Horatio B. Coe (1824-1896) was born in Derby, Connecticut, and died in Harvard, Illinois. In 1848 he married Mary D. Coe (b. Gere) in Cuyahoga County, Ohio. Between 1849 and 1860 they lived in Geneva, then St. Croix, and then Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where Coe worked as a bookkeeper and a teacher. From 1861 to 1865 he was a private in Company L, 1st Regiment, Wisconsin Heavy Artillery for the Union Army in the American Civil War. After the war, the Coes relocated to Harvard, where Coe had a career as a public school teacher and principal. They remained in Harvard for the rest of their lives.

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