Young Coffroth made of himself a fine exemplification of the truly self-made man in the best sense of that oft-abused term. Early thrown upon his own resources, he entered upon and waged the battle of life in such masterly fashion as to not only provide himself an ample equipment for the large duties which were to devolve upon him, but to also develop to their fullest his fine natural gifts of soul and intellect. He attended the common schools, and out of the fruits of his own labors defrayed the expenses of a more liberal education in the old Somerset Academy. For a time he served efficiently as a school teacher, and with the means thus earned supported himself while preparing for his chosen profession, the law. It was his great good fortune to attract the interest and friend ship of the distinguished Jeremiah S. Black, in whose office and under whose preceptorship he read industriously for some years, meantime and for five years, beginning at the age of eighteen, serving as editor of the Somerset Visitor, a Demo cratic journal of no inconsiderable circulation and in?uence.