Kentucky: A History of the State, Perrin, Battle, Kniffin, 4th ed., 1887, Mercer County.
GEORGE D. COLEMAN was born near Fredericksburg, Va., May 10, 1818, and immigrated to Kentucky with his parents. His father,
James Coleman, also born in Virginia, moved to Kentucky in 1822, and settled on a farm in the eastern part of Mercer County, near Cane Run Spring, near where the town of Bergen is now located, a station on the Cincinnati Southern Railroad; he then moved to the neighborhood of Gen. John Adair, Capt. Abram Chaplin and Gov. Slaughter, on a part of Capt. Chaplin's pre-emption survey; he lived there seven years, and then purchased 800 acres of the same land, on which he resided until his death, and attained quite a fortune. He married Miss Mary Penny, and became the father of the following children: Meredith R. (deceased), John L. (deceased), Robert E. (deceased), Basil W. (deceased), Maria (Dedman) deceased, James Henry, Littleton, Ferris (deceased), Sallie Ann (deceased), Mary (Dannell) deceased, George D., William L. (deceased), Thomas C. and Jane Amanda (Sorrell) deceased. Mr. Coleman and his son owned about 100 negroes. In principle he was a Whig, and died in Mercer County, Ky., at the age of sixty-eight years. There are sill living two of the old slaves that Mr. James Coleman brought from Virginia, Hampton and Millie.
Of about fifty whites who came to Kentucky soon after James Coleman, there are but few living; Persickles Scoot, William R. Daniel, Susan D. Coleman, Bushrod Coleman, Foster and George D. Coleman, all relatives. George D. Coleman is the owner of five acres of rich land, situated one mile from Harrodsburg, a part of his father's old homestead on the Lexington pike; the place is called Colmanville, and contains about twenty families, who all use water out of Mr. Coleman's cave. He is principally a stock dealer on commission. There are two remarkable caves on this piece of land; one, situated twenty steps from the house, is three miles in length eastwardly; the other is four miles in length extending under the town of Harrodsburg; this cave has the names of Daniel Boone and Col. Miller inscribed upon the rocks. There is also a log cabin standing near the house 100 years old. On the same grounds where the caves are, in 1842 was held the celebration of the settlement of Kentucky. Mr.
Coleman was married to Miss Sarah M. Hahn in 1845, and to them the following children have been born: Willis L. (deceased), Anna E., Mary B., Thomas C., Laura L. and Sarah C. The grandfather of Mr. Coleman, Robert E. Coleman, is of Scotch-Irish descent, immigrated from Virginia to Kentucky about 1804, and settled near Fountain Blue, three miles from Harrodsburg. He married Catherine Robinson, and from their union sprang seven children: James, Patsy, Sallie, Thomas, Catherine, George and Mary. He died at the age of seventy years. Of his own family Mr. George D. Coleman relates: "My father made several trips over the mountains with a wagon, to move his father and others to Kentucky. We fixed and started my mother in a four-horse wagon after she was the mother of ten children. My brother Thomas was born two weeks after our arrival here; my nurse, uncle Hampton, a faithful old slave, packed me and brother Linsfield over the mountains. After the birth of Thomas, Hampton was sent to the woods to get a sugar-trough to rock him in. Thomas was named for old Dr. Thomas Clellan, pastor of Providence Church, near McAfee Station, where all our family lie buried except Henry, who sleeps at Little Union Church, in Nelson County, and Sallie Ann in Virginia. My old nurse is now about eighty years old, and is making a dollar a day at Harrodsburg, with a shovel and hoe. After my sister Jennie was born, my mother rode on horseback to Virginia, and after giving birth to her twelfth child rode back again. My brother Thomas had born to him eight children, of whom three sons are still living; he is worth $80,000, and his homestead, called `Fairview' comprises 800 acres of land, lately a part of Col. Slaughter's, part of Col. Thompson's and a part of Col. Prather's land, the last, the grandfather of his first wife. His second wife was a daughter of Abraham Jordan, son of Col. Jordan. The farms owned by my father and brother Thomas are considered the prettiest in Mercer county, and lie on the waters of Sunny Run, where old Gen. Ray, Indian fighter, lived and died."