The lineage and history of Henry Asa Coffeen’s family has been traced back to its very beginnings in America to Michael Coffeen (1706-1758), of Irish descent, who came to America from the Isle of Man in 1723. He had a son named John Coffeen (1727-1802), a captain in the Vermont Rangers. Captain John Coffeen’s son was the Reverend Michael Coffeen (1758-1813). Rev. Michael Coffeen’s son was John P. Coffeen (1783-1821). Alvah Preston Coffeen (1811-1880), Henry Asa Coffeen’s father, was the son of John P. Coffeen.
Henry Asa Coffeen was born in Ohio in 1841. He graduated from Abingdon College (Illinois) in 1864, and became a teacher and later Superintendent of Schools in Bement, Illinois. In 1869, Coffeen and his family moved to Danville, Illinois, where he ran a book and music store and was the first Sunday School Superintendent in the Christian Church. He moved his family to Big Horn, Wyoming Territory, in 1884, where he built and ran a general store. When it became known that the railroad was going to run through nearby Sheridan rather than Big Horn, Coffeen moved his store and his family there in 1887. He became a prominent businessman in Sheridan and was chosen to be a member of the constitutional convention that framed the constitution of the new State of Wyoming in 1889. Later, he was elected as a Democrat to the Fifty-third Congress (1893-1895) of the United States. He also served on the Board of Trustees of the University of Wyoming in the early 1900s. Coffeen died in Sheridan on December 9, 1912.
Henry Coffeen’s oldest daughter, Harriet (Hallie), was born in 1866. She attended schools at Danville, Illinois and in Wyoming then went to the N.E. Conservatory in Massachusetts. She was a founder and the first president of “Colonial Dames” for the state of Wyoming. She was married on April 10, 1893 to Edward Gillette, pioneer railroad surveyor and the town of Gillette, Wyoming’s namesake. They lived in Sheridan and also owned the Absaraka Ranch. This historic ranch was located at the foot of the Bighorn Mountains outside of Sheridan, Wyoming.
From the guide to the Coffeen family papers, circa 1880s-1999, (University of Wyoming. American Heritage Center.)
