John Taylor and Catharine Bunting Coit
John Taylor Coit traveled to Dallas County, Texas, late in the spring of 1858 to locate a new Texas home for his bride, purchasing 320 acres 15 June 1858 on the Dallas/Collin County line in the Thomas J. Yager survey. While searching for land, John stayed with the McKamy family. Following graduation from Princeton University in May of 1850, John returned to the place of his birth, Cheraw, Chesterfield District, South Carolina to begin the practice of law. John was born 6 July 1829 to John Caulkins Coit and Ann Maria Campbell Coit. The 2nd of January 1858, John T. Coit and Catharine Malloy Bunting were married in Cheraw, South Carolina. Catharine was born 20 December 1837 in Lumberton, North Carolina to Richard C. Bunting and Sarah Malloy McEachin Bunting. Catharine had attended a school in Salisbury, North Carolina during 1852, later graduating as valedictorian of Harmony Female College in 1854.
The first of John and Catharine Coit’s four children who survived to adulthood, John Clinton Coit, was born December 25, 1858, in Cheraw, South Carolina.
Following his birth, in early spring of 1859, the John Taylor Coit family and servants, Caesar, Sam, Daniel, George, and Mary, left for Texas via Montgomery and Mobile, Alabama, New Orleans, and Shreveport, Louisiana. Catharine Coit’s sister, Sallie Bunting, accompanied the family to their new home in Dallas County, Texas. Mr. J. M. Huffman had arranged for the building of their home. After the boat trip up the Red River, provisions and furnishings were purchased in Shreveport for the overland trip.
During the remaining time until the War Between the States, John managed the planting of crops, hunted wild turkey and deer, purchased a cotton press, and practiced law in the town of Dallas. As the family had always been active in the Presbyterian Church in Cheraw, they missed being able to attend a local house of worship.
Mary Henrietta Coit was born 12 July 1860 to John and Catharine, a few days after the simultaneous burning of many north Texas towns. The fire and resulting hangings of suspects was perhaps the first public event to ignite the passions of Dallas County citizens to the coming conflict of the War Between the States.
Following the secession of Texas from the Union, John Taylor Coit recruited men from the Dallas, Collin County line for Company E, 18th Texas Cavalry, serving first as Captain, later as Lieutenant Colonel until being sent from the field to the hospital in Madison, Georgia, in April of 1865.
During the war, 4 March 1862, Henry William Coit was born to John and Catharine. She stayed on the north Texas prairie to manage the farm, assisted by her mother’s brother, Duncan Malloy. In 1866, Charles Malloy Coit was born, followed by George Erasmus Coit in December of 1869. George died in June of 1870. While confined with the birth of Charles, Catharine had the lower portion of one leg amputated due to the aggravation of an old injury.
Around 1870, John Taylor Coit and family moved into the town of Dallas to facilitate his legal practice. His health was also beginning to fail as a result of imprisonment in Camp Chase, Ohio during the war. While in Dallas, it was a blessing and pleasure for John and Catharine to be charter members of the First Presbyterian Church of Dallas.
John Taylor Coit died in Dallas, 3 March, 1872, being interred in the Dallas Pioneer Cemetery. Catharine Malloy Bunting Coit died 19 June 1883 and was interred at Frankford Cemetery. The remains of John were later re-buried in Frankford Cemetery.
by Mary Marcelle Hamer Hull (Mrs. Hull was the great granddaughter of John Taylor Coit and Catharine Malloy Bunting Coit.)
From Proud Heritage, Vol. 1 by DCPA. (Currently out of print.)
