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Israel Coe was born on December 14, 1794 at Goshen, Connecticut, United States. He was the eldest son of Abijah, a blacksmith, and Sibyl (Baldwin) Coe, and a descendant in the eighth generation from Robert Coe, Puritan, who came to America in 1634, and settled with the first colony at Wethersfield, Connecticut, in 1635.
Israel received an education in the district school at Winsted, Connecticut and spent two additional years from 1811 to 1812 at Winsted Academy.
In 1813 Israel Coe made his first venture in business as a clerk in the office of the Torrington Cotton Factory. When this firm failed, the new proprietors, Wadham & Thompson, made Coe their resident manager in charge of the factory. In this position Coe became rather prominent in the affairs of the town and served as constable and collector.
Wadham & Thompson failed in 1821, and Coe moved to Water- bury, Connecticut, where he kept a public-house and took an active part in local politics, representing Waterbury in the Connecticut House in 1824 and 1825. In this latter year he also made his first connection with the brass industry as a bookkeeper in the firm of “A. [Aaron] Benedict, ” manufacturer of gilt buttons. In 1829 he purchased the interest of one of the partners, and a new partnership was formed under the name of Benedict & Coe, with a capital of $20, 000. This partnership expired in 1834, and Coe withdrew to organize a business under his own name, with Anson Phelps, John Hungerford, and Israel Holmes as partners.
The firm was soon called the Wolcottville Brass Company. They made the brass-ware by the “battery” process. In this process kettles were hammered into shape by repeated blows of a triphammer under which the workman held the cast brass blank in a concave anvil. Many pieces were spoiled by cracking, and after workmen brought from England by Holmes proved no better than the native workers, Coe decided that the trouble lay in the metal used. He accordingly, in 1842, visited the two European establishments using this process and obtained the proper mixtures and annealing methods. Applying this information to the battery process he made it the most satisfactory method of manufacture until it was superseded by the spinning process in 1851.
In 1843 Coe again entered politics and represented the Wolcottville district in the Connecticut Senate. In 1845 he sold his interest in the brass business and moved to Detroit where he engaged in banking and the lumber business. While in Detroit (1850) he was instrumental in interesting Waterbury manufacturers in the establishment of a copper smelter there. To this end the Waterbury & Detroit Copper Company was formed. In 1853 Coe moved to New York where he engaged in other business and lost his fortune. He then in 1867 went to live in Bloomfield, New Jersey, where he remained twenty years, serving most of that time as a justice of the peace and commissioner of deeds for Essex County. About 1887 he returned to Waterbury, Connecticut, where he died at the age of ninety-seven.
Israel Cow was known as the founder of Wolcottville Brass Company. It was one of the earliest companies to roll brass for its own use and for sale. It was also the first in the country to make brass-ware by the “battery” process. He was also noted for building the first smelter to handle copper from the Lake Superior mines.
On September 17, 1817, Coe married Nancy Wetmore, daughter of Ebenezer and Elizabeth (Miller) Wetmore of Torrington. His first wife by whom he had seven children, died on August 30, 1838, and on October 16, 1839, he married Huldah DeForest.
