Henry A. Coffeen

Henry Asa Coffeen was born near Gallipolis, Gallia County, Ohio, February 14, 1841; moved with his parents to Indiana, then to Homer, Champaign County, Illinois, in 1853; attended the country schools and Abingdon College (afterwards consolidated with Eureka College), Illinois; while in Illinois he was engaged in the newspaper business; a member of the faculty of Hiram College, Ohio; while pursuing educational work, became a lyceum lecturer: moved to Wyoming in 1884, and was one of the pioneer settlers in the northern part of the State; in the mercantile business at Big Horn but later moved to Sheridan; delegate from Wyoming to the World's Fair Congress of Bankers and Financiers at Chicago in June 1893; was a Democratic delegate to the State Constitutional Convention 1889; elected to the House of Representatives of the Fifty-third Congress, serving from March 4, 1893, until March 3, 1895; unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1894; while in Congress, he made a speech on August 15, 1894 , in behalf of the reclamation of the arid lands of the west, endorsing some of the ideas incorporated into the Carey Act of that year; engaged in literary pursuits until his death, which occurred in Sheridan, Wyoming December 8, 1912; interment the Sheridan Cemetery.