Rash's Surname Index
Notes for Moses COATES
Immigration of the Irish Quakers into Pennsylvania
PLACES OF SETTLEMENT
page 155
In 1731, Moses Coates, a Friend, originally from County Carlow, purchased 600 acres, and James Starr, one of the first settlers of New Garden, 350 acres, in Charlestown, now Schuylkill, Township, on the north side of French Creek at its junction with Schuylkill River, and became the first settlers at the site of Phoenixville. Judge Pennypacker, who has written an interesting history
of the beginnings of this town, relates that previous to his [p.155] purchase Moses Coates had lived for about a year upon the other side of the Schuylkill, where stands the present village of Mont Clare, a locality he selected because the Indians were there less numerous. At night he slept with a loaded gun at his side, and a servant lay at the door of his hut with a pitch fork. Upon longer acquaintance, however, he found the Indians disposed to be friendly, and his fear of their hostility being dissipated he changed his place of residence to the other side of the River. Here he blazed paths through the wilderness about his home, by cutting chips from the sides of the trees, so that his children should not be lost. In 1732, James Starr erected a mill which was placed under control of his two sons, James and Moses; and this was the first use of the water power of French Creek.3 A near neighbor of the Starrs and Coates was Thomas Valentine, originally from Ballybrumhill, County Carlow, who settled across the Schuylkill in New Providence Township, now Montgomery County.
MOSES COATES and wife [Susanna], dated 3 Mo. 8, 1717, from Carlow Meeting, County Carlow, Ireland. He was brought up at Carlow from a child, and took his wife from among Friends in the Province of Munster.
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