Biography of
Frank Coles Jr.

p. 1593

     FRANK COLES JR. But one year previous to the establishment of the Albion Journal, there was born in Edwards county the present editor of that remarkably interesting and well-conducted sheet, Frank Coles Jr. He has been identified with the paper since 1903 and its career in his hands has been a most successful one. Mr. Coles is a leading Republican and for some twenty years has been actively concerned in the affairs of the party, while previous to that he pored over the pages of its history and drank inspiration from its high traditions. Mr. Coles is bound P. 1594 to Edwards county by the primary tie of birth within its fair borders, the date of his nativity being December 22, 1868, and its scene the homestead-farm of his parents. His father, Joseph G. Coles, a widely known and honored citizen of this section, was born April 8, 1843, also on this farm and his father, William Coles, a native of England, settled in Edwards county in the early ‘20s, when its history was young and the pioneer was hewing down the forest primeval and bringing the virgin soil to subjection. He entered government land and such was the origin of the Coles farm.

     The young Englishman, soon after his arrival in America, married Rachel Garrison, who was born in South Carolina in 1804, and in 1814, migrated to White county, Illinois, and later came on to Edwards county and located near Grayville. Their son, Henry S. Coles, was the first white child born on the present site of Grayville. The father of Frank Coles answered to the dual calling of Baptist minister and farmer and the maiden name of the mother was Julia Compton of Wabash county. These worthy people reared four sons and four daughters, as follows: Frank Jr.; Rachel, now Mrs. Thomas J. Jacobs, of Albion; Florence, wife of Clarence G. Johnson, of Albion; Harry P. Coles, residing in Aberdeen, South Dakota; Charles S. and Joseph Ross, of Glendive, Montana; Nannie, who lives in Albion, Edwards county; and Ollie, wife of Homer May, of Whittier, California, The father is a veteran of the war between the states, having served for over three years of that dread period in the cause of the Union as a member of Company B, of the Eighty-seventh Illinois Infantry. He was often in the thickest of the fray, participating in the battle of Vicksburg, the Red River Expedition and the Mississippi River Campaign. The mother passed away on October 7, 1887, when but forty-two years, her birth having occurred in 1845.