The COLE Family of Porter Co, Indiana The Beginnings

The Journey Begins: James Cole and his wife Marye Tibbes leave Devonshire, England, and land at Plymouth, Massachusetts, between 1631 and They brought with them two small boys, James and Hugh, the oldest not yet seven. Hugh married and lived in Swansea until the hostilities of King Phillip’s War. Being a friend of Phillip he was allowed to take his family and leave safely. He moved his family to Portsmouth, Rhode Island until after the war with Phillip. He then returned to Swansea.

Hugh had 10 children. His youngest, Benjamin, remained settled in Swansea and has eight children of his own. In 1709 his fifth child Israel is born. Israel moved to Shaftsbury, Vermont, in 1767 to be close to his brother Ebenezer who founded the town. Only his youngest two sons, Bethuel and Aaron, moved with him.

Sometime after 1800 both Bethuel and Aaron began a slow, steady move west through New York, possibly staying awhile in Otsego County. Among Bethuel’s children are three sons: David, Bethuel, Jr., and Attrusha. After marrying Hannah Parker in Shaftsbury, David continued to Cayuga Co., New York. Here he stayed, waiting for safer conditions among the Indians and French further west. At this time the Erie Canal was pushing westward, and David was anxious to use this new method of travel.

In the winter of 1814 David set out with two other young families, related by marriage, for Ohio. He brought with him several children, the oldest was 12, the youngest, 4. That winter they stayed at Parker’s Blockhouse with other settlers on their way west. By the summer of 1817 David and his young family had a farm in Bronson Twp., near Norwalk. Ten years later David’s oldest son, Hylas, was killed while cutting down a tree. The next year Hannah died, and David, despondent, returned to New York and joined the Shakers.

David’s now-eldest son Edward became head of the family after his father left for New York. Edward (E.P., as he was known locally) traveled to New York and bought the Ohio farm from his father. In 1829 Edward married the daughter of a local heroic soldier, John Dillingham. Before long they had a small family and were feeling the yearnings to move further west. David had already scouted out land in Indiana, directly in the path of a proposed canal from the Ohio River to Lake Michigan.

1835 Edward and his father-in-law hacked their farms out of the dense forest, side by side. Almost immediately the railroads began their incursion into the area and spelled doom for the canal that E.P. hoped would bring him his fortune. But the small town they called Chicago was beginning to boom, and the railroads carried the timber from the forests of Indiana that was needed for homes and businesses that were developing there. Today, the ancestors of Edward Cole and John Dillingham still live on the remains of those hopes and dreams. … Oh, there are many, many tales to tell...