Veterans column: Abolitionist Levi Coman comes to Newark from New York via New Orleans
Benjamin and Catherine Coman were living on a farm in Eaton, New York, with their eight children when Catherine gave birth to Levi Parsons Coman on Jan. 5, 1826. Tragically, Catherine died soon after his birth.
Most of what is known about Coman’s life is found in his wife’s book, “Memories of Martha Seymour Coman,” published in 1913. He graduated from Clinton Hamilton College in New York and accepted a position near New Orleans as a tutor for a wealthy planter’s children. About 1847 Coman came to Newark, Ohio.
Martha related her first memory when she saw Levi at church. He was dressed in a “dark green coat and plaid pants of green and brown which led her to believe he was a journeyman tailor.” When she told her mother about him, Mrs. Seymour reasoned that he was the new teacher for Mr. Corning, who recently moved to town and had several boys in his home. Mr. Corning asked a friend, who happened to be Coman’s cousin, if he knew of a good tutor. The cousin gave a good reference of Levi, who was then hired.
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According to Martha, it wasn’t long until he became superintendent of the Sunday school, a job she wrote he took very seriously: “He had teacher’s meeting’s and we had essays to write. Mine always seemed to need alterations that made it necessary that he should call and explain it to me. Then he wanted me to go with him to find other teachers and call on them. My father on coming home one evening asked where I was. Mother said that I had gone with Mr. Coman on some Sunday school business. He remarked rather impatiently that he never knew a Sunday school to require as much attention as that one did!”
When Levi spoke to Martha about marriage, she wrote, “It was an entire surprise, and it was a considerable time before I could give him an answer.” Her father objected because they didn’t know much about him, but Martha eventually said yes. On June 28, 1849, the 23-year-olds married at the First Presbyterian Church in Newark.
The newlyweds moved in with Martha’s parents on Locust Street. Coman went to work for Martha’s father. Over the next few years, they had two children. In 1855, Coman, who studied law, was admitted to the bar. In 1856, Martha’s father bought a one-story cottage at Sixth and Locust streets for the couple. By 1861, the family, which now included four children, had added on to the home.
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When the Confederates fired on Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861, the family hoped the conflict would be over quickly. With the North’s defeat at Bull Run on July 21, 1861, Coman saw the war wasn’t going to end soon. Martha wrote, “My husband was an Abolitionist and had made political speeches. At this crisis, he said, ‘The men who have been talking must do something more now.’ And he began to raise a company for the Seventy-Sixth Regiment of Ohio Volunteers.”
Doug Stout is the Licking County Library local history coordinator. You may contact him at 740.349.5571 or dstout@lickingcountylibrary.org.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Veterans column: Newark's Levi Colman starts Sunday school gig
