Born: Jan­u­a­ry 2, 1792, Stewk­ley, Eng­land.

Died: May 1, 1858, New York, New York.

Buried: Ivan­dale (or Ivan­dell) Cem­e­te­ry, Som­ers, New York

Converted at age 13, Coles be­gan preach­ing at 22, and em­i­grat­ed to Amer­i­ca in 1818. He served as ed­it­or of the Christ­ian Ad­vo­cate and Jour­nal for 12 years, and the Sunday School Advocate for several years. He was a musician of some ability, and a good singer. His works in­clude:

• The Antidote, a Trea­tise Against In­fi­del­i­ty
• Lectures to Child­ren
• A Con­cord­ance of the Ho­ly Script­ures
• My Youth­ful Days
• My First Years in Amer­i­ca
• Heroines of Meth­od­ism

Zion’s Her­ald said of him:

His fond­ness for the so­ci­e­ty of child­ren, and his fa­cul­ty of in­ter­est­ing and in­struct­ing them was ex­tra­or­din­a­ry. Wher­ev­er he went, af­ter a short ac­quaint­ance, they clus­tered about him as a fa­ther, and, not by an­ec­dote, of which he had no great fund, but by origi­na­l con­cept­ions and by quest­ions and by quaint re­marks fit­ted to their ca­pa­ci­ty, he al­ways suc­ceed­ed in con­trol­ling their at­ten­tion.

Sources

Music

1. Duane Street
2. Man of Grief