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Submitted by Cheryl VanWormer 



			ALCINOUS Y. AND CHARLOTTE F. (COVILLE) SESSIONS

	Alcinous Y. Sessions is of Welsh extraction; his ancestors were early settlers in New 
England.  His father, Nathaniel Sessions, was born in Connecticut, Aug. 20, 1790, served in the 
war of 1812, and removed to Onondaga Co., N. Y., at the age of twenty-five.  The 4th of November 
of the following year (1816) he was married to Miss Chloe Thompson, a native of Onondaga County.
In 1822, Mr. Sessions removed to the town of Harmony, Chatauqua Co., N. Y., where the subject of 
our sketch was born, Feb. 15, 1833.  When Alcinous was four years of age his father, with his 
family, removed to Ionia Co., Mich., settling in North Plains, being one of the first settlers in
the township, cutting his own road through the timber and locating on the farm where he died, 
March 15, 1880, Mrs. Sessions having died the 14th of November of the previous years.  Mr. 
Sessions was a man of strict integrity, determination, energy, and marked character, of 
pronounced temperance principles, zealous in the cause, and one of the original Abolitionists.  
To Mr. and Mrs. Sessions were born seventeen children.
	Mr. A. Y. Sessions remained at home assisting on the farm and attending the district 
schools, where he received such instruction as they afforded, until he was nineteen years of age,
when he commenced the battle of life for himself.  He worked out until he was twenty-four years 
of age, meanwhile purchasing eighty acres of wild land, on which he now resides, and to which he 
has added two hundred and forty acres, making three hundred and twenty acres in his present farm,
which is in a high state of cultivation, very productive, and highly improved.  A view of his 
farm and residence is given on another page.
	Mr. Sessions was married, Feb. 22, 1857, to Charlotte F. Coville, of Bloomer township, 
Montcalm Co., a native of Lapeer Co., Mich.  Her parents were both from the State of New York.  
Mr. and Mrs. Sessions are the parents of five children,--viz., Ida J., born Aug. 9, 1858, married
David C. Cagwin, Sept. 2, 1878, and died December 24th of the same year; Mary Alvina, born March 
23, 1860, married Oliver N. Ely, June 12, 1879, living in North Plains; Herbert Alcinous, born 
June 21, 1862; Flora Bell, born Feb. 18, 1869; and Cora Adell, born Nov. 9, 1870.
	George Coville, the father of Mrs. Sessions, was born in Oswego Co., N. Y., March 24, 
1813, and removed to Detroit, Mich., in 1823.  When twenty-four years of age he married Miss 
Hannah Wood, by whom he had three children, the eldest becoming the wife of Mr. A. Y. Sessions.  
In August, 1843, Mrs. Coville died, and in May, 1844, Mr. Coville married as his second wife Mrs.
Julia Ann Ransom, by whom he had four children.  In 1853, Mr. Coville moved to Bloomer township,
Montcalm Co., and died Dec. 2, 1863.



This biography is taken from "HISTORY OF IONIA AND MONTCALM COUNTIES, MICHIGAN" 
by John S. Schenck. Philadelphia:  D. W. Ensign & Co., 1881.  Pages 276-277.  North Plains.