Isaiah Cooper

1778-1849

Elizabeth Montier

1779-c.1845

Isaiah was a heavy drinker, a brawler, a man of great energy and abilities--in short a typical headstrong frontiersman who, although interesting, would probably not be welcome in our parlors today. The son of Nathan and Elizabeth Oldham Cooper, he began his life at a time when our nation was undergoing its birth, 9 December 1778. Although his parents may have lived in the area between the Ohio River and its tributary, the Monongahela, before the Revolution (they were there in 1790), when that area became under heavy attack by the British-allied Indians during the Revolution, Nathan and Elizabeth would have moved the family to safer havens. We do know that Isaiah was born in Virginia (or that part of it that has since become West Virginia) because his living children listed that as his birthplace in the l880 U.S.Census. He was probably born in either today's Hampshire County, West Virginia or Clarke County, Virginia. Those were the Cooper and Oldham family locales.

By l790, the Coopers were living in Washington County, Pennsylvania, southwest of Pittsburgh. There were other Coopers and Oldhams there who may have been kinsmen. Isaiah's father had served in Virginia's l774 frontier Indian War called Dunmore's War and had at least that early been acquainted with the Upper Ohio River Valley. Because Nathan received his pay out of Pittsburgh in that war, it is clear that he was living somewhere on the Pennsylvania-Virginia frontier at the time.

About 1792 the Coopers moved to the new locus of the Cooper relatives, the Watauga River Valley of extreme eastern Tennessee (present-day Carter County). Isaiah's Cooper grandfather and his uncles and aunts had already been there for a few years. It appears as though Isaiah's grandfather turned over his 150 acre farm there to his son Nathan to farm. Our first documented source that Nathan was there, was in October of l793, when he served in the militia during some Indian troubles, and he was also on the 1793 tax list of Washington County. Isaiah would have been fourteen at the time. It was here in what was then Washington County, Tennessee (Carter County after l796) that Isaiah came into manhood amid a large group of Cooper kinsmen, most of whom had arrived there after a sojourn in North Carolina.

About l797, a period of great flux began in the family. Job Cooper, Isaiah's grandfather, who was a veritable wanderlust, removed to Hardin County, Kentucky, about late 1798 or early 1799. Others moved to what are now Pulaski and Wayne counties, Kentucky. On 22 June l799, his Grandfather Oldham, probably living on land he owned on Middle Island Creek in Ohio County, Virginia (now Tyler County, West Virginia), purchased 400 acres on Middle Wheeling Creek in what is still Ohio County (WV), almost atop the present West Virginia-Pennsylvania border. In fact, although the Oldhams lived on the West Virginia side of the border, the closest town was West Alexander, Washington County, Pennsylvania. Prior to this, the Oldhams had lived in Western Pennsylvania.

About the spring of 1799, Isaiah appears to have gone to live with his Oldham relatives (perhaps his entire family had moved there). It would have been here that the twenty-year-old Isaiah met the Indian girl, Elizabeth Montier. Isaiah was smitten. And it is not hard to conceive that a dispute probably arose between Isaiah and his family over Isaiah's intentions toward the Indian girl. This would explain why none of Isaiah's sons were named for his father, as was the custom. This would also explain why, in August of l799, Isaiah and the pregnant Elizabeth suddenly appeared in Hardin County, Kentucky (where Job Cooper, his grandfather, had settled). The two married 11 August l799 in adjacent Bullitt County, probably because they had been passing themselves off as husband and wife among the relatives in Kentucky. Two days later, back in Hardin County, Isaiah served as a witness to the marriage of Thomas Carr to Elizabeth Enlous.

We know Elizabeth was Indian because there were no other Montier families listed anywhere in any of the states of that era. The family name had been spelled Montour by all the English and American diarists and officials up to that time, but John Montour had clearly pronounced it Montier, as did all family members for the census takers in the first U.S. Census in l790 and all censuses thereafter. The Montour/Montier family is clearly Indian in all the records. John Montier (c.1746-1830) was, in all probability, Elizabeth Montier Cooper's father. John had inherited his father's lands near Pittsburgh and had received bounty land in Ohio for his service during the Revolution. In the l820 U.S. Census, his sons were living just across the Ohio River from Wheeling, West Virginia (then Virginia) near present-day Smithfield, Ohio. Issac Oldham's farm lay just east of Wheeling. It would be rather impossible to believe that the only Montier family in the United States, and, moreover, one that lived near the Coopers, was not Elizabeth's family.

The following February, on the 23rd, Mary "Polly" Cooper was born, certainly there in Hardin County. The "Josiah" Cooper name copied from the l800 tax list there was most probably Isaiah. A cursive "J" and I" look much alike. All through our family's history, the name Josiah has been confused with Isaiah in transcriptions of cursive records.

The Thomas Carrs were either close friends or kinsmen because when Isaiah and Elizabeth moved north across the Ohio River into Indiana, the Carrs did also. It was in 1801 or 1802 that the Coopers settled on "Clark's Grant," the territory given in payment to General George Rogers Clark and his small army for their Revolutionary War service. Voting records show they lived in Springville.

Springville (aka "Tullytown") was a rising and prosperous little town about four miles north of the Ohio River, just west of the town of Charlestown (which still exists today). As early as l799 a Frenchman had kept a store there. By 7 April l801, Springville had grown enough to be selected as the county seat. In l801 there were two taverns, a store, a blacksmith's shop, a wheelwright's shop, a hatter's shop, etc. A short distance west of the town lived Jonathan Jennings, the first governor of Indiana.

Springville lay on the old Indian trail from the falls of the Ohio (Louisville) to the Indian nations of the north, west, and east. The location of the still houses and trading posts in Springville made it a great rendezvous place for Indians, where they would trade their furs, venison, and bear meat to the traders for whiskey, usually being swindled as well. White settlers there were often alarmed by the drunkenness and insolence of the Indians, which broke out sometimes into murderous violence. Springville and its vicinity was the only purely American settlement off of the Ohio River in Indiana at the time, although there were some Americans in the old French settlements. But after the county seat was removed to Jeffersonville in l802, the town began to dwindle away. A few years later it was totally gone. Not a vestige remains today.

Isaiah appears on voting records and estray records over the years. All but one of his and Elizabeth's remaining children were born in Clark County: Rachel, 26 March l803; Enoch S., 12 March l805; Margaret, 15 September l807; Charlotte, 2 February 1810; Jane, 8 October 1812; William Shepherd, 12 December 1813; Isaiah Cooper, Junior, 18 June 1817; and John Milton Cooper, 19 April 1820.

In the years preceding the War of 1812, the British had been conspiring with the Indians of the frontier against the United States, causing hostilities between the Indians and the frontier settlers. In 1811 General William Henry Harrison defeated the Shawnees at Tippecanoe Creek in northern Indiana Territory. When the war was declared in 1812, the great Shawnee chief Tecumseh allied himself with Britain. The lives of the frontier settlers were in great peril.

On May 29, 1813, Isaiah joined Captain James Biggers' Company of Mounted Rangers, supplying his own horse. It was the duty of the company to roam over Indiana scouting for signs of Indians and, if found, to report these findings to the commanding general. At times the company coalesced with the larger army for battles. From December 1 to December 22, 1813, Isaiah was A.W.O.L. Elizabeth was giving birth to William at the time. A.W.O.L.'s on the frontier were not handled with the severity of A.W.O.L.'s today. He was merely docked the pay and perhaps reprimanded.

Serving in Isaiah's company were John Cowan and his sixteen-year-old son James. Cowan, from nearby Charlestown, became a close friend. The Coopers' daughter Margaret may have been named for Mrs. Margaret (Weir) Cowan, John's wife. Mrs. Cowan died about this time (1813). Not having a mother for his children was a crisis for a frontiersman, who spent all of his time laboring in the fields and on the farm. It was customary for widowed men to informally adopt out babies and the younger children to family and friends. This was how Esther Cowan, the Cowans' ten-year-old daughter, entered the Cooper family. There may have been a second Cowan daughter adopted by the Coopers as well. Esther was the same age as Rachel Cooper, and the two were probably close friends. That plus the fact that Elizabeth seems to have been a warm, maternal figure, probably made it an easy transition for Esther.

In the spring of l817, Isaiah left Clark County with some of his neighbors to prepare land on the White River for their families to settle on. The place was called "the Dunn Settlement" in what is now Washington Township, Owen County, Indiana, but the county didn't exist at that time. Land records show that on February 20, 1817, Isaiah claimed 149 acres in Section 29 Township 10 Range 3; on November 28, he claimed another 376.66 acres in Section 28. Elizabeth remained behind at least until late June. We know this because Isaiah, Junior, was born in Clark County on June 18. Elizabeth probably joined her husband after their log cabin was built. Gardens and corn crops were planted around the stumps of the cleared land around the cabins.

That fall an early frost hit the corn crop. The settlers were forced to hang the frostbitten ears in the lofts of their cabins to dry, but the corn blackened as it dried. The only way to sell it was to pound it into meal. This they accomplished by creating a log mortar and pestle. The mortar was a hollowed-out stump filled with the corn, and the pestle was a log tied high on a springy sapling. The settlers would pull down on the pestle to crush the corn. The tree would spring it back up.

Growing corn for their livelihoods presented the frontiersmen with a problem. There weren't roads, and corn was too bulky and perishable to ship to the East profitably. So they took to fermenting it and transporting the compact, valuable whiskey on flatboats to the Eastern markets. Unfortunately their economic necessity to make whiskey spawned a myriad of alcoholics among its producers.

A July 4, l876 article in the Owen County Journal, speaking of the earliest celebrations of Independence Day in that county, gives us a glimpse of Isaiah in action. The Fourth of July in 1818 was being celebrated on the farm of Daniel Beem where the town of Spencer is now located. Feats of strength and marksmanship were typical male endeavors at such events in those days. Fifteen or twenty men were taking part in an event which demanded that the participant jump and shoot at a mark. Isaiah had been bragging up the abilities of Daniel Matheny, not yet his son-in-law. A neighbor, John McNaught, was proclaiming the invincibility of Neely Beem. Probably adding to the rivalry was the corn liquor that was in abundance. The escalating contention resulted in Cooper and McNaught betting twenty dollars on the outcome of the shooting event, a very large amount of money in those days. Each man wrote a note for twenty dollars. Realizing that his neighbors had gotten in over their heads in the competition, a man named Richard Morris got hold of the notes and tore them up, incurring Isaiah's wrath. Apparently Isaiah began cursing Morris, who was about to throw down his shot pouch in preparation for a fight. Morris's friends seized him and took him away, terminating the bet and the trouble.

Isaiah was one of the founders of Owen County in 1819. He became a county commissioner, was on the first grand jury, and put up part of the bond for the fledgling county government. On 12 February 1820, he donated 21 ½ acres for the first county seat but reserved the right to operate a ferry at the site. This was the birth of Spencer, Indiana. Isaiah's land donation was on the White River near the future courthouse. It was created into a park, which still bears his name: Cooper Park. (History of Owen County, pp.562-565; 664) (History of Clay and Owen Counties, Indiana, 1883, pp.687-688, pp.693-694) Among the members of the traverse jury were Joshua Matheny and William Wood Cooper. William Wood Cooper, Isaiah's cousin, and Isaiah were among those who built the first road in Owen County, which led from Spencer down the river to the line dividing townships 9 and 10. William's wife, Mary Matheny Cooper, was a sister to Joshua, Daniel, and & Henry Matheny, Isaiah's kinsmen who had left Hardin County, Kentucky, to join him in Indiana. In April of 1819, William was appointed constable of Washington Township, succeeded the following year by his brother-in-law Joshua Matheny. The Mathenys were second cousins to the Coopers; so the family played a very important role in the early years of Owen County.

The last of the Cooper children, John Milton Cooper, was born in Owen County on 19 April 1820, the year the first Cooper grandchild, Adam Matheny, was born.

On July 4, 1822, Isaiah's second child, Rachel, married Henry Younger Matheny, Daniel Matheny's brother, further cementing the kinship between the Cooper and Matheny families.

On 7 August l824, Isaiah was commissioned to be a justice of the peace. It was his duty to dispense justice among his neighbors. His heavy drinking, however, did not lend itself to sound decision-making. He quickly created a swarm of enemies. The Owen County Archives has several bailbond records that Isaiah was prosecuted for slander, assault and battery, etc. His constituents pushed for impeachment proceedings. There were numerous charges, probably all stemming from Isaiah's alcohol use. The easiest charge upon which to convict him was "willful neglect of duty" as evidenced by his being too drunk ever to attend a meeting of the Board of Justices. He was removed from office, and a war-like atmosphere existed among the Cooper family and the rest of the community. Isaiah's impeachment records can be found in the Indiana House Journal 1825-26, pp.115-119; and the Indiana Senate Journal, pp.155-167. It was time for a new start for the Coopers.

It was in l827 that the family settled in Derry Township in the center of Pike County, Illinois, which hugs the Mississippi River in the west central part of the state. [1888 obituary of William S. Cooper] Here the clan endured a legendary blizzard-cold snap as well as an Indian War in the early l830's. The Coopers were the third family to settle in Derry Township. The marriage of Enoch Cooper to his foster sister, Esther Cowan, was the first marriage in Derry Township. Neither Mary nor Rachel Matheny ever moved to Pike County.

About l838, when all of Isaiah and Elizabeth's children were grown, the couple were acquainted with a German farmer named Johnson, whose wife had recently died, leaving him with a four-year-old daughter, Charlotte. Johnson soon acquired a new wife; thereafter Charlotte was treated like the proverbial stepchild, being beaten and deprived of food. Perhaps at Elizabeth's suggestion, the Coopers offered to rear the pathetic girl. The Johnsons consented, that being one less mouth to feed.

In 1843 Isaiah and Elizabeth's two oldest daughters left Missouri for Oregon. Shortly thereafter, Elizabeth Montier Cooper died (c.1845) and was buried somewhere there in Derry Township. Isaiah's son John and his wife Jane moved to the Cooper farm to live with Isaiah and his foster daughter.

The Coopers were probably already planning to cross the plains to Oregon in 1846 and had probably made arrangements to sell Isaiah's farm when one day the Johnsons paid a visit, asking to have the now-large Charlotte returned to them. Isaiah felt that Charlotte was being viewed by the Johnsons only as a workhorse to help with the chores and to tend her now-numerous half-brothers and sisters. He felt she would once more be abused. Charlotte and the Coopers had bonded as a family, and he did not want to give her up; so Isaiah asked the Johnsons if he could have one last day with Charlotte. The Johnsons consented to Isaiah's returning the girl the next day. But the old man had other plans.

As soon as the Johnsons left, he quickly packed bags for himself and Charlotte and headed for Independence immediately. His sons and their families were to meet him and Charlotte in Independence and then cross the plains to Oregon.

Twenty-two year old Francis Parkman, a Boston Brahmin, was on a post-graduate (of Harvard) adventure on the Oregon Trail in 1846 and was in Westport in the spring. He may well have been describing the Coopers in his The Oregon Trail (p.16) when he states

....While I was in town, a train of emigrant wagons from Illinois passed through, to join the camp on the prairie, and stopped on the principal street. A multitude of healthy children's faces was peeping out from under the covers of the wagons. Here and there a buxom damsel was seated on horseback, holding over her sunburnt face an old umbrella or a parasol, once gaudy enough, but now miserably faded. The men, very sober-looking countrymen, stood about their oxen; and as I passed I noticed three old fellows, who, with their whips in their hands, were zealously discussing the doctrine of regeneration...."

We have the reminiscences of a person who traveled west with the Coopers, a Philander C. Davis. His notes were written October 16, 1916, when he was a very old man, close to ninety. His memory caused him to forget some of the people who crossed the plains with him. During the processing of writing, he would add names as he remembered them. It is probable that he forgot the names of Enoch and Isaiah Cooper, Jr. It is unlikely that these two sons of Isaiah's crossed the plains in 1846 in a different wagon train than their father and brothers. Mr. Davis's manuscript can be found in the Oregon Historical Society Library in Portland:

....I traveled with my Brother In law James Brown And MY sister his wife who was the eldest of my fathers family of ten, four daughters and six sons also my brother Leander Sylvanus 4 years my senior and my brother Albert Gallatin 2 years my senior also Nicholas Schrum and his good wife and three grown sons and a nephew whose christian name I have forgotten his surname was Wimberlie I believe also Wm Elliot and wife and 3 children I forgot to mention Mr Schrums three daughters, two full grown, one between girlhood and womanhood Jack Schrum youngest of family lived near Mitchell in 1894; There was also another notable family or two  Mr Wingfield who settled on the Molalla near where good old Harrison Wright lived and died. Also the Coopers Wm and John and their familie; They were brothers of the wives of Daniel and Henry Matheny who came to Oregon in 1843 Isaiah and Daniel Junior came out to meet the Coopers and met the train in Tygh Valley I have seen the hill often that we climbed out of Tyghe and could hardly believe that we had done the job with worn oxen but our loads were light having been nearly all been eaten on the long journey. There was one more family in our company, Mr. Ish and wife and one child also two or three single men. Mr. Williams was one of them. From the Blue mountains we traveled down the Umatilla river to some point and from there to Willow creek and from there to some point on the Columbia below Willow creek and from there camped on the river nearly every night until we reached Deschutes river being compelled to climb the bluff in the morning and descend in the evening in order to get water and grass for the stock A few years later there was a better route found and traveled further south back from the breaks and gorges next to the river. We did not see a bridge or ferry after we left the Missouri state line near the town of Independence on 10th of May 1846. We forded every stream that we crossed beginning with the Kansas called Kaw at that time. 2nd South Platte nearly two miles wide shallow but swift and boiling full of moving sand Woe to the team that did not keep moving at a good pace. 3rd the Laramie near Fort Laramie narrow clear but swift and deep. 4th North Platte wift clear and narrow. On the deep fords the wagons beds were raised on the bolsters by blocks to keep the force of water from striking them and forcing them down stream and wetting the loads. 5th Green River broad clear shallow and beautiful. 6th Portneuf near Fort Hall the most beautiful broad green lovely valley and stream that I saw on the long trip. 7th Snake River crossing and Three Islands so called there was three channels but two islands. They were deep swift and frightfully dangerous; 8th second crossing of the Snake at old Fort Boise three quarters of a mile wide deep but a gentle slow moving current. 9th the Deschutes. I think we crossed near where what was called the Miller bridge or below for I know I had fearful feelings of being swept into the Columbia not more than 2 or three hundred yards below. I drove a team across both crossings of Snake But cannot remember whether I drove at Deschutes or not. From Deschutes we went to where the town of Dufur is now remaining there two or three days resting the teams giving the women time to wash clothes, From there we went to Tygh [Valley] and from there to Barlows gate Before starting into and over the Cascade range I must mention some others of the Co whom I had forgotten old Grandfather Cooper [Isaiah Cooper] father of the Coopers and two before mentioned Mrs Matheneys The Matheneys having come over in 1843. Also Frank McClintic [McClintock] brother of Mrs. John Cooper there may have been one or more others whom I have forgotten. Isaiah Matheney Frank McClintic and I were detailed at the entrance of the mountain to go ahead with the loose cattle so as to hurry them through the laurel thickets and prevent their becoming poisoned thereby. We drove them to the home of Daniel Matheney Senior ten miles below Salem on west side of the Willamette forded the river just below his ferry his place was on west side of river opposite Jason Lees old first mission where his Indians died faster than he could convert them.....I will now return to the Barlow Gate on the east side of Cascades but what I know of the trains crossing is limited gotten from those who were with it in passing I was too busy keeping the cattle out of the dense thickets and especially one plump little yearling heifer belonging to Grand Father Cooper which had a habit of dropping out and hiding I did not have time to note the conformation of the country streams I remember Zig Zag and Huckleberry camp at foot of Mt Hood. Also Laurel Hill where Mr. Wingfield's family wagon ended over on top of the team and frightened Mrs Wingfield almost into fits I knew the wagon had driven it often on the way over front wheels too low for rear wheels.....

The Oregon Spectator, a newspaper already operating in Oregon City, heralded the progress of the 1846 immigrants as they began to trickle in to town:

September 3, 1846-Immigrants Arrive at Oregon City; Bring News of Wagon Trains

September 17, 1846-Families Arrive at Oregon City Via Barlow Road [These were the first to use the newly-opened road.]

October 29, 1846-145 Wagons Arrive; 7 Enroute Via Barlow Road

Now most of the Cooper sons and daughters were with their father with the exception of Charlotte Shinn, who remained in Pike County, Illinois, and possibly Jane, about whom nothing is known.

It appears from early census records as if Isaiah resumed living with his youngest son John. We know that John later operated a liquor store in California; his views toward alcohol were probably compatible with Isaiah's own. The religious Mathenys were probably not as accommodating. For the next two years, Isaiah was surrounded by his family in Oregon's pristine setting. But California's gold rush was to end all that.

When gold was discovered, everyone left his young farm for a try at the yellow lucre, but Isaiah and his party were not among the vanguard, arriving in California in June of 1849. Later in the summer forty-niners from the East arrived, bringing disease with them. A miner's work was hard labor in cold streams; it was the streams that were worked at first. Fruits and vegetables were hard to come by, so the gold-seekers were easy prey for the flux and the fevers that had arrived. Disease hit the camp where the Coopers were entrenched. The diary of A.R.Burbank, later of Lafayette, Oregon, gives us a brief sketch of the camp:

September 21, 1849

'Johnsons' Crossed River here, 59 ft. wide, a gravel bed 100 yards, road forks. We taken right hand past shanty's, one hospital, several sick, doctor sick. Family in adobe with Liquor shop. Man is Cooper from Pike Co. Ill--to Oregon in l846 and here in June 1849. He don't like Oregon and California. Intends to return to Illinois.

This canyon where the Coopers searched for gold has a creek that feeds into the North Branch of the American River a mile or two west of the El Dorado County hamlet of Pilot Hill. It is named for them: Cooper Canyon. It was here that "camp fever," probably typhoid, claimed the lives of Isaiah, his son John, his son-in-law Henry Matheny, Rachel's daughter Sarah Jane Layson, and perhaps others in the family. All died in the fall of l849.

Those who died in Cooper Canyon were buried at what is now Coloma, California, but then was the site of Capt. John Sutter's sawmill. It had been there that the California gold was first discovered. Visitors will not discover any family tombstones there, probably because anyone who happened to be a stonecutter by trade was not in California to cut stones, but rather to look for gold. The site is now Gold Discovery State Park. There are a museum, a reconstruction of Sutter's mill, and mining exhibits.