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Nantucket's Curious Coffins

© Dina Ely

If you visit Nantucket, you can't help but notice the name "Coffin" all over the island. The Coffin family is one of the oldest and most influential families on the island.

The Nantucket Coffins began with Tristram Coffin, who hailed form Devon, England. Tristram relocated to America in 1642, and purchased part of Nantucket in 1659. At one time his family owned a quarter of the entire island! Tristram Coffin was regarded as many as the "patriarch" of the island.

Tristram's brood was strong and proud, and they in turn produced a generation of Coffins equally noteworthy. And thus it has been, for centuries, that the Coffins have been people of note, from judges to ship captains, scientists to activists. The name thrives on the island to this day. (In fact, if you plan to travel to Nantucket, why not contact Bernie and Carol Coffin*, realtors who deal both in homes and rentals. They have a site at www.CoffinRealEstate.com.

Well-Known Coffins

· Lucretia Mott Coffin was born in 1793, on Nantucket Island. She is quite well known for her tireless activism. She believed strongly in the causes of moral reform, advancement of the working classes, and the abolishment of slavery.

· Captain Seth Coffin was born in 1753, also on Nantucket. He was a whaleboat captain. Whaling was a dangerous line of work. When Seth's leg was crushed and pinned during an accident at sea, he directed his first mate through the process of amputating the limb.

· Professor James Henry Coffin, born in Massachusetts in 1806, had work published by the Smithsonian Institute. He made great contributions in several scientific fields, such as astronomy.

· Jared Coffin was a prominent ship owner who, in 1845, built the island's first three-story mansion. Little could he know, as he was building his stately home, that the decision to build its walls of brick would be momentous in Nantucket's history. During the devastating "Great Fire" of 1846, a fire swept through the center of Nantucket. Only the Jared Coffin house's brick walls resisted the fire, and prevented its further spread.

Presently the Jared Coffin House is an inn, with a popular restaurant called JARED'S, and a cozy pub called The Tap Room. You can find it on Broad Street.

· Admiral Sir Isaac Coffin, a champion of educational reform, built The Coffin School on Nantucket in 1827. The school flourished until the late 19th century, when enrollment had dwindled so that the school was forced to close in 1898. It was re-opened in 1903 to offer public school students courses in artistry such as woodwork, metalwork, basket-weaving, and more. The school still stands as an historic site, on Winter Street.