The Frontier
Our forefathers carried with them a wealth of hard-earned experience gained throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and culminating in the Revolutionary War. Whether leaving long-established communities behind or migrating together as organized settlements, they entered a rugged wilderness that demanded resilience, resourcefulness, and determination.
There were no roads beyond the ancient buffalo traces. They confronted dense forests, tangled undergrowth, and towering river cane. The wilderness teemed with buffalo, elk, deer, and other wildlife essential for survival. Yet the frontier presented more than the untamed landscape. They faced conflict with Native tribes and the legacy of slavery. These trials shaped a generation of courageous pioneers whose perseverance carried them through westward expansion and into the American Civil War.
Background Photo: Pioneer village, Boonesboro, Kentucky.
Adventurous Ancestors
Geneological Fan Charts
Thomas Coomes, 1695-1752
Progenitor of Coomes line, obacco planter, landowner, slaveowner
Francis Ignatius Coomes, 1726-1824
Continental Army, Valley Forge, prisoner of war
Frances Jane Coomes, 1745-1816
First to manufacture salt, teach school, woman physician
William Coomes Sr., 1734-1824
Frontiersman, Virginia militia
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Present day Myrtle Grove Wildlife Area in Port Tobacco, MD.
Found in Port Tobacco, these printers type case contained both wood and metal three dimensional letterforms used to print newspapers by the 18th century.
Present day St. Ignatius Catholic Church in Port Tobacco, MD. Dating from 1662, the oldest parish continuously active in the United States. In 1697 the Jesuits built a small brick chapel on the Port Tobacco River near the confluence of the Potomac River. The building today is still used as a sacristy for the present church.
Richard Thomas of Warton Coomes, 1695-1753
Progenitor of Coomes line, tobacco planter, landowner, slaveowner
Richard Thomas of Wharton Coomes direct family relationships
Ferdinand Hayden’s 4th great grandfather
Borgia (Higdon) Hayden’s 4th great grandfather
Vincent Wheeler’s 4th great grandfather
The Coomes family of Port Tobacco, Charles County, Maryland, establishes an ancestral lineage that is unmatched in its importance to the research of the Hayden family and its allied lines. The Hayden, Higdon, and Wheeler families are repeatedly interconnected with the Coomes family from the earliest years of Colonial Maryland through the present day. For this reason, Thomas Coomes—the father of Francis Ignatius Coomes and William Coomes—is placed in the Frontier section of our website, where the Coomes family begins to emerge as a significant presence.
Thomas Coomes was a tobacco planter whose plantation and residence, "Coomes Purchase," was located west of Port Tobacco, adjacent to the tract known as "Green's Inheritance," which was owned by his father, Richard Coomes, 1675–1752. In 1719, Thomas married Elizabeth Wharton in Charles County. She was the daughter of Thomas and Elizabeth Wharton and was also born in Charles County. All of the couple's children were born at Coomes Purchase.
The tract "Green's Inheritance" appears to have been in the Coomes (also spelled Coombes in early records) family prior to 1670 and was originally much larger than it later became. Richard Coomes acquired the property in 1703 from Robert and Mary (Boarman) Green. Robert Green was the son of Leonard Green, 1636–1688, who was himself the son of Thomas Greene, 1609–1652, Maryland's second Provincial Governor. Thomas Greene originally acquired the land from Leonard Calvert.
Approximately twenty years after their marriage, Elizabeth Coomes inherited another tract known as "Christian Millford" from her deceased father. This property was situated farther up the Potomac River in Nanjemoy Hundred, Charles County, Maryland.
Elizabeth Wharton Coomes died 1772. Children include: Thomas Wharton Coomes, 1719-1804; Mary Ann, 1721-1785; Bennett Thomas, 1722-1767; Joseph J, 1724-1803; Francis Ignatius, 1726-1822; Walter, 1728-1775; William Sr., 1734-1824; Anastatia, 1739-1799
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Revolutionary war reenactor.
Detail of engraving depicting armory explosion during the seige of Charleston, 1780.
Francis Ignatius Coomes headstone, St. Michael's cemetery, Nelson Co, KY.
Right: Pension documentation.
Francis Ignatius Coomes, 1726-1822
10th Virginia Regiment of the Continental Army, wintered
at Valley Forge, captured at the siege of Charleston
Ferdinand Hayden's 3rd great grandfather
Borgia (Higdon) Hayden's 3rd great grandfather
Vincent Wheeler's 3rd great grandfather
Francis Ignatius Coomes Sr, (1726–1822) was born in Port Tobacco, Charles County, Maryland. His wife, Charity Wood (1734–1826), was born in Prince George's County, Maryland. By 1768, the family had relocated to Virginia.
When the Revolutionary War began, Coomes was fifty years old. In December 1775, he enlisted for a three-year term in the 10th Virginia Regiment of the Continental Army. In 1778, he reenlisted for the duration of the war. During his service, the regiment participated in many of the Revolution's major campaigns, including the Battles of Trenton, Princeton, Brandywine, Germantown, and Monmouth. The regiment also endured the harsh winter encampment at Valley Forge during the winter of 1777–1778.
In 1780, the 10th Virginia Regiment was sent south to defend Charleston, South Carolina. Most of the regiment was captured during the Siege of Charleston. According to Coomes's Revolutionary War pension application, he lost a hand during that campaign.
Between 1777 and 1796, the Coomes family appears regularly in the tax records of Surry County, North Carolina, where their youngest daughters were born. Their son, Richard, dissatisfied with life in North Carolina, spent several years exploring the frontier before locating acquaintances of his father's from Maryland who had settled in Nelson County, Kentucky. By the late 1790s, Richard returned to North Carolina and brought his parents and sisters to Nelson County, where the family established a new home. Francis Ignatius Coomes died in 1822 at the remarkable age of ninety-six.
Francis Ignatius Coomes
occupies a unique place in our
family history because he is a
direct ancestor of Ferdinand
Hayden, Borgia (Higdon)
Hayden, and Vincent Wheeler.
Ferdinand Hayden and Borgia
(Higdon) Hayden are each
sixth-generation descendants
through Coomes's son,
Richard Raymond Coomes
(1768–1856). Vincent
Wheeler is also a sixth-
generation descendant,
but through Coomes's
daughter, Rachel Coomes
(1775–1847).
In addition, Vincent Wheeler descends from Francis Ignatius Coomes through a second ancestral line. Francis's brother, William Coomes (1736–1814), married Jane Greenleaf Coomes (1742–1826), who is remembered as Kentucky's first female teacher and for serving as a physician on the Kentucky frontier. William and Jane are also direct ancestors of Vincent Wheeler, making Vincent a descendant of the Coomes family through both Francis Ignatius Coomes and his brother William.
Children include: Richard Raymond, 1768-1856; Lydia, 1773- ; Anna, 1773-1847; Margaret, 1773-1847; Rachel, 1775-1847; Winifred, 1779-1868; Mary Elizabeth, 1785-1857.
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Interior of Harrod's Fort, built around
a active spring due to the critical importance of a reliable water source for survival, protection, and development in this frontier area.
Reproduction of Jane Coomes classroom.
Some of William and Jane Coomes' youngest descendants imagining a lesson in her 18th century classroom.
Short video of Jane Coomes provided by the Kentucky History Channel.
1928 post card reenactment depicting Jane Coomes and her students standing outside Fort Harrod classroom.
Frances Jane Coomes, 1745 to 1816
First to manufacture salt, teach school, and serve as physician
in what is now Kentucky
Ferdinand Hayden's great grandmother's great aunt
Borgia (Higdon) Hayden's great grandmother's great aunt
Vincent Wheeler's 3rd great grandmother
Jane Coomes is remembered as one of Kentucky's most remarkable pioneer women. Although she appears in many historical records under her husband's name, research suggests her maiden name may have been Greenleaf, though genealogists continue to debate this point. The name Frances appears primarily in formal records.
Her husband, William Coomes Jr. (1734–1824), is recognized as one of Kentucky's earliest Catholic settlers. In 1775, he traveled to Kentucky by flatboat on the Ohio River, and by 1776 the entire Coomes family had joined him. During the family's first permanent encampment at Drilling's Lick, near present-day Frankfort, Jane Coomes is traditionally credited with producing the first salt manufactured by a person of European descent in Kentucky, an accomplishment that was vital to the survival of early settlers.
After the family settled at Harrod's Station, later known as Fort Harrod, Jane became the community's first schoolteacher. The school operated approximately four months each year. Students learned from the New Testament and used simple wooden paddles inscribed with the alphabet and numbers. Instruction took place in a "blab school," where children memorized lessons by reciting them aloud in unison. The classroom featured a dirt floor, rough-hewn log benches, and a large fireplace. Because fresh air was believed to promote health and attentiveness, the walls were left without chinking. Jane reportedly taught throughout the years the Coomes family lived at Fort Harrod.
She is also traditionally recognized as Kentucky's first female physician. Although she received no formal medical education, she became widely respected as a frontier healer and surgeon. According to an article published in the Courier-Journal (Louisville) on June 15, 1906, she brought a supply of calomel, a mercury chloride compound commonly used as a purgative and fungicide, from Maryland. Because the medicine was costly and difficult to replace, she reportedly developed an alternative by boiling the bark of the white walnut into a thick syrup that could be formed into medicinal pills.
The same account describes her treating wounded
settlers during conflicts with Native Americans by
probing for and removing bullets when possible.
She is also credited with correcting a grandchild's
congenital clubfoot using hickory splints secured
with bandages that were changed every few days.
Although these accounts reflect frontier traditions
rather than modern medical practice, they illustrate
the confidence early settlers placed in her abilities.
Another frequently repeated story concerns a man from Virginia who sought Jane Coomes's help for a severe chronic ulcer on his leg. She warned him that the treatment would be extremely painful but believed it would cure the condition. Using a primitive operating table fashioned from a hewn timber, she immobilized the patient, built a protective barrier of clay around the wound, and applied an escharotic—a corrosive substance intended to destroy diseased tissue. According to the account, she then poured boiling lard over the affected area. Despite the pain involved, the treatment was said to have been successful.
After nine years at Fort Harrod, the Coomes family relocated to Nelson County, where they wished to live among the growing Catholic community. There they acquired several tracts of land, one of which they donated for the establishment of a Catholic church.
Jane Coomes occupies a unique place in Kentucky history. She is remembered as a pioneer homemaker, salt maker, teacher, healer, and community leader whose contributions helped shape the earliest years of the Commonwealth. Whether documented through contemporary records or preserved through generations of local tradition, her legacy remains one of the most remarkable among Kentucky's frontier women. Children include: William Jr., 1769-1844; Charles, d abt. 1843; Walter P., abt. 1758 - abt. 1844; Elizabeth "Betsy", abt 1760 - abt 1819; Enoch T., 1765-1828; John, 1778-1848; Nancy Ann, m 1789
Jane became kentucky's first teacher and is credited with being the first female physician.
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In 1775 dense forests covered all of what is now present day Kentucky. There were no roads. The only possible travel was to follow buffalo traces.
A living history demonstration of firearms usage at Old Fort Harrod State Park.
The outside stockade of Fort Harrod. It was the only fort in Kentucky that was not breached by Indians during its active years of service.
This map of Kentucke, drawn from actual observations, is inscribed with the most perfect respect, to the Honorable the Congress of the United States of America; and to His Excellcy. George Washington, late Commander in Chief of their Army. (1784)
Basilica of St. Joseph Proto Cathedral in Bardstown, KY. William Coomes donated 105 acres of land for Father Bedan to build the first church at this site.
William Coomes Sr., 1734 to 1824
Frontiersman, Virginia militia
Ferdinand Hayden's great grandmother's great uncle
Mary Borgia (Higdon) Hayden's great grandmother's great uncle
Vincent Wheeler's' 3rd great grandfather
William Coomes Sr, (1734-1824), his wife, Frances Jane ("Jane") Coomes, and their family rank among Kentucky's most significant pioneer settlers. Originally from Charles County, Maryland, the family later moved to Virginia, where they heard glowing reports of "Kain-tuck-ee" and decided to seek a new life on the western frontier.
They first established themselves near Dripping Spring (also known as Dripping Springs or Dripping Lick), close to present-day Frankfort, before settling at Harrod's Station, later known as Fort Harrod. Fort Harrod became the family's home during some of the most dangerous years of Kentucky's settlement. Although repeatedly threatened during the frontier conflicts of the Revolutionary era, the fort successfully resisted every attack and was never captured.
Life on Kentucky's frontier demanded extraordinary endurance. Most settlers lived in rough log cabins with dirt floors and shuttered windows, as glass was virtually unobtainable. Better homes featured puncheon floors fashioned from split logs roughly hewn with an axe. Imported clothing quickly wore out, forcing families to rely on buckskin garments or homespun cloth. Moccasins replaced leather shoes, and blankets served as coats during the winter months.
Household furnishings reflected the scarcity of manufactured goods. Stools substituted for chairs, while tables consisted of rough timber slabs supported by simple legs. Wooden bowls, trenchers, and platters were common, whereas metal utensils were prized possessions. Beds ranged from simple pallets on the floor to rope-supported wooden frames covered with bear or buffalo skins. Venison, buffalo, wild turkey, and other game supplied much of the settlers' diet, often accompanied by hominy, a corn preparation learned from Native Americans. Grain was laboriously ground by hand into meal for bread.
One of the best-known stories involving William Coomes was preserved by his son, Walter Coomes, who later recounted the incident to Kentucky historian Mann Butler. While clearing land near Shawnee Springs with several companions, William was left alone after the
others visited a nearby sugar camp. Soon afterward,
he observed a party of Native American warriors
approaching. Concealing himself behind the
trunk of a recently felled tree, he remained hidden
as the warriors passed without discovering him. After
they departed, he cautiously made his way toward
Harrod's Station until he encountered a rescue party.
According to Walter's recollection, William greeted
them with the jubilant exclamation, "They haven't killed me, by Jove! I'm safe!"
During the American Revolution, William Coomes served as a sergeant in Captain John Holder's Lincoln County, Virginia, militia. His service placed him among the frontier defenders responsible for protecting Kentucky's isolated settlements during one of the most dangerous periods of western expansion. Holder's company participated in the pursuit that rescued Jemima Boone, Frances Callaway, and Betsy Callaway following their capture by Shawnee warriors in July 1776. The militia also defended Boonesborough during its famous siege in 1778 and formed part of Kentucky's defensive system throughout the Revolutionary War. Some participated in George Rogers Clark Illinois campaign and fought in the Battle of Blue Licks. In that battle, despite correctly identifying a British-Native trap and advising the militia to wait for reinforcements, Daniel Boone's advice was ignored and proved to be the worst massacre in frontier history. Because William Coomes left no pension application or detailed service record, historians cannot determine with certainty every campaign in which he personally participated, although his militia service is well documented.
Following the Revolution, the Coomes family relocated to present-day Nelson County near Bardstown, joining Kentucky's growing Catholic community. Their property included a large cave that reportedly served as a place of refuge during periods of frontier danger. From their approximately 1,000-acre farm, William and Frances Jane donated 105 acres for the establishment of a Catholic church, now the Basilica of St. Joseph Proto Cathedral in Bardstown, KY.
The Coomes family helped establish a lasting Catholic presence in Kentucky while contributing to the settlement, education, health care, and defense of the frontier. William's military service and Jane's pioneering accomplishments as teacher, healer, and community leader have secured them a lasting place in Kentucky history. Although some aspects of their story derive from family tradition and later historical accounts, the surviving documentary evidence confirms that they were among the Commonwealth's most influential pioneer families. Children include: William Jr., 1769-1844; Charles, d. abt. 1843; Walter P., abt. 1758 - abt. 1844; Elizabeth "Betsy", abt 1760 - abt 1819; Enoch T., 1765-1828; John, 1778-1848; Nancy Ann, m 1789.
FORTUNATELY, THE INDIANS HAD NOT OBSERVED HIM, OWING TO THE THICK CANBRAKE AND UNDERGROWTH