A brief definition of who the Coulter Family is now after becoming slaves has been undertaken in this very short Historical Introduction.

I guess the most often asked question is who we are and where we come from. It's one of the basic need to know things of our human nature. I'm afraid the answer to that question has remained a mystery. I hope I will shed a little light on the Coulter Family in the South, but first a few words to give at least some sense of our origins.

The Coulter name by definition can be found in Webster's Collegiate Dictionary meaning 1. a knife 2. The cutting edge of a plow or disk making a vertical cut in the ground. Another spelling of the English Version is Colter. The word Coulter also appears in the King James Version of the Bible, 1 Samuel 13: 20, 21 which also refers to a plowshare. At the present time the term is becoming rare in it's usage. I accidentally discovered the term while I was researching in Georgia. In a Probate Document dated 1795, I was reading a list of farm utensils and it listed "a coulter" with the plow tools. I gathered that the term was quite a common usage during that century.

Although there are several versions of the Coulter name, it's origin is in the British Isles, mainly Scotland, Ireland. Some think the first family was from Normandy. Out of what ever ancient mysterious past he came,there are a few characteristics that have endured through the ages, that he was a craftsman, a tradesman, and a farmer. He was not too often a politician. The Coulters have held just about all positions in society from Barons and Knights in olden days to billionaires in the world today, along with a few of us poor people.If you gave him a personality today, he would be a person gifted with his hands as well as his mind, and down through the ages the Coulters were and still are crafted people of the middle and upper middle class. Although the economic ups and downs of time have made some of us poor, we are a people who do not view ourselves as those.

There are several Coulter Coat of Arms from England, Scotland, and Ireland. They simply mean that a Coulter Family registered their battle shield in the status of a Knight. The distinguishing feature of the shield is the Chevron which depicts a high rank of the Honorable Ordinaries.

The Coulters of the New World, we find here early on, coming mostly from Ireland, Scotland, and England in the 1600s through the northern ports of the Colonies, New York and Delaware being some common ports of entry. Our Coulter Family traces back to those early settlers in New England. History tells us that there were two prongs branching out of that location. One going down through the Carolinas into Georgia and from there to the "Old Southwest", the Mississippi Territory. The other branch went across the Ohio and later into California where today resides one of the larger portions of the Coulter Family.

Our story of the Southern Coulters picks up the trail in South Carolina during the time of the Revolutionary War. By the time war was declared with Great Britain, the Coulters had already settled in North and South Carolina. We find them fully engaged in that struggle for Independence, not only in the Southern Colonies but in the North as well. Our focus is on four men who fought in South Carolina; Anthony, John, Archibald, and Robert Coulter. Of the numerous battle engagements in South Carolina and Georgia, there are two mentioned in the records concerning the Coulters, namely the Battle at Stono Ferry in 1779, and the Battle of Charleston in 1780.

Just by chance I was reading a Biography of Andrew Jackson, our seventh President, when I discovered that his older brother Hugh Jackson was in the battle at Stono and was killed there. Anthony Coulter at the time was a Sergeant under Captain James Lee and was also in the Battle of Stono Ferry. It was a fierce, hard fought battle that drove the British back into Georgia. Andrew Jackson and another older brother, Robert soon joined the Militia when Andy was only thirteen years old and Robert only sixteen. Anthony Coulter served under several commands after that, his last as a Captain under Colonel Roebuck in 1782.

Archibald and Robert Coulter both served in the Militia under Captain Turner and Colonel Winn from 1779 til 1782. Captain Turner and 23 of his men were murdered after their surrender at Cloud's Creek by William Cunningham, a notorious Tory. Archibald and Robert were not counted among the dead. Apparently Captain Turner had only a partial number of his troops with him on that deadly day.

John Coulter fought in the Battle of Charleston later in May of 1780, but they were to be defeated. After Charleston fell, the British held the American Prisoners aboard ship in the harbor. In 1781 Andrew Jackson's mother, Betty Jackson went to Charleston to nurse the prisoners on the ships. There was a large number of troops from Waxhaw whom she knew. She later died there with "Ship Fever."

After the war Anthony and John Coulter settled in Georgia around Franklin and Greene County. Anthony moved to Jones County, Georgia by 1810-11. There he is listed on the County Records in 1811, along with Peter, John M, and William Coulter, all of who were landowners and farmers of the younger set. Several of the older Georgia set were also in the Revolutionary War, but complete records are still pending. Of the younger group we know that Peter and John M Coulter were brothers and that their father was William Coulter of Hancock County, Georgia. Indications are the older generation consisted of Archibald, Robert, Anthony, William, John, Jesse, Richard Sr, Charles, and John Coulter Esq. All of these men were born in the 1740s and 50s and many Revolutionary War Veterans of both South Carolina and Georgia.

For the lack of further research it appears that Anthony was the only one of that generation who came to the Mississippi Territory at that time. Peter and John M Coulter's father, William died in Hancock County, Georgia in 1795, leaving his possessions to them. Jesse Coulter was also a resident of Hancock County, and he died there in 1795. He was a farmer and probably a son also of William. Records also reflect that William was in the Militia in 1793 engaged with the Creek and Seminole unrest, a prelude to the War of 1812.

By 1811 war was eminent and the Coulters of Jones County, poised on their migration into the Territory were delayed until the war's end in 1815. During that time several Coulters were involved in the war, one of which was a John Coulter with Captain McGirt's Company, AL Militia in the later Seminole War.

As the year 1816 approached, plans were being finalized in the Coulter Clan for their journey; the selling of farms, consolidating possessions, gathering and preserving food crops, buying wagons and oxen for the trip. They made plans for the move as a four family caravan, pooling livestock and food under one group effort. In those times it was customary to assign certain duties to each person on the train, starting with feed wagons for the livestock and chuck wagons for the families. At all times the hunters of the train were on the lookout for fresh game, sometimes trading for meat with the Indians. Without their barrels of corn, though, such an endeavor would be unthinkable. With a good saddle horse the trip into the Territory could be made without too much difficulty discounting the Indians of course, but a loaded Ox wagon was a different matter especially after hundreds of them had traveled over the same ground that passed as a road.

That road was made possible when the Creek Indians allowed the Government to cut out a road from Ft Mitchell on the Chattahoochee River on the Georgia border to Mim's Ferry on the Alabama River (The Federal Road). From there settlers could go to St Stephens on the Tombigbee River and on into the Southwestern MS Territory. Almost from the start in 1811, the road was closed until 1815 due to the War of 1812, in which the Creeks were allies of the British. From 1813 until 1814 the Americans were at war with the Creeks resulting in several bloody encounters. Andrew Jackson played the major role in the Creek War and also the Victory at New Orleans against the British in 1815. Hostilities with the Creeks and Seminoles never completely died down until after the Seminole War around 1819.

By 1815 the Jones County Coulters made their move, and from the evidence of the birth records they came to Mississippi sometime in 1818, Morrison John Scot Coulter being the last one born in Georgia. They could very well have delayed the trip until after his birth. To the young ones it was the great adventure of their lifetime, fording the creeks and rivers, constantly on the lookout for Indians, camping each night with the camp fires of the cooking pots, and the next day looking for what might be over the next hill. All in all the trip took several months at the end of which everyone was grateful to be alive and remember and tell about it in the years to come.

The first families to come were; Anthony, William, Peter and John M Coulter. They settled in that part of old Lawrence County that is now Covington County, Mississippi on Bouie River near the old County Seat at Williamsburg. Charles, Edward, and James F Coulter were also members of the party who first came to Mississippi but they did not settle in Covington County. One other family came to Covington County during that time. She was Frances Williamson with her husband Frances Franklin Williamson and children. She was a sister to William Coulter. They settled close to Anthony and William. John M and Peter bought adjoining properties, later expanding into plantations.

Those first two or three years required all their strength of endurance, raising cabins, and clearing little spots of sunlight in the "Big Piney," putting down those first seeds of corn that would insure their survival. The plentiful supply of wild game during those times was a precious gift of the forest that saved many a family in the first years. The farms were later to completely sustain them for food, clothing, and shelter, and for the cash crop, cotton became their heritage.

John M and William Coulter remained in Covington County for six years, and in 1823 the decision was made to relocate. By that time their farms were growing into Planter stage and wanting to expand, they moved to Monroe County, Mississippi in the Fall of 1823, arriving at their destination in time to put down a crop in the Spring of 1824. Their move was decided on several factors; namely the completion of the "Jackson Military Road" that went through Covington County, going in a straight line through Monroe County in the North. News of the very rich, black soil of the Tombigbee Watershed was passed down the road and hundreds of settlers moved North over that passage when Monroe County was opened up after a treaty with the Chickasaws. Several million acres of land was made available for settlement and huge tracks of it was open prairie ready for cultivation.. Today it is still the richest farm land in the State.

I think another event that might have influenced them to go ahead with the move was the death of Anthony and his wife in 1823. Peter chose to remain in Covington County, leaving him the only family of Coulters living there in 1830. By that time Jesse, his oldest son was married and had children. John M Coulter later moved to Arkansas in 1836, a wealthy Planter. His reason for going remains unknown. I personally think he had gotten too used to the pioneer way of life. He got restless and wanted the new adventure.

Peter became the father of the Coulters of Williamsburg, having three sons; Jesse, John, and Morrison John Scott. Thus a Coulter Family became Mississippians by choice, native sons of the "Big Piney Woods." They were looked upon by some as the "backwoods people" but they soon carved out their own place in the young state, having their share of influence in community and state affairs. As cotton became more and more the money crop of the South, farming underwent a great change from small farms of Tobacco and Indigo to the large plantations.

The Coulter Family saw the transition and became a part of the "King Cotton Society." By that time the Coulters of Covington County, Mississippi consisted of Peter Coulter's two oldest sons, Jesse and John. They both grew into large landowners, and Cotton Planters. John was the largest Planter of the family in South Mississippi, an influence still evident today. His three oldest sons, William, Benjamin Peter, and A.J. were Planters and were soldiers of the Civil War, all surviving to come home to family and resume their lives as farmers.

Jesse Coulter did not survive the War. He was killed in his hometown of Williamsburg, Mississippi by Confederate Soldiers. Accounts say it was an argument that precipitated the shooting. It is believed that since he did not own slaves the incident could have been the result of his unwillingness to be conscripted into the Confederate Army. This is however only conjecture.

Morrison John Scott Coulter answered the pull of the westward movement and joined the settlement of West Texas. He made his home near Gonzales in 1855, and became a rancher on a modest scale. He was also known for his skill as a saddler.

As any history will say, those times before the War were truly to happen only once.