Baseball and our Cooperstown Roots

Whether or not Cooperstown was the true birthplace of the game of baseball, where “town ball” was codified into the National Pastime, it is clear that the game was an important part of the social history of the region and of our Col(e)man family at the turn of the last century.

In March of 1924, The Richfield Mercury newspaper reported:

Old Time Ball Team Recalled
One of the early baseball nines of Cooperstown was called the Riverside club, organized in 1878. William H. Michaels was captain, secretary, and treasurer of the club. The games were played on a plot of ground on what was then the Dorr Russel farm now the Iriquois farm of F. A. Clark. The battery was Horace Coleman, catcher; John Coleman, pitcher; William H. Michaels, short stop. Other players were: Charles B. Michaels, Leonard Vunk, Irving Hoose, Hiram Slater, George Way, Fenimore Coleman, and John H. King. At the time it was playing this nine was considered the best in Otsego County and John Coleman was the only pitcher in the county who pitched a curve. As far as can be learned, the only players of this club still living are Hiram Slater of Milford, Leonard Vunk, John H. King and William H. Michaels of Cooperstown.

Dewitt and Mary (Heath/Haith) Colman’s sons John, Horace and Fenimore played together on this field near their home on what was later called Brooklyn Avenue in Middlefield. In 1878 John was 26 and the father of a two year old daughter Edith. Horace and Fenimore, aged 22 and 20, respectively, were still living with their parents. All worked at the nearby sawmill on the river. The twins, Lucius and Lucien, who are not listed in this article were 24. The youngest, Charles, was only 14 at the time. He also grew to be a local ball player whose picture is on file in the archives at the Baseball Hall of Fame.

The 1880 census reveals that Leonard Vunk, 23, lived with his father in Middlefield. Irving Hoose was also a Middlefield resident, living in the household of Helen Eggleston. Hiram Slater, 22, lived with elderly Nancy Hoose in Middlefield. The Hoose and Way families also appear to be related. John King, 25, was an Irish immigrant living in Otsego

In the 1880’s (undated) The Philadelphia Athletics professional baseball team invited John and Horace to come and try out for the team. Family lore says their wives (Horace married in 1881) vetoed that trip.

In the next generation, John Colman’s sons Dewitt and Pierce played together in 1913 in the local Sunset League, made up of the Baptists, Universalists, Methodists, Christ Church and Presbyterians, as reported in the Glimmerglass newspaper. Dewitt pitched and Pierce played first base. They were far from their sunset years, being 25 and 33, respectively. Perhaps the sun set in the outfield. The name was used for an adult league in other towns as well. In another report from June of 1913, W. Coleman was listed at shortstop/second base in the box score, likely Horace's son Bill who would have been 23. Dewitt pitched for the Universalists one year and the Baptists the next, when the Universalists were replaced by the Internationals, so the names don’t seem to represent their religious allegiances.

Can you imagine picnics on the lawn and the sound of the crack of the bat on the lazy summer afternoons?

Anson Colman - farm boy to world traveler

Anyone who does genealogical research knows that we are often nudged from the "great beyond." It doesn't seem too far fetched to believe that our ancestors want us to know them better. One day while I was roaming the stacks in the DuBois Library at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, I reached for a book published by the Rochester Historical Society. There was no reason to expect I had family in Rochester, but in that book were transcriptions of several letters from my 3 x great uncle, Anson Colman, son of Samuel who is profiled below. Personal letters are so...personal! What a great way to feel closer to people who lived so long ago.

Anson Colman was born in Springfield, NY on 17 March on 1795. He was the first child of Samuel Colman and Nabby Dole who had come west from Shelburne, MA to Stewart’s Patent shortly after their marriage in 1794. His brothers were born in the following years: Franklin in 1797, Horace in 1800, Homer in 1802, Hamilton in 1804. Then came his only sister Caroline in 1806, followed by Nelson in 1807, Charles Darwin after 1810 and Parker Dole Colman in 1813.

Although his father was a progressive farmer and active in local organizations, Anson did not follow this path. He received his initial medical training under Dr. Palmer at Richfield Springs, NY, beginning his apprenticeship when he was about 17. He settled in Rochesterville in 1817 and attended lectures at the Fairfield medical school. He established himself in medical practice, and reportedly also ran a pharmacy to supplement his income.

He married Catherine Kimball Rochester on a Wednesday evening, 8 December 1819. She was 20 and he was 24. Catherine's father, Nathaniel Rochester, was one of the original proprietors of the village, which became the City of Rochester, NY. The marriage was officiated by the Rev. Mr. Welton, according to the Rochester Telegraph newspaper.

He was 25 when he first became a father. Their five children were:

1. Sophia E. Colman, born 19 January 1821, who would marry John VanEverie when she was 23, and die 26 November 1845, just two years after the birth of her only child Catherine in Ohio;
2. Katherine Rochester Colman, born 27 December 1823, who would later marry at 22 to Charles Shepard with whom she had five children, and died 20 May 1902 in Seattle, WA;
3. William Colman, born 30 May 1826, died as an infant 15 January 1828;
4. Edward Colman, born 28 July 1828, married Susan Phillips when he was 22 and had three children, and died 4 September 1898 in Sheboygan, MI;
5. Cornelia Colman, born 9 June 1830, married at 23 to Edward Stuyvesant Bragg with whom she had six children, and died 11 April 1914.

Anson was not satisfied to be a country doctor. He studied medicine in Boston, Philadelphia, London, and Paris, seeking to improve himself with the latest technology of the time. He also participated in the formation of the Monroe County Medical Society. A collection of letters between Anson and his wife during these medical sojourns are contained in the Special Collections of the University of Rochester. In the winter of 1825 he wrote to his wife from Boston, where he was attending lectures at the Harvard medical school and studying at the new Massachusetts General Hospital. At that time there were few hospitals, excepting facilities set up during epidemics, and studying in this setting was invaluable to gain experience in disease and surgical techniques. Their separation was believed to be necessary to the advancement of his career, but difficult on a personal level. At that time they had two young daughters. When he said his infrequent letters were a result of little on his mind except medicine, Catherine pointedly replied, referring to herself in the third person:

• "At all events she will try the experiment if you will write for her improvement, and fill your letters with something let the subjects be what they will (those connected with your profession if you choose, Anatomy, Surgery, medical Jurisprudence or Chemistry (you will now laugh). While writing on this subject let me remind you of an opinion you once gave in favor of females, which was that you believed they possessed capacities for intellectual improvement fully equal to the other sex."

His January 1825 letter said, "remember what I have said to you about diet exercise etc." He said that his "eyes much stronger than they have been in three years no rheumatism nor quinsy thus far." He was expecting to be home by 22 February.

Anson’s first son, William lived only 19 months from 1826–8. Six months after William’s death, another son, Edward, was born.

Tragedy again struck on 2 July 1830 when Anson’s brother Parker drowned in the Genesee River at the age of 17. In an undated letter to his father Samuel, Parker speaks of his studies of Greek and Latin and it is unclear if he was in Rochester or elsewhere to attend school.

Late in 1831 Anson was in Philadelphia studying at the University of Pennsylvania medical school. There, he earned his degree, after being engaged in medicine for 15 years. He lived in Philadelphia with a French family to learn the language in preparation for further study. In 1832 he went to Montreal to learn the proper treatment for cholera. In 1833 he was in France, the then world center for hospital-based teaching. His stethoscope may have been the first one in Rochester, a French innovation.

He lectured for two years at the Geneva Medical College between 1834-1836. According to a history of Psychiatry at the Upstate Medical University, which took over the Geneva College, “the treatment of psychiatric patients was first included as an aspect of the ‘Medical Jurisprudence’ course taught by Anson Colman, MD, a botanist.” Catherine died 7 April 1835 when she was only 36. He was reportedly ill himself during his tenure at the Medical College and died 17 July 1837 of a ruptured aortic aneurysm.


According to an article in “Rochester History” July 1945 by Alice T. Sutton entitled “Private Libraries in Rochester,” the inventory of his library at his death contained 278 books and an additional 148 medical texts. They included books of history, literature and languages: Greek, French, Latin, German and Italian. His medical collection later went to the library at Geneva College of Medicine, which is now Upstate Medical at Syracuse.

Anson and Catherine are buried in Mount Hope cemetery in Rochester with their son William. What became of the other children? Did they reside in Geneva with their father after their mother’s death? Anson wrote his will in April of 1837, naming his brother-in-laws Thomas H. Rochester the guardian of his children Sophia (16) and Edward (9), and Henry E. Rochester guardian of Catherine (14) and Cornelia (7). The will refers to real estate and investments, which assumed the education of the children would be well taken care of.

Anson’s parents survived for 20 years after his death, but it is not known if his children had contact with them. The 1840 census does not include names of individuals, only their sex and age. In the 1850 census none of Anson’s children are listed with their guardians, but Cornelia, the youngest, would have been 20 by then. Sophia’s daughter Catherine VanEvery was, however, residing in the household of Thomas Rochester in 1850 after the death of her mother.

Samuel Colman comes from Massachusetts to New York State in 1794

Samuel Colman was the first family name, written on a cemetery monument, that started me wondering about my family history. My mother, Betty Coleman Simmons, grew up in Cooperstown, NY and I had many visits there with my grandmother and her sisters. When she photographed Sam's grave marker while passing through Richfield Springs, NY in 1990, I started wondering about the other names I had never heard before. That's when I started to dig into the records. Luckily, Massachusetts vital records are well documented. The following "story" is constructed from these bare facts and supplemented with deeds, newspaper items, letters and published histories.


Samuel Colman was born in colonial Ashburnham, Massachusetts on September 28, 1768. His baptism was recorded on December 22, 1769. He was the second child and first son of Job Colman and Elizabeth Martin. His sister Mary was two years older. His family moved west to Shelburne, MA about 1772. By that time there were two more siblings: Elizabeth born on 11 August 1770, and John born 21 June 1772. Job Colman bought land from Daniel Beldon in Shelburne in 1773. They lived near the Deerfield River, at the end of Barnard Road, near the family of Parker Dole, where another sister, Rachel, was born in 1774.

When the “shot heard round the world” was fired in Concord it was heard in Shelburne. Samuel was a boy of 5. His father Job marched with Captain Hugh McClellen’s Minute Men of Colrain on April 20, 1775. Records show he served 15 ½ days. Again under Captain John Wells Company in the Northern Department, he served from 22 September to 28 October 1777.

Samuel had five more brothers and another sister: Benjamin in 1776 (died in 1777 as many local children succumbed to an illness that year); Rhoda in 1778; Benjamin in 1780; Joseph Emerson in 1783; Zenus in 1785; Zur in 1789.

On 30 June 1794 in Shelburne, 24 year-old Samuel married Nabby Dole, four years his junior. Soon after they moved west into New York State. They settled in Stewart’s Patent, now part of Springfield, Otsego County, NY. According to The History of Springfield, “In his young manhood he journeyed into what was then ‘the unknown west’ seeking a desirable location for a home. Lured by the beauty of the hills and woods he purchased from the town a tract of timber land near Allen’s Lake and erected a log cabin.”

Children born to Samuel and Nabby included:

• Anson 17 March 1795
• Franklin about 1797
• Horace about 1800
• Homer about 1802
• Hamilton 7 October 1804
• Caroline
• Nelson about 1807
• Charles Darwin after 1810
• Parker 1813

Of these children, only Parker was given a family name, after Nabby's father Parker Dole.

In 1798 Samuel was appointed Lieutenant of the militia in a new company in the Town of Otsego, under Captain Asa Fisk (Otsego Herald 14 June 1798).

The 1800 and 1810 census’ of Springfield also include a John Col(e)man. The age bracket indicates that it could be Samuel’s brother John. In 1810 this John had six children. In 1820 he is no longer listed in Springfield. A Heath MA town history, which includes a discussion of the division of their father Job’s land, indicates that John had died by 1812 when the land was probated. No further information has been found about this family. Names of other than the head are not included on the census before 1850.

At the annual town meeting in Otsego in 1803, Samuel was named Commissioner of Highways, with Abner Pier and Israel Loomis (Otsego Herald 10 March 1803).

The Otsego County Registry of Deeds documents the purchase in 1804 of 52½ acres of land by Samuel Colman for $800 from Perry Allen, being a portion of lot 55 of McNeil’s patent. In 1818 he purchased the easterly side of lot 56 from Richard Elwood for $605.

In the summer of 1805 his parents’ family was stricken by typhus, along with several neighbors in Heath, MA where they had relocated. Rhoda, aged 26, died as well as Zenus, aged 19, Joseph, aged 21, then both parents. Their graves in the old Shelburne Hill cemetery are not marked. The youngest, Zur, survived. He was 16. His guardianship is registered in the Hampshire County records. Samuel inherited a portion of the property which was later sold to a neighbor.

In 1814 he was named a justice of Otsego County, along with a long list of others (Otsego Herald 23 April 1814).

On January 1, 1817 “a respectable number of citizens from several towns in the county of Otsego convened at the house of Col. Henry…to consider the expediency of organizing a society for the promotion of Agriculture and the Useful Arts” (Otsego Herald 9 January 1817). Samuel Colman was named Secretary. James (Fenimore) Cooper was also an officer. The Colmans were progressive farmers, taking a strong interest in improved farming methods. Otsego County was reputed for improved agricultural methods, pioneering the introduction and breeding of superior grades of livestock. Samuel Colman subscribed to the Genesee Farmer, which promulgated new methods of agriculture.

At the annual town meeting in Otsego in 1817, Samuel was named School Commissioner with Oliver Cory and Abraham Van Horne (Otsego Herald 6 March 1817.)

Parts of Otsego were annexed to the Town of Springfield in 1825. The description of wards 30 and 31 reference the “School House by Samuel Coleman’s.”

Education was important to the Colmans. Son Anson received medical training under a Dr. Palmer in Richfield Springs. He settled in Rochester, NY, marrying a daughter of founder Nathaniel Rochester. He studied in Boston, Philadelphia, London, and Paris; was instructed in the treatment of cholera in Montreal; lectured at the Geneva NY Medical College for two years (Rochester Historical Society, Publications, 1943).

On July 2, 1830 his youngest child, Parker Dole Colman was drowned in Rochester, NY at the age of 17. He may have been studying there and living with Anson.

Son Hamilton taught school as a young man. He worked a dairy farm near his father’s farm. In 1838 he was Commissioner of Deeds for Otsego County, and he served as town supervisor for Richfield Springs in 1858. His son Norman became the first Secretary of Agriculture under U.S. President Grover Cleveland in 1889, having been commissioner since 1884. He was a teacher, a lawyer, and lieutenant governor of Missouri.

Charles was a lawyer. In 1845 he was "admitted as attorneys and counselors of the Supreme Court" with a list of others. He lived in St. Louis, MO in 1860 and Ann Arbor, MI in 1870.

Between 1841 and 1846 Samuel transferred land to his son Homer. The 1850 census lists Samuel living with Homer. A letter from son Franklin to Horace in 1853 expresses outrage that Homer and his wife “have succeeded in their knavery, they have stealthily and deceitfully taken from Father every vestige of his title Deeds, they have stolen a sacred contract entered into for the support of Father & Mother. They have abused & maltreated our Father & Mother & finally to cap the climax of iniquity they have turned my dear enfeebled Parents out of their own house & taken possession themselves.” The 1855 NY state census lists Samuel and Nabby living with Horace and his wife Nancy.

Of his children, Horace, Homer and Hamilton remained nearby. Franklin, Nelson and Charles went west. A record of Caroline's marriage or death has not yet been found. She will require more research.

Samuel Colman died in Springfield on 22 December 1857 and was buried in Richfield Springs with Masonic Honors. His obituary in the Freeman’s Journal states: “He has held various offices of trust and responsibility, which he discharged with strict fidelity, and now in his 90th year, is ‘gathered to his fathers’ in perfect charity with all mankind, and in the confident hope of a glorious immortality.”

Nabby Colman died less than two years later, on 6 May 1859. She was 85.