Joshua Coffin

Coffin was born to Joseph and Judith (née Toppan) Coffin in Newbury, Massachusetts October 12, 1792[1][2] in the Coffin House.[2] He graduated at Dartmouth College in 1817, and taught school for many years, numbering among his pupils the poet John Greenleaf Whittier, who addressed to him a poem entitled "To My Old School-Master".

Coffin was ardent in the cause of emancipation, and was one of the co-founders of the New England Anti-Slavery Society in 1832, being its first recording secretary.[1] From 1834 to 1837, Coffin was the manager of the American Anti-Slavery Society.[1]

He published The History of Ancient Newbury (Boston, 1845), genealogies of the Woodman, Little, and Toppan families, and magazine articles. As an adult, Coffin lived for a time in the downstairs southwest room of the Coffin House, his ancestral home; in a tiny study housed within an ell of the house, Joshua wrote his History of Ancient Newbury.

On December 2, 1817, Coffin married his first wife Clarissa Dutch of Exeter, New Hampshire.[2] They had two children together: Sarah Bartlett (born Nov. 21, 1818) and Lucia Tappan (born Sept. 6, 1820).[2] His first wife passed away in 1821.

On April 20, 1835, Coffin married his second wife Mrs. Anna Wiley Chase, of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.[2] They had three children together: Elizabeth Wiley (born Jan. 26, 1836), Anna Lapsley (born July 17, 1838), and Mary Hale (born Dec. 29, 1840).[2] Their three children were born in Philadelphia.[2]

Coffin died on June 24, 1864, in Newbury, Massachusetts[2] and is buried at the Newbury First Parish Burying Ground.

• Coffin, Joshua (1845). A Sketch of the History of Newbury, Newburyport, and West Newbury from 1635 to 1845.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Coffin, Joshua (1860). An Account of Some of the Principal Slave Insurrections.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)

Attribution:

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Wilson, J. G.; Fiske, J., eds. (1891). Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography. New York: D. Appleton. Missing or empty |title= (help)

• Works by Joshua Coffin at Project Gutenberg
• Works by or about Joshua Coffin at Internet Archive
• Transcription of a letter by Coffin to Lydia Maria Child