Reuben Coles (1800 - 1870)

Refresh this page to see various historical events that occurred during Reuben's lifetime.

In 1800, in the year that Reuben Coles was born, on August 30th, educated blacksmith Gabriel Prosser organized a slave revolt. He wanted to capture Richmond and kill all whites - excluding Methodists, Quakers, Frenchmen, and the poor - and become king of a new black nation. The revolt failed, he was captured and hung. Slave laws were tightened in Virginia.

In 1816, by the time he was 16 years old, in July, Lord Byron, Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, Percy Bysshe Shelley and John Polidori were vacationing in Switzerland, talking about the occult. They challenged each other to write the best horror story they could. Mary (Godwin) Shelley wrote "Frankenstein" - which came to her in a dream. Polidori wrote the short story The Vampyre.

In 1842, he was 42 years old when in January, William E. Clarke - a medical student at Berkshire Medical College - became the first person to use an inhaled anesthetic. He administered the anesthetic to pull a tooth.

In 1868, at the age of 68 years old, Reuben was alive when on July 9th, The Fourteenth Amendment to the US Constitution was ratified. The Fourteenth Amendment guaranteed African Americans full citizenship and equal protection under the law. It also gave all persons in the United States due process of law. The former Confederate states hotly contested the amendment but were forced to go along so that they could regain representation in Congress

In 1870, in the year of Reuben Coles's passing, on March 31st, Thomas Mundy Peterson was the first African-American male who voted in an election - a local election about the town charter. Peterson, a school principal, was also the first to hold elected office and the first to sit on a jury.