My great, great,great,great,great grandparents were Peter and Susannah (Matthews) Coffee. They are the progenitors of the Coffee family in America and in the South in particular. Peter Coffee, a Scots-Irish Ulsterman from northern Ireland, left Liverpool England and arrived in Portsmouth Virginia in 1730 on the English prison galley "HMS Forward." Upon arrival, Peter Coffee spent four years in the Potomac Prison before being released as an endentured laborer on the Matthews tobacco plantation in Price Edward County Virginia. He married Susannah Matthews, the daughter of the landowner, in 1740 and raised eleven children in that area of Virginia. Peter and Susannah inherited the tobacco plantation and both are buried somewhere on the land. Peter died in 1774 and Susannah died about 1785. Peter's son, William Coffee, and my g.g.g.g. grandfather, enlisted in Capt. Samuel Jordan Cabell's Amhearst County 7th Rifle Company, Lt.Col.James Hendricks 6th Virginia Regiment of Foot, Congressional Forces, Continental Line. In the spring of 1776, the 6th Regiment of Foot assembled and trained near Williamsburg Virginia. In July 1777, Capt. Cabell's 7th Rifle Company was attached to Col. Daniel Morgan's Rifle Regiment of sharpshooters and saw action at the battle of Saratoga, NY.

The "Prince Edward Tobacco Company" started in Prince Edward County Virginia.