Early Years Coleman was born into slavery early in the 1830s, probably in North Carolina. The names of his parents are not known. He grew up on a Person County farm owned by William Bailey, who later sold him to Joseph Pointer, another county farmer who owned sixty-seven slaves in 1860 and who may have brought him to Virginia. Coleman learned to read but not to write. He was married, probably by 1858, to a woman named Amanda, a Tennessee native, born about 1839, whose maiden name is not recorded. They had at least one son. It is not known when or under what circumstances Coleman secured his freedom nor when he came to Virginia. His name first appears in the Halifax County tax records in 1869, and by the next year he was working as a carpenter. In June 1872 he bought at public auction 150 acres of land, for which he paid $982.50. The county court approved the deed and conveyed it to him in March 1875.