No. 15 Malinda McKnight

Malinda McKnight was my great-great grandmother. She was born on 15 April 1836 in Rock Valley Community, Jefferson County, Tennessee. We know very little about her. She married Lafayette Coile, a neighbor boy, in 1855. By our standards they were both kids still. Lafayette was 16 years old and Malinda was 18 years old. The Coiles and the McKnights were neighbors, living just down the road from one another. Malinda was the eleventh and last child of Thomas and Abigail Frazier McKnight. As the wife of a gristmiller she may have helped in the mill extensively. We know that her first child, my great grandmother Matilda Elizabeth Coile, was born before the Civil War began.

Matilda Elizabeth Coile was born about 1859 in Jefferson Co., TN

James Thomas Alexander Coile was born 8 September 1860 in Jefferson Co., TN

Robert Hudsell Coile was born about 1874 in Jefferson Co., TN

Both Malinda and Lafayette died young. Records indicate that he was still alive in 1880. In August 1889 the family executed a will distributing the inheritance between the children. We don't know which of the two died first. If Malinda survived Lafayette she wouldn't have been more than 53 years old at the time of her death. She, along with her husband are buried in the Vance Cemetery. Their nephew Wesley, son of William Shannon Coile, had married a Vance.