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A Granddaughter's Memories of Allen Coffin BY ISABEL WORTH DUFFY
"ALLEN COFFIN was born at Nantucket Island, July 8, 1836, and is in the seventh generation from Tristram Coffin, the first settler of that name in America. Descended from a long line of Quaker ancestors he yet adheres to the religious tenets most commonly accepted by the liberal Society of Friends. He received the education afforded by the public grammar school, and at the age of thirteen entered the Inquirer printing office where he remained about a year, and subsequently completed his appren ticeship in the office of the Mirror. He worked at the printing trade in New Bedford and Boston, and for a time was a local reporter on the New Bedford Mercury. "Before the war of the rebellion Mr. Coffin published and edited, as a partner with Wm. Breed Drake, the Bay State Chron icle, at Milford, Mass. After the war and during the reconstruc tion of the rebel States he resided temporarily at Charleston. S. C., and became editor of the South Carolina Leader, the first newspaper published in the South that advocated the enfranchise ment of the freedmen, and the only paper that opposed the recon struction policy of President Johnson. "In 1866, while a member of the Boston Printers' Union, Mr. Coffin was nominated by the workingmen for Mayor of Boston, which nomination he declined as inexpedient. He had, however, previously presided at the workingmen's convention that nominated Wendell Phillips for Congress the same year, and also at the Faneuil Hall Labor Reform gathering which ratified the nomination of Gen. P. R. Guiney for Congress. "On the retirement on account of illness of his former partner, Mr. Drake, from the editorial chair of the Meadville, Pa., Daily Republican, Mr. Coffin was induced to accept that position and removed to Meadville. Here he took an active part in politics both with his pen and upon the stump; and, on the election of Gen. Grant to the Presidency, obtained employment in the Government Printing Office at Washington where he con tinued as a proof-reader for about ten years, until failing health compelled him to resign, and he then returned to his native town and has been a citizen of Massachusetts for the last twenty years. "While a resident of Washington City during the organiza tion of the District Government, Mr. Coffin was recording secre tary of the General Republican Committee of the District of Columbia, and an active agitator against the so-called 'District Ring'. He also championed and pleaded to a successful issue the
