Amos Wallace Coates (1834-1894)
Class of 2026 – Industrialist
Amos W. Coates, the founder of A. W. Coates & Co. Lock Lever Rake Works, was born in Marlborough (Marlboro) Township, Stark County, Ohio in 1834. His parents, Amos and Jane B. (Norris) Coates migrated to Stark County from Pennsylvania in 1823. Amos W. Coates was the seventh son of the twelve children of Amos and Jane. Amos completed a course of study at the Marlborough Academy at age 17, followed by two years learning stove plate and machine casting. He then formed a plow manufacturing partnership in Paris, Stark County, Ohio with his brother-in-law J. D. Arnold. In 1855 the company added hay rake manufacturing to its foundry and introduced what was believed to be the first sulky spring-tooth horse hay rake ever used in Stark County. Coates bought out the company in 1860, but sold it the next year and enlisted in the Fremont Body Guard, an elite, specially organized unit of Missouri Cavalry created in August 1861 to protect Maj. Gen. John C. Fremont, commander of the Union’s Western Department. After his discharge, Coates completed his law studies and was admitted to the bar. He also repurchased the Paris Foundry and Plow Works.
In September, 1864, Coates removed to Alliance, Ohio, and began building what would soon become his Coates Rake Works, facing the railroad tracks near the intersection of Prospect Street and Linden Avenue. In the spring of 1865, he abandoned his plow business and began the manufacture of what is known as the White hay rake. He soon invented his lock lever rake, which was patented in 1867. In the fall of 1867, large additions were made to the company’s buildings, with more the following year.
Coates made many useful inventions, and secured eight important patents– three on his lock-lever hay rake, one on a spring seat for the same, two on guarded scissors, one on a child’s pocket-knife, and one on a water elevator for wells and cisterns. At the Paris Exposition in 1878, the Coates lock lever rake received the only silver medal and diploma awarded to any horse rake separate from other foreign implements.
In the 1880s Coates experienced some financial difficulties, but he successfully reorganized the company as A. W. Coates & Co. in 1888. The reputation of the Coates lock lever hay and grain rake was so thoroughly established that it had sales in all parts of the United States as well as to Europe and South America. According to an 1892 biography, the grounds, buildings, and machinery of the company were valued at about $50,000; fifty men were employed, and from $80,000 to $100,000 worth of work was annually recorded, while the gross sales of the rake alone had exceeded $1,000,000.
In 1875 Coates was the Republican candidate for the 21st District of the Ohio Senate, and he came within 48 votes of winning. In 1877, at a cost of $20,000, he erected the Coates Block on the NW corner of Linden Avenue and Main Street. Coates served as a member of the Alliance City Council, and for a time was proprietor of the Independent Age, a journal published in the interest of literature, news and religion. He was an active member of the Presbyterian Church, teaching Sunday school for 25 years. He was connected with many lodges, including the Masons, Knights Templar (York Rite of Freemasonry), Royal Arch Masons, Independent Order of Good Templars, Knights of Pythias, Knights of the Maccabees, Odd Fellows, Order of United American Mechanics, Knights of Honor, and Royal Arcanum.
Amos W. Coates married Ada F. Freer of Paris in 1859. They had nine children: Horace Lucian (1860-1864); Hallam Freer (1864-1920); Horatio Henry (1866-1880); Harlan N. (1869-?); Ida May (1870-1947); Nellie L. (1872-1960); Hartwell Wallace (1874-1932); Hayes Kersey (1876-1940); and Effie Frances (1879-1960). Amos W. Coates died suddenly while working at his desk in 1894, and his wife Ada died in 1903; they are buried in Alliance City Cemetery.
[Sources: PBRSC, Perrin, Obit, 1868 McKee]