From the Cedar County, Iowa Atlas, 1902.
Another oddly named Iowan discovered in these past few months is Coello Orland Boling, a transplant to that state from Holmes County, Ohio. While little information could be located on Mr. Boling, his political qualifications (that of Prosecuting Attorney for Cedar County, Iowa) and his being an alternate delegate to the 1908 Republican National Convention, more than earn him a place here.
Born in Holmes County, Ohio on August 28, 1867, Coello Orland Boling was the son of John and Harriet (Hoyman) Boling. At the age of two, he relocated to Cedar County, Iowa with his family and during his youth resided on a farm and attended school in the town of Stanwood. He would go on to study at the Cornell College in Mt. Vernon, Iowa and later studied law at the Northwestern University in Illinois, graduating in 1893. Two years following his graduation, he entered into a partnership with Robert Gordon Cousins in Tipton, Iowa. A prominent figure in his own right, Cousins (1859-1933) was a former Iowa state representative and in 1893 was elected to the first of eight terms in Congress from Iowa's 5th congressional district.
Coello Boling began his political career in 1896 when he was elected as Prosecuting Attorney for Cedar County, and served in that post from 1897-1902. He married in June 1904 to Tipton native Mary MacNamara (1866-1944), who survived him upon his death in 1934. The couple would have two daughters, Mary Katherine and a daughter who died in infancy.
In the years following his time as county prosecuting attorney, Boling served Tipton as its city solicitor for eight years and in 1908 was an alternate delegate to the Republican National Convention in Denver that saw William Howard Taft nominated for the presidency. A former chairman of the Cedar County Red Cross chapter during WWI, Boling continued to practice law until a week prior to his death on June 20, 1934, at age 66. He was later interred at the Masonic Cemetery in Tipton.
From the Muscatine Journal and News-Review, June 21, 1934.
Portrait courtesy of Find-a-Grave.
Even more obscure than the preceding gentleman, Coello Merriman had fleeting involvement in the political life of his adopted home state of Minnesota, being elected to that state's house of representatives in the late 1870s. A son of Hyra and Lucinda (Marsh) Merriman, Coello Merriman was born in Friendship, Allegheny County, New York on December 2, 1846. His birth year is also variously given as 1848 and 1849. Little is known of his early life or education in New York, and by 1866 had relocated to Minnesota.
A resident of Hennepin County early in his Minnesota residency, Merriman engaged in the insurance and real estate business and married on New Year's Eve 1871 to Julia Tomlinson (1848-1909). The couple's near four-decade marriage saw the births of several children, Clara Belle (1872-), Hyra L. (1875-1941), Sophronia "Frona" (1879-1972), Josephine Estelle (1882-), and Ralph Coello (1884-1921).
By 1876 Coello Merriman was residing in Carver County and in that year was elected as a Democrat to the Minnesota House of Representatives. Serving in the session of 1877-78, Merriman's (whose first name is misspelled as Coellos in several legislative documents from the period) time as a state representative proved to be quiet, with notice given as to his introducing one bill "to provide for reduction in salary of judge of probate in Carver County" and serving on the committee on Public Buildings.
Following his legislative service, Merriman was a resident of Watertown, Michigan in Sanilac County, where he is recorded as a druggist. The remainder of Merriman's life is equally as obscure, with little information available as to what he may have been up to in the years prior to his death. Widowed in 1909, Merriman spent the twilight of his life in Rooks County, Kansas, where he died November 3, 1937, his age being variously given as either 91 or 88. He was subsequently interred at the Woodson Cemetery in Rooks County.
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