The Loyalists of Massachusetts and the Other Side of the American RevolutionStark, James Henry
History
The Loyalists of Massachusetts and the Other Side of the American Revolution
Stark, James Henry
American loyalists -- Massachusetts; Massachusetts -- Politics and government -- 1775-1783
SIR THOMAS ASTON COFFIN, Baronet, son of William, Jr., was born at
Boston, March 31, 1754. He graduated at Harvard College in 1772. He was
for a long time Secretary to Sir Guy Carleton, by whose side he sat in
the last boat which left Castle Garden on the evacuation of New York,
25th Nov., 1783. When Sir Guy Carleton became Lord Dorchester and
Governor of Quebec, 1784, Coffin accompanied him and by his influence
was appointed in 1804 Secretary and Comptroller of Accounts of Lower
Canada. At another part of his life he was Commissary General in the
British Army. He went to England and died in London in 1810, very
wealthy. He was grandfather to Mrs. Bolton, wife of Col. Bolton, R. A.,
who took an active part in the Red River Expedition of 1870.
WILLIAM COFFIN, the second son of William Coffin, Jr., was born in
Boston, 1758, and died at Kingston, Canada, in 1804.
EBENEZER COFFIN, the third son of William Coffin, Jr., was born at
Boston, 1763, went to South Carolina where he acquired property as a
merchant and planter and was the father of Thomas Aston Coffin of
Charleston, South Carolina, whose descendants, with an hereditary
instinct, distinguished themselves by their chivalrous devotion to a
failing cause in the late Confederate war.
NATHANIEL COFFIN, second eldest son of William, was born in Boston in
1725, graduated at Harvard College in 1744, received in 1750 an honorary
degree at Yale. Brought up a merchant, he was early appointed King's
Cashier of the Customs and acquired considerable property. He resided on
the corner of Essex and Rainsford Lane, now Harrison avenue. The tide
washed up to the garden wall. Near by in front, on what is now called
Washington street, was the "Liberty Tree," where Captain Mackintosh and
his "chickens," met to plan outrages upon loyal citizens.
In August, 1767, a flagstaff was erected which went through and above it
highest branches. A flag hoisted on this was the notice for the
assembling of the "Sons of Liberty" for action. In 1775, his son
Nathaniel, and his friends cut it down, much to the disgust of
Mackintosh who was known as the "First Captain General of Liberty Tree."
On the building occupying its site is a stone bas-relief of the tree
with an inscription on it. Nathaniel Coffin held one of the most
lucrative positions under the crown, his acquaintances and friends were
naturally among the government officials and the better class of the
community. He had much to lose if he severed from his fealty to the
mother country and, banishment and confiscation would be the penalty, if
the disunionists succeeded.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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