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Peter Coffee, Sr. (b.abt.1700 - d.1771) was the progenitor of the Coffee surname in America.
From 1609 to 1625, British King James I, who was the son of Mary (Stuart), Queen of Scots, invited 81,000 Scottish lowlanders to immigrate to Northern Ireland in an attempt to destroy the Catholic Church. That conflict continues to this day! The immigration of Protestants to Ulster in Northern Ireland was necessary in order to eliminate potential allies of the Spanish throne since the war was still raging between England and Catholic Spain. Due to crop failures and continued conflict with Catholics, from 1717 to 1776, more than 250,000 Protestant Ulstermen sailed to North American ports. The biggest wave of Scot-Irish immigrants occurred in the five year period of 1725 to 1730. Thousands of Irish Catholics began arriving in the ports in New York and New England due to the potato famine starting in 1740.
Peter Coffee was a Scots-Irish Protestant who was arrested in Ulster, Northern Ireland for theft and imprisoned at the Old Bailey in London. After two years imprisonment, he was offered a seven year indentured contract of servitude for his passage to America. Convicts who committed more serious crimes were either hanged or not given the option of a period of indentured servitude in America.
Upon arrival in the Virginia Colony in 1730, William Mathews, an English landowner, purchased Peter Coffee's contract from the Virginia Company. In 1758, the English governors of the Virginia Colony issued a proclamation which required that all Ulstermen must settle in the remoteness of the eastern side of the Appalachian Mountains (Shenandoah Valley), east Tennessee, and northern Georgia which was far inland from the safety of the Eastern Shore.
Years of fighting between Protestant Scot-Irish Ulstermen and Catholics in Ireland and against savage Indians in the American colonies made the Scot-Irish immigrants strong and self-reliant families. After the War Between the States, General Robert E. Lee was asked who made the best soldiers, "The Scots who came to this country by way of Ireland," said Lee. "Because they have all the dash of the Irish in taking up a position and all the stubbornness of the Scots in holding it."
Unfortunately I have no knowledge of Peter Coffee's history prior to his arrest and imprisonment in London because birth records in Ireland were only maintained by the Catholic church.
Jerry Coffee
Plano, Texas
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Author: joan_falk
Surnames: falk hornberger reigle engstrom
Classification: queries
Message Board URL:
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Message Board Post:
how does on find out if there family name was changed when they came to the us..
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Author: juanitacoffey41
Surnames: COFFEE, THOMPSON
Classification: queries
Message Board URL:
http://boards.rootsweb.com/surnames.coffee/730/mb.ashx
Message Board Post:
I am seeking info on the children of Jesse & Elizabeth THOMPSON Coffee. Their names were: WILLIAM, b. 1837 NC; ABRAHAM, b. 1839 GA; CLEVELAND, b. 1841 GA; ANDREW, b. 1843 GA; Rufus, B. 1845 GA; JOEL, B. 1847 GA; ALLEN, b. 1848, GA.
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