William M. Coffey was the tenth of eleven children born to William Coffey (1812-1893) and his wife Margaret Robbins (1816-1882). William grew up on the family farm in the Buffalo area of the upper Yadkin River Valley, known as Happy Valley. Too young to serve in the Confederate army like his four oldest brothers, William helped run the farm and likely experienced the chaotic violence of the closing months of the war when Union cavalry raided the valley. On April 26, 1878 (date of license) William married Martha Jane Sharpe (1855-1935), daughter of James and Mary Ann Luellen Sharpe of Rockingham Co., NC. In the early 1880s William moved his family to Lincolnton, Lincoln Co., NC where he found work as an overseer in a cotton mill. The couple raised nine children: Millard Cicero (b. 1879), Richard Andrew (b. 1880), James Thomas (b. 1881), Jesse L. (b. 1883), Annie Lou (b. 1887), Bessie Angeline (b. 1892), Bertha Mae (b. 1893), Gertrude G. (b. 1896), and Rutha Ester (b. 1898). William Coffey died of heart disease at the age of seventy-six.
William M. Coffey was the tenth of eleven children born to William Coffey (1812-1893) and his wife Margaret Robbins (1816-1882). William grew up on the family farm in the Buffalo area of the upper Yadkin River Valley, known as Happy Valley. Too young to serve in the Confederate army like his four oldest brothers, William helped run the farm and likely experienced the chaotic violence of the closing months of the war when Union cavalry raided the valley. On April 26, 1878 (date of license) William married Martha Jane Sharpe (1855-1935), daughter of James and Mary Ann Luellen Sharpe of Rockingham Co., NC. In the early 1880s William moved his family to Lincolnton, Lincoln Co., NC where he found work as an overseer in a cotton mill. The couple raised nine children: Millard Cicero (b. 1879), Richard Andrew (b. 1880), James Thomas (b. 1881), Jesse L. (b. 1883), Annie Lou (b. 1887), Bessie Angeline (b. 1892), Bertha Mae (b. 1893), Gertrude G. (b. 1896), and Rutha Ester (b. 1898). William Coffey died of heart disease at the age of seventy-six.
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