Joseph Wellington Coolidge Family Group Sheet
Husband: Joseph Wellington Coolidge
BORN: 31 May 1814 Where: Bangor, Middlesex, Massachusetts
Death: 15 Jan 1871 Where: Glenwood, Mills, Iowa
Burial: Aft 15 Jan 1871 Where: Glenwood Cemetery, Glenwood, Mills, Iowa
Father: John Kittridge Coolidge Mother: Rebecca Stone Wellington
Other Spouses: Elizabeth Buchanan; Rebecca Alwood; Rosilla M Carter
Wife: Elizabeth Jane Tuttle
BORN: 6 Sep 1823 Where: New York City, New York, New York
Death: 4 May 1890 Where: Nephi, Juab, Utah
Burial: May 1890 Where: Nephi, Juab, Utah
Father: Terry O Tuttle Mother: Eleanor Mills
Other Spouse: John Darwin Chase
Children
Name: Eleanor Coolidge
Born: 24 Feb 1847 Where: Little Pidgeon, Potawatamie, Iowa
Married: 2 Nov 1863 (Amos Chase)
Died: 1 Oct 1927 Where: Nephi, Juab, Utah
Buried: 4 Oct 1927 Where: Nephi, Juab, Utah
Other Spouse: Samuel Linton
Name: Eliza Ann Coolidge
Born: 2 Dec 1850 Where: Winter Quarters, Douglas, Nebraska
Married: 17 Feb 1866 (George Andrew Hatch)
Dies: 13 Oct 1872 Where: Payson, Utah, Utah
Notes: Joseph Wellington Coolidge
ORDINANCES Acestral File shows born Bangor, Hncck, ME, and died Dec 1868, and
endowed 8 Nov 1933. Seal Wife to Husband also shown as 20 AUG 1957 SL. IGI ref.
8150001 1, and 8150001 3.
Batch #: M533781, Source Call #: 1314687
Batch #: 8150001, Sheet #: 01, Source Call #: 0884784
Batch #: 7236218, Sheet #: 56, Source Call #: 822085
Batch #: A457188, Source Call #: 457188-457192
PROPERTY:
NAU: Blk 117 Lot 1 - tenant for two weeks.
NAU: Blk 118 Lot 4 pt,
Nau: Blk 124 Lot 3 N/2
Nauvoo Temple Endowment Register Page 18.
HIGH PRIEST page 29
SEB pg 461-464
BAPTISM FOR THE DEAD (Genealogical Society File pg 25) Salt Lake City.
EARLY MORMON RECORDS Vol 1 pg 77.
NAUVOO LEGION
Built the Mansion House for Joseph Smith.
Cabinet Maker & Joiner, built doors and window sashes.
Administrator of Joseph Smith's estate.
Expositor Early Mormon ... Series, 1839-1846. Platt, Lyman. 1980 (page 10?)
The words of Joseph Smith. Cook, Lyndon. 1980 pg 407
Mormons and Their Neighbors. Wiggins, Marvin.
Mormon Manuscripts to 1846. Andrus, Hyrum, 1977
Coonville, Pottawattamie, Iowa, 1848 Branch Records
Temple Index Bureau.
Nauvoo Social History Project. Smith, James
Illinois, Nauvoo, Property Transactions; 1842-1846
Book of Patriarchal Blessings Index (Pat Bless) Volume 3 page 17
Birth place county is also given as "Penobscot".
Patriarchal Blessing 20 January 1838 by Isaac Morley in Far West, Caldwell, Missouri.
Member of the Nauvoo 4th Ward.
Joseph donated 200 lbs of flour ($800) for the building of houses for the poor..
A History of the Nauvoo Legion in Illinois by John Sweeney Jr.
(MA thesis, BYU) page 9 shows
"COOLEDGE, J. W. -- SERGEANT MAJOR -- July 3, 1841 -- ,,2ND REGIMENT,
2ND COMPANY" and " COOLIDGE, JOSEPH W. -- ADJUANT -- SEPTEMBER 24, 1842
-- 2ND REGIMENT, 2ND COMPANY".
Dallin H. Oaks and Joseph I. Bently in BYU studies Volume 19, No 2 Page 190 indicates "
On 19 September 1844 the court appointed ... Joseph W. Coolidge, a creditor,
who then began the process of inventorying the property. During the four years
he served as administrator, Coolidge assembled and sold the personal property
of the estate, realizing approximutly &1,000, which he paid out for claims
covering funeral expenses and costs of administration. He also received twenty
creditors. Claims totaling less than $5,000, including miscellaneous claims of
approximutly $850, and a single claim in the amount of $4,033.87, claimed by
the heirs of Edward Lawrence. Coolidge was not a vigorous administrator and
apparently did nothing after 1845 either to recieve additional creditors'
claims or to assemble real estate assets to pay claims already received."
On the West gable of the Joseph W. Coolidge home in Nauvoo, Illinois is an
inscription in German placed there by Mr. Kaufman after the Mormon exodus which
means: "This house is mine and yet not mine. Who comes after me shall find the
same. I have been here and who reads this shall also have been here."
Elizabeth Tuttle sent this note to Phil Garret (Joseph Wellington Coolidge's great grandson).
Joseph W, Coolidge had four plural wives when he lived in Nauvoo. All four
joined with him and the Church in the trek westward to Winter Quarters, Nebraska
(records have verified the presence of all four at Council Bluffs, Iowa). While
at Winter Quarters, during the period of 1848/1850, Joseph found himself
increasingly in an uncompromising position with the Church leadership. Their
decision to permanently locate the body of the Church in the harsh arid valleys
of the Rocky Mountains around the Great Salt Lake was to him a very foolish
decision. He tried, without success, to change their minds in favor of the more
fertile agricultural areas of the Northwest - Washington and Oregon. In protest,
about 1850, he departed, with a few followers, for the Northwest, where it is
reported, but not substantiated that he became involved in a very short lived
religious movement in that area - possibly a church he established himself (my
research on this subject seems to indicate that the report is probably more
conjecture than fact). It is not known to me if wife #1, Elizabeth Buchanan,
followed him to the Northwest - considering the dates and places of birth
(1847/1849/1850) of three of their children it would appear that Elizabeth
remained in the area of Keg Creek and near by Coonville (which later became
Glenwood) until rejoined by Joseph about 1851/1852. I have very few official
records of the lives of wives #2, Rebecca Atwood, and #3, Rosilla M. Carter, or
their families, after the Nauvoo/Winter Quarters period. It would appear,
however, that both remained faithful to the Church leadership. Wife #2, Rebecca
Atwood, and her two small children (born 1849 and 1850) continued the trek West
with Church members to Salt Lake City, Utah where she married (2) James Wareham
7 Nov 1868 (EHOUS) in Salt Lake City. Wife #3, Rosilla M. Carter, married (2)
Orange Lysander Wight (who already had two wives; one of whom was Rosilla's
sister, Matilda, and all of whom accompanied the Saints to Utah) date or place
of this marriage is not known to me but probably occurred shortly after 1852.
They remained in Utah for a period of time before moving to Arizona - Wight died
1907 in Fort Thomas, Arizona. Wife #4, Elizabeth Jane Tuttle (my great
grandmother), did not follow Joseph to the Northwest either but remained
faithful to the Church leadership and she and her two daughters, age 6 and 2,
(born 1847 and 1850) came West with the Saints, crossing the plains in 1852, she
married (2) John Darwin Chase about 1853/1854. Joseph Coolidge's deluxe,
personal Family Bible, published in 1855 and inscribed with his name (J. W.
Coolidge) in gold lettering on the front cover, records some genealogical data
of the family members of his marriage with Elizabeth Buchanan. Additional
records, also incomplete, seem to suggest that Joseph's Family Bible was handed
down to his daughter Sarah Ann Coolidge and her husband Lafayette Tinkle, who
moved to Kalispell, Montana from Glenwood, Iowa after 1874. Their son Fred
Wellington Tinkle appears to have become the next owner with his children and
grandchildren following. Records show the Tinkle children and grandchildren took
up residency both at Spokane and Walla Walla, Washington; and probably in other
Washington State cities. In the 1970's this Family Bible curiously ended up in a
used bookstore in Seattle, Washington. It came into my hands (1976), 121 years
after it's publication, through a series of interesting circumstances which I
have detailed in my personal history. Joseph made at least one trip to Utah
before 1852 (possibly others) to try and reconcile with the Church leadership
and to try to persuade them to move to the Northwest. He was not successful on
either goal. Family records of his marriage to #1, Elizabeth Buchanan, suggest
that he departed the Northwest about 1851/1852 and rejoined her and their
children at Glenwood, Mills, Iowa. There were a total of eleven children born to
this family unit. Joseph died in Glenwood, Iowa 1n 1871, at age 57, and he is
buried there in section 11 of the Glenwood Cemetery. The grave site is
identified with a headstone marker. Elizabeth later moved to Cushing, Woodbury,
Iowa where she lived with the family of her youngest son, George W. Coolidge.
She died at Cushing, Iowa at age 97 years, 11 months, and 23 days - she is
buried in the Glenwood, Iowa Cemetery near or next to her husband. It is not
known to me if there were any of Joseph's and Elizabeth's family who continued
or renewed their LDS membership after settling in Glenwood, Iowa. It is known
that Joseph continued to be active in religious activities serving his church
(denomination not identified) as a minister of the gospel and officiating at
some of the earliest recorded marriages in Mills County. Temple ordinance work
has been accomplished for them, vicariously, after their death. Joseph W.
Coolidge was an accomplished building contractor, cabinet maker, joiner, door
and window sash manufacturer who practiced all these skills in Nauvoo during the
eight years he lived there. He built his own home and his fine craftsmanship is
seen in other Nauvoo buildings, including Joseph and Emma Smith's Mansion House,
which he built during 1842-1843. His restored home in Nauvoo is used to display
some of the crafts of the 1840's where visitors may see how wooden buckets and
barrels were made, candles dipped and pottery thrown, Joseph served on the
Nauvoo City Council and was one of those for whom a warrant was issued in
connection with the destruction of the Nauvoo Expositor. He accompanied Joseph
and Hyrum Smith and other council members to Carthage; he posted a $500 bailbond
to guarantee his appearance at the next term of the circuit court and returned
to Nauvoo the same day. After the death of the Prophet Joseph Smith, Joseph's
wife Emma Hale Smith, petitioned the circuit court to appoint Joseph W. Coolidge
as administrator of the estate of her deceased husband. He filled this
assignment until his departure for the Great Basin in 1846/1847. Joseph W.
Coolidge was baptized. IN THE CHURCH, about or before 1840 and became estranged
from the Church about 1850/1852. He was baptized, vicariously, 22 Apr 1933
(after his death).
Notes: Elizabeth Jane Tuttle
ORDINANCES IGI ref. 8150001 1, and 8150001 3. Also sealed to John Darwin Chase
1 JAN 1946 and 5
FEB 1948. IGI ref T990162 0077. Also baptized 23 may 1957, endowed 17 jul 1957.