Born 1800 Died 1868

St. John’s Reformed Church Cemetery, Upper Red Hook. White marble obelisk, centerish in the old section behind the church.

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If children are blessings, Margaret Miller Coon and her husband John were blessed again and again. Margaret gave birth from the ages of 19 to 46, according to census records and Koon & Coons Families of Eastern New York.

The Coon name is a familiar one in Red Hook. Roger M. Leonard explains the Coon family history in his book Upper Red Hook: An American Crossroad (which can be purchased through Historic Red Hook). He writes, “The Coen, Kuhn and Kuntz families were German Palatines who came over in 1710. Coen and Kuhn became Coon, and Kuntz became Coons. The Coon family is descended from Samuel KuhnThe Upper Red Hook Coon family traces back through Henry and Ann Coon. Their first two children were twins, George and John H. John H. Coon married Margaret Miller.” Another source tells us that Margaret’s husband Johannes or John H. Coon was born October 26, 1796, and married Margrith Miller on November 16, 1817, according to records of the Germantown Dutch Reformed Church. Per Koon & Coons Families page 331, John’s great-grandfather Henry nearly spent all his life in America, and John H. spoke German all his life and taught his children to speak it.

According to the census and Koon & Coons Families, Margaret and John had 13 children: Fanny b. 1819, Elias b.1821, Marillje [maybe Marilla] b. 1822, Henry W. b. 1823, Eliza C . b. 1825, George b. 1826, Peter b. 1827, Henrietta b. 1829, William b. 1831, Catherine M. b. 1834, Alfred b. 1836, Rensselaer b. 1839, and Edmund E. b. 1846.

Margaret’s husband John (1796–1867) died “a hard death as the result of an amputation” at the age of 70, according to Leonard’s book. His death was the result of an accident on their farm on West Kerley Corners Road. That farm became the Mead Farm. in the 20th century. On August 31, 1867, “John H Coon on a sick bed and administering to him the Lord’s Supper was approved. Mrs. Margaret, wife of John H Coon, was received on certificate from the Ref. Dutch of Germantown,” as recorded in Dutch Reformed Church Membership Records, 1701–1995. He had become a member of the church on July 23 of that year. Margaret passed away in 1868 at the age of 68 years and four days.

Roger Leonard is a fount of information about the Coon family. For example, he notes that John and Maria’s son Henry William married Elizabeth Phillips, and they had nine children and owned a farm on Echo Valley Road, now owned by the Klose family. Henry and Elizabeth’s son William “Billy” married Sarah “Marg” Vosburgh, and their great grandson was Rev. Edwin Carlton Coon who wrote a history of the Poughkeepsie Reformed Church located on Hooker Avenue and served as a minister of the Fair Street Reformed Church in Kingston, writes Leonard. Edwin is the source of much of the Coon family history, according to Leonard, and in turn, Leonard is another source to us via his book.