Charles Carleton Coffin: War Correspondent, Traveller, Author, and Statesman — John Shaqi
Charles Carleton Coffin: War Correspondent, Traveller, Author, and StatesmanGriffis, William Elliot
History
Charles Carleton Coffin: War Correspondent, Traveller, Author, and Statesman
Griffis, William Elliot
Coffin, Charles Carleton, 1823-1896
This ancestor, "an energetic, plucky, good-natured, genial man,"
married Rebecca Hazeltine, of Chester, N. H. When the frame of the
house was up and the corner room partitioned off, the bride and groom
began housekeeping. Her wedding outfit was a feather bed, a
frying-pan, a dinner-pot, and some wooden and pewter plates. She was
just the kind of a woman to be the mother of patriots and to make the
Revolution a success. The couple had been married nine years, when the
news of the marching of the British upon Lexington reached Boscawen,
on the afternoon of the 20th of April, 1775. Captain Coffin mounted
his horse and rode to Exeter, to take part in the Provincial Assembly,
which gathered the next day. Two years later, he served in the
campaign against Burgoyne. When the militia was called to march to
Bennington, in July, 1777, one soldier could not go because he had no
shirt. Mrs. Coffin had a web of tow cloth in the loom. She at once cut
out the woven part, sat up all night, and made the required garment,
so that he could take his place in the ranks the next morning. One
month after the making of this shirt, the father of Charles Carleton
Coffin was born, July 15.
When the news of Stark's victory at Bennington came, the call was for
every able-bodied man to turn out, in order to defeat Burgoyne. Every
well man went, including Carleton's two grandfathers, Captain Peter
Coffin, who had been out in June, though not in Stark's command, and
Eliphalet Kilborn. The women and children were left to gather in the
crops. The wheat was ripe for the sickle, but there was not a man or
boy to cut it. With her baby, one month old, in her arms, Mrs. Peter
Coffin mounted the horse, leaving her other children in care of the
oldest, who was but seven years old. The heroine made her way six
miles through the woods, fording Black Water River to the log cabin of
Enoch Little, on Little Hill, in the present town of Webster. Here
were several sons, but the two eldest had gone to Bennington. Enoch,
Jr., fourteen years old, could be spared to reap the ripened grain,
but he was without shoes, coat, or hat, and his trousers of tow cloth
were out at the knee.
"Enoch can go and help you, but he has no coat," said Mrs. Little.
"I can make him a coat," said Mrs. Coffin.
The boy sprang on the horse behind the heroic woman, who, between the
baby and the boy, rode upon the horse back to the farm. Enoch took the
sickle and went to the wheat field, while Mrs. Coffin made him a coat.
She had no cloth, but taking a meal-bag, she cut a hole in the bottom
for his head, and two other holes for his arms. Then cutting off the
legs of a pair of her stockings, she sewed them on for sleeves, thus
completing the garment. Going into the wheat field, she laid her
baby, the father of Charles Carleton Coffin, in the shade of a tree,
and bound up the cut grain into sheaves.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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