COLEMAN-Isaac - Fountain County INGenWeb Project

Isaac Coleman, a Virginian by birth, and a man of fine parts, who had made his advent in Indiana very early, and had settled where Attica is, secured the northeast franction, 82.7 acres and southeast fraction, 73.7 acres of the north 1/2 of Sec 35, T 20N: R 9 W, this land situated close to the Wabash River, the only outlet for trade at the time. Coleman conceived it to be a convenient point for a county seat of justice. In those early days, when railroads were unheard of and the country so densely wooded that roads were obliged to be chopped from place to place, it was natural that a place near a stream, even though it were known to be navigable for boats alone, should be chosen upon which to build the principal city of the county.

Mr. Coleman immediately exerted his influence toward securing the location of the county seat on his land. Lewis Nebeker and others also worked for its location somewhere about its present site. Mr. Coleman employed old Mr. Johnson, of Crawfordsville, a surveyor to lay off a town. Mr. Johnson this same year, 1826, laid off Attica and LaFayette. Mr. Coleman's site was chosen as the proper place for the county seat, and the town was called Covington. Dating almost from that moment, efforts have always been in order to relocate the seat of justice of Fountain County. Other early entries made in this immediate vicinity included: John Wilson and David Vance; John Miller; Daniel Landers; Andrew Shanklin; James Thompson; William Ray; William B. Evans; William Miller and Samuel Maxwell. The next year, 1826, William VanDorn; Elijah Smith, Benedict Morris, Levi Reynolds, James Denton and others came. Some of this property was made into additions to the town of Covington.

In laying out the town, Mr. Coleman had an eye to its future welfare and permanency. His plat was part of Secs. 35 & 36, T 20 N, Rg 9 W. The streets running up and down the river bluffs were run at 18 degrees 20 feet west of north by the compass and all the cross streets at right angles to this.

In 1881, when Beckwith wrote his History of Fountain County, the streets were all 66' wide, except Water Street was 80' and Liberty 60' wide. There was a large rock on the SW corner of the public square that was used to lay-out all the streets. The lots themselves for the town were 66' in the front by 132' deep, on a whole with a few a bit different.

Not only did Coleman donate the large lot for the courthouse to be built, but four lots for religious purposes and four for educational purposes, some for a cemetery and four out of five of the lots that remained. Coleman had quite a foresite as his will said that his heirs could break it if indeed the county seat was removed. Isaac had gotten the land via a Boundy Land grant #56230 80 50 from being an Ohio soldier War of 1812 when he would have been about 16 years old.

With the completion of everything done to make Covington not only a town, but the county seat as well, Covington "began to germinate!"

Isaac Coleman remained in Covington and died in 1867 having been born in 1796. He and his wife, Rachel Thompson Crumley (1822-1911) are both buried in Riverside Cemetery in Attica, which is quite ironic since he worked so diligently getting Covington as the county seat. On his stone, their son, John (1860-1863) ois also listed and on hers there is a small notation, "They are ever near us though unseen."

Crummey ~ Thompson