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Description
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John David Coalter (d. 1864) owned land that later became part of Tyson Research Center according to plat maps from 1862, 1870, and 1878. Coalter was a politician and lawyer. He was elected as a representative for St. Charles County to the Missouri State Legislature in 1836, 1838 and 1844. He was a delegate to the Missouri Constitutional Convention in 1845.
On July 11, 1864, John D. Coalter emancipated Lucy Ann White, the daughter of a couple enslaved by his late wife’s parents, John and Mary Means. Coalter's will emancipated Benjamin White after his death on October 19, 1864.
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Bio
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ohn David Coalter was born in 1818 to David Coalter and Ann Carmicle. He owned land that would later become part of Tyson Research Center from 1862-1878. John David Coalter married Mary Means and had one son who died in infancy.
Coalter was a politician and lawyer originally from South Carolina. He was elected as a representative for St. Charles County to the Missouri State Legislature in 1836, 1838 and 1844. He was a delegate to the Missouri Constitutional Convention in 1845. In court, he was described as a “model of diction and literary elegance.”
His siblings were Beverly Coalter, Maria Coalter, Catherine Coalter, Fanny Coalter, Caroline Coalter, and Julia Coalter. Julia married Edward Bates, a prominent lawyer and politician. Edward Bates was appointed as Attorney General under Abraham Lincoln, although he disagreed with the Emancipation Proclamation. Although an enslaver, Bates became involved with a freedom suit for an enslaved woman named Polly Berry and her daughter, Lucy Ann Delaney, and eventually emancipated all of the people he had enslaved by 1851. Julia and Edward’s son, John Coalter Bates, was a Washington University alumnus, Civil War general for the Union, and later a military governor in Cuba and the Philippines.
In 1861, 131 delegates from 21 states met in Washington, D.C. to discuss and avoid the secession of eight slave states from the Union. John D. Coalter was one of five representatives from Missouri. In an address during the convention, Coalter asked, “If [Republicans] abhor our institutions, how long a step will it be before you abhor us? If you abhor slavery, how long before you abhor slaveholders?” Despite his strong words in defense of slaveholders, he voted to keep slavery from expanding into new territories, although he was in a minority among his fellow Missouri delegates.
On July 11, 1864, John D. Coalter emancipated Lucy Ann White, the daughter of a couple enslaved by his late wife’s parents, John and Mary Means.
After Coalter’s death on October 19, 1864, he left behind a unique will. The first item was the emancipation of an enslaved man named Benjamin White, who may have been related to Lucy Ann White. The rest of his estate was allocated toward his friends and family in South Carolina and his wife’s family in South Carolina, Alabama, and Louisiana. He instructed his nephews, Barton Bates and David C. Gamble, to visit the extended family members in question and distribute the wealth as they saw fit. He claimed, “It is not my desire to add one dollar to the wealth of any individual, if any may be found to be wealthy, but to provide comforts for those who may need them.”
Barton Bates, who ended up taking on the task alone, found that the Civil War had left Coalter’s family destitute, and their farms deeply in need of “cattle, mules, seed, [and] implements.” In addition to destruction wrought by the war, this poverty came in the wake of abolition of slavery, now that the families could no longer force enslaved people to work on their farms. Coalter’s will states that they were in comfortable circumstances before the war.
Coalter was buried with his wife in Bellefontaine Cemetery.
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Birth Date
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1818
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Death Date
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1864
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Keywords
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Tyson landowner
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Child of
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David Coalter and Ann Carmicle
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Spouse of
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Mary Means
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Sibling of
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Beverly Coalter, Maria Coalter, Catherine Coalter, Fanny Coalter,
Caroline Coalter, and Julia Coalter
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Dates of Tyson Land Ownership
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1862
