Ancestors for Lucretia Coffin Mott

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By Robert J. Leach

LUCRETIA COFFIN MOTT may be the most famous of famous people born on Nantucket. She was born in 1793, the second daughter of Thomas Coffin (1761-1815) and his wife Anna (Folger) Coffin (1771-1844). The family migrated to New York State, where in time Lucretia married James Mott and moved to Philadelphia. At the time of the Orthodox-Hicksite separation within the Society of Friends the Motts chose the Hicksite branch. After that same separation struck Nantucket in 1831 the Motts made several visits to Nantucket, when she preached in the Hicksite Meeting House on Main Street which stood on the present site of the White Eagle guest house.

Who were Lucretia's ancestors? There are many evidences that she was a gifted speaker, as well as an ardent Anti-Slavery and Women's Rights advocate, in part, because of her inheritance. Nantucket is said to have been run by women, when the men were away whaling. It is interesting to note if any of Lucretia's ancestors were notable as teachers, preachers or moral advocates. The answer is obviously in the affirmative. But, exactly, who were they?

First her parental grandparents come to view. Grandfather Benjamin Coffin (1705-1780) was the keeper of a famous Quaker school from about 1730 to 1777. In addition, he was the first banker on the Island. Benjamin was an elder in Meeting, its Clerk for many years, and father of fifteen children, of whom Thomas was the fourteenth. Lucretia never knew him, but she probably did know her maternal grandmother, Deborah (Macy) Coffin (1726-?), who apparently accompanied her oldest son, Isaac to Nova Scotia, after the Revolutionary War, hence the uncertainty of her date of death.

Grandfather Benjamin's parents were Captain Nathaniel Coffin (1671-1721), not a Friend, who ran a coastal vessel and Damaris (Gayer) Coffin (1675-1764), Quaker and inheritor of a third of the Gayer fortune, literate in the Latin Classics, which enjoyment she passed to Lucretia's Grandfather. Benjamin's Grandfather was Magistrate James Coffin (1640-1720). Benjamin's Grandmother was a Boston woman, Mary (Severance) Coffin, (1645-1695). Neither were drawn to Friends. And of course, James' father, Lucretia's thrice Great-Grandfather, was Tristram Coffin, (1604-1681), a principal figure in the first settling of Nantucket. Benjamin Coffin's Grandfather was Magistrate William Gayer, (1635-1710), youngest son of an English Baron, in a line

Lucretia Mott

ANCESTORS FOR LUCRETIA COFFIN MOTT 11

descended from the English Crown, without a bar sinister. Grandmother Gayer was born Damaris Starbuck, (1638-1696), daughter of Edward Starbuck, (1604-1690), and Tristram Coffin's close associate in the earlier years. He was a lay preacher in a liberal Baptist tradition.

In turning to Lucretia's maternal grand-parents, one finds William Folger (1728-1815), and his wife, Ruth (Coleman) Folger, (1733-1814), both alive in Lucretia's time. William Folger's parents were Representative Abishai Folger, (1700-1838), also a Quaker ancestor, and Susan (Mayhew) Folger, (1708-1734), Abishai's first wife. Abishai Folger's father (William's Grandfather), was Nathan Folger, (16781747), and his mother was Sarah (Church) Folger (1676-1745), from an old Plymouth family of note. Neither was a Quaker, but they were well educated and could converse in Latin, an ability handed on to the Provincial Representative. Abishai's Grandparents on his father's side were Eleazer Folger (1648-1716), and Sarah (Gardner) Folger (16521729).

Eleazer Folger was the first school teacher on the Island. His father (Lucretia's thrice Great-Grandfather) was Peter Foulger (1618-1690), a Baptist lay preacher, who had been associated with Governor Thomas Mayhew, the founder of the Martha's Vineyard settlement — and still another ancestor for Lucretia, as may well be divined. Peter Foulger's wife was Mary (Morrill) Folger (1630-1704). Peter and Mary certainly used Latin when they had a mind to do so, for she had received a classical education in an age when it was rare for a woman to be so favored. Peter Foulger was strongly in favor of Indian rights, and was in fact a missionary converting the Nantucket Indians to Christianity.

Eleazer's wife, Sarah (Gardner) Folger was the daughter of Captain Richard Gardner (1631-1688) and Sarah (Shattuck) Gardner (16321724) — the latter a Quaker pioneer when some Quakers were hanged on Boston Common. She was Lucretia's second thrice Great-Grandmother on the Island.

In returning to Sarah (Abishai's wife) we find she was the daughter of Representative Paine Mayhew, the outstanding political figure in the early 18th century on Martha's Vineyard. Neither she nor her father were Quakers, nor, naturally, her Great-Grandfather, the Rev. Thomas Mayhew, Jr., the man who converted the Vineyard Indians to Christianity. Thomas Mayhew, Sr., (Lucretia's thrice GreatGrandfather's father) was the founder of English life and communities on the Islands — the old Governor with whom Peter Foulger was associated.

There are still two branches of ancestry to follow — the more important, possibly — Lucretia's paternal Grandmother's family. Grand-

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mother Deborah (Macy) Coffin was in fact Grandfather Benjamin Coffin's second wife. Deborah was the daughter of Quaker Thomas Macy (1687-1759) of the Tattle Court Macy house, which he built in 1717, and of Deborah (Coffin) Macy, (1681-1760), who was born in Edgartown. This happened because her father, Major John Coffin, (1647-1711) had settled in Martha's Vineyard when he married in 1668. His gravestone is the oldest in Edgartown. He had married Deborah (Austin) Coffin (16521718), of Kittery, Maine. They were Quaker converts, suprisingly, toward the end of their lives. Deborah (Austin) Coffin was the daughter of a famous pioneer Quaker preacher Sarah (Starbuck) Story AustinVarney, (1632-1720), who lived on Nantucket for a few years after the Quaker Meeting was founded. Thereby, Lucretia found a second descent from the first Starbuck on the Island.

In the Macy line, Lucretia's thrice-Great-Grandfather was John Macy (1655-1691), whose wife was Deborah (Gardner) Macy, (1658-1696) — both non-Quakers. She was naturally another daughter of the original Quakers in Massachusetts and Nantucket, from whom Lucretia was descended a second time, but with an additional generation, as in the case of the second Starbuck descent. Thus, Lucretia had a double combination of the Coffin, Starbuck and Gardner inheritance. There was, also, John Macy's father — Thomas Macy, (1608-1682) — cofounder of the Nantucket settlement, who had been a Baptist lay preacher, and a man who had been fined by the Puritan-controlled Massachusetts Bay Colony for harboring some Quakers during a rain storm, at his home in Salisbury.

Lucretia was not descended from Mary Starbuck — the leading woman in Nantucket in her own time — but from Mary's father, Tristram Coffin; also, from two of Mary's brothers, and twice from Mary's father-in-law, Nathaniel Starbuck. Her great-greatgrandfather, Nathan Folger, was a full first cousin of Benjamin Franklin. Her uncle was the Hon. Isaac Coffin, who sat in the Massachusetts Legislature. It was her uncle, Capt. Mayhew Folger, who re-discovfcred Pitcairn Island and solved the mystery of what had happened to H.M.S. Bounty.

The other branch is the true distaff side — that is, to trace Lucretia's mother's people. There were Grandmother Ruth's parents, Richard Coffin (1694-1718), Town Moderator, and his wife Ruth (Bunker) Coffin, (1702-1779). They joined the Society of Friends upon marrying. Richard's parents: John Coffin (1672-1747), and Hope (Gardner) Coffin, (1681-1750), were typical of many Nantucketers, neither of a church or of Quaker Meeting. His father was Magistrate James Coffin, from whom Lucretia was already descended (as thrice

ANCESTORS FOR LUCRETIA COFFIN MOTT 13

Great-Grandfather), and Hope was a daughter of Captain Richard Gardner — thus tripling both the Coffin and the Gardner descent. The first true Quakeress was Lucretia's distaff ancestor.

The Bunker descent takes one to Jonathan Bunker, (1676-1721) who had married Elizabeth (Coffin) Bunker, later Clark, (1681-1769), a daughter of Magistrate James Coffin — thus tripling his descent. She was a Friend, joining after Jonathan's death. His parents were William Bunker (1650-1712) and Mary (Macy) Bunker, (1684-1729), daughter of two founders of Nantucket. So Lucretia's Macy inheritance came in two ways. In the final analysis she had four parts Coffin, three parts Gardner, two parts Macy, two parts Starbuck, one part Folger, one part Bunker, one part Mayhew, one part Church, one part Severance, and one part Morrill. She had seventeen Nantucket Quaker ancestors.

Capt. Thomas Coffin Father of Lucretia (Coffin) Mott Anna (Folger) Coffin Mother of Lucretia (Coffin) Mott

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