of our claims to family as being descendants of Coleman Boron is, wasn't here an outside chance we could be a shirt tail retation to Daniel Boone. Either Coleman's grandmother or great grandmother was a sister to Rebecca, who was Daniel Boone's mother, so somewhere along the line, Daniel Boone was Coleman's either granduncle or great granduncle. Quite a shirt tail relationship but somewhere we could possibly do it in okay. In 1830, just at the time now that Joseph Smith was organizing the church, he met and married Melinda Keller. I notice her name is right here on the gravestone. (Okay, you want to start going thru the chart?) Okay, 1808 he was born in Tenness—ee. 1830 he was 22 years old, he met and married Melinda Keller. At this time, she was 18. A year later (he was 23) they had their first child which was a boy. There is not a lot said about him. Two years later Melinda was pregnant with her second child. In fact, she was about ready to have it and their first child died. There is not a record of what he died of but he died three days before the second child's birth. The second child lived for two weeks and then it died. A very traumatic experience, I am sure, for a young couple. He was 25 and she was about 22 at the time. Very traumatic. They didn't give up, though, because as the records show, two years later they had another child. A son. Two years after they they had another child, a son. Two years after that, they had another child, a daughter. So they weren't too discouraged. In about 1839 the church had been orgnized for about nine years and they were starting to send out missionaries. A missionary by the name of Zackery Wilson came down into Tennessee spreading the gospel. Coleman Boron was apparently one of the first ones to hear the gospel. He accepted it and was one of the first to join the church, when it was taught down in Tennessee. In 1842 he had another daughter. At the time he joined the church, his wife did not. He convinced his wife that they should move to Nauvoo. The Saints were starting to gather in Non-voo to build the temple there. They moved from Tennessee here (map) up into Nau-voo. Right over here on this part of Illinois. Okay, they lived there for a couple of years and then Melinda, either thru the pressure of herself or just the fact they were living with Latter-Day Saint people, or the saints, she was baptized into the church. This is in 1844. Okay, shortly after she was baptized, or the next year, they had another son. This son, of course, duo to their love for Joseph Smith, the prophet, they named this son Joseph Smith. I notice his marker is right over here. That's Joseph Smith Boron. This was the fifth child they had. At this time, Coleman was ordained into the quorum of seventies doing missionary work. There is no record that he went out of the state or whatever to do missionary work, but no doubt being in the seventies he was quite involved in missionary work. He was a member of the Nauvoo legion at the time Joseph Smith was martyred. At this time, they were called to arms at the time Joseph Smith was martyred. They were afraid, perhaps, that the whole city would be attacked and destroyed. Of course, nothing happened of that. -cont in memories section Jay Donaldson