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JAMES MCCOY was born July 25, 1791, in Nicholas county, Kentucky. He was a soldier in the War of 1812, from Kentucky, in the dragoons under Colonel Dick Johnson, and was in the battle where Tecumseh was killed. He returned to Kentucky, and was married in Nicholas county, September 15, 1814, to Jane Murphy. They moved to Sangamon county, Illinois, arriving in the fall of 1818, on Horse Creek, in what is now Cotton Hill township. Mr. McCoy and Levi W. Goodan owned a wagon together, and each had a horse, a wife and two children, and both families moved from Kentucky in that wagon together. Their wives were two of the six women who came to Sangamon county that year, the wife of the two Drennans, Joseph Dodds, and Mr. Vancil being the other four. Mr. and Mrs. McCoy had twins there. One of them died in infancy. In the spring of 1819, they moved to what is now Rochester township.
James McCoy died March 25, 1844, and Mrs. Jane McCoy died January 22, 1852, both on the farm where they settled in 1819, adjoining Rochester on the east.
James McCoy bought the first full sack of salt ever sold in Springfield. He paid for it in coon skins. Salt was brought in sacks of about four bushels. His brother, Joseph E., says that he assisted in catching the coons, and it took all winter to procure enough to buy that sack of salt. This occurred in 1821 or 1822.