Charles Carleton Coffin | Page 2

indignation.
Scorn of wrong snapped in them. Before hypocrisy or oppression his
glances were as mimic lightning.
We loved to hear that voice. If one that is low is "an excellent thing in
woman," one that is rich and deep is becoming to a man. Mr. Coffin's
tones were sweet to the ear, persuasive, inspiring. His voice moved
men, his acts more.
His was a manly form. Broad-footed and full-boned, he stood nearly
six feet high. He was alert, dignified, easily accessible, and responsive
even to children. With him, acquaintanceship was quickly made, and
friendship long preserved. Those who knew Charles Carleton Coffin
respected, honored, loved him. His memory, in the perspective of time,

is as our remembrance of his native New Hampshire hills, rugged,
sublime, tonic in atmosphere, seat of perpetual beauty. So was he, a
moral invigorant, the stimulator to noble action, the centre of spiritual
charm.
Who was he, and what did he do that he should have his life-story told?
First of all, he was the noblest work of God, an honest man. Nothing
higher than this. The New Hampshire country boy rose to one of the
high places in the fourth estate. He became editor of one of Boston's
leading daily newspapers. On the battle-field he saw the movements of
the mightiest armies and navies ever gathered for combat. As a white
lily among war correspondents, he was ever trusted. He not only
informed, but he kept in cheer all New England during four years of
strain. With his pen he made himself a master of English style. He was
a poet, a musician, a traveller, a statesman, and, best of all and always,
a Christian. He travelled around the globe, and then told the world's
story of liberty and of the war that crushed slavery and state
sovereignty and consolidated the Union. With his books he has
educated a generation of American boys and girls in patriotism. He
died without entering into old age, for he was always ready to entertain
a new idea. Let us glance at his name and inheritance. He was well
named, and ever appreciated his heritage. In his Christian, middle, and
family name, is a suggestion. In each lies a story.
"Charles," as we say, is the Norman form of the old Teutonic Carl,
meaning strong, valiant, commanding. The Hungarians named a king
Carl.
"Carleton" is the ton or town of Carl or Charles.
"Coffin" in old English meant a cask, chest, casket, box of any kind.
The Latin Cophinum was usually a basket. When Wickliffe translated
the Gospel, he rendered the verse at Matt. xiv. 20, "They took up of that
which remained over of the broken pieces, twelve coffins full."
The name as a family name is still found in England, but all the Coffins

in America are descended from Tristram Coffin, who sailed from
Plymouth, England, in 1642, and in 1660 settled in Nantucket. The
most ancient seat of the name and family of the Coffins in England is
Portledge, in the parish of Alwington. To his house, and last earthly
home, in Brookline, Mass., built under his own eye, and in which
Charles Carleton Coffin died, he gave the name of Alwington.
"Carleton's" grandfather, Peter Coffin, married Rebecca Hazeltine, of
Chester, N. H., whose ancestors had come from England to Salem,
Mass., in 1637, and settled at Bradford. Carleton has told something of
his ancestry and kin in his "History of Boscawen." In his later years, in
the eighties of this century, at the repeated and urgent request of his
wife, Carleton wrote out, or, rather, jotted down, some notes for the
story of the earlier portion of his life. He was to have written a
volume--had his wife succeeded, after due perseverance, in overcoming
his modesty--entitled "Recollections of Seventy Years." To this, we,
also, that is, the biographer and others, often urged him. It was not to
be.
Excepting, then, these hastily jotted notes, Mr. Coffin never indicated,
gave directions, or prepared materials for his biography. To the story of
his life, as gathered from his own rough notes, intended for
after-reference and elaboration, let us at once proceed, without further
introduction.
CHAPTER II.
OF REVOLUTIONARY SIRES.
The Coffins of America are descended from Tristram Coffin of
England and Nantucket. Charles Carleton Coffin was born of
Revolutionary sires. He first saw light in the southwest corner room of
a house which stood on Water Street, in Boscawen, N. H., which his
grandfather, Captain Peter Coffin, had built in 1766.
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