A Tribute from an Island Descendant

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A T r i b u te f r o m a n I s l a n d D e s c e n d a n t

IN APRIL A family from Monterey, Mexico, arrived for a visit. Mr. and Mrs. Pedro F. Quintanilla Coffin, and their two grown sons were spending their first Nantucket experience at the Jared Coffin House, and soon became acquainted with another Nantucket Coffin descendant, Mrs. Isabel Worth Duffy. During a visit to the Library of the Peter Foulger Museum, the Coffins from Mexico were able to trace their family line back to Captain Timothy Coffin, whose son was Rufus Coffin, and grandson was Frederick Coffin.

It was Frederick Coffin, son of Rufus, who had gone to California, who eventually went to Mexico, where he engaged in mining. He married Miss Louisa Castillon in Monterey. Pedro F. Quintanilla was their only child, Frederick having died only a few years after his marriage.

After their Nantucket stay, the Coffins returned to Providence, R.I., where they were the guests of a family friend. But upon his arrival home in Mexico, Mr. Coffin penned this tribute:

ONLY ONE HUNDRED YEARS

One hundred years. I only left you for one hundred years. I returned and found you unchanged. As a dream, I remembered vou where the characters and all things move amongst clouds and foam.

I could see myself running through your paths, jumping over fences and bushes, going down to sea to sit on the beaches, awaiting the whaling ships that brought the good news of happv hunting or the bitter news of those who never returned.

Once again, I listened to the bells of your church, dropping the hours slowly as a lullaby and a herald of hope, reminding your children to lift up their eyes, as was always done by our people, comforting their spirit and hardening their hands, ready for tomorrow's work and content with having accomplished yesterday's.

In the dark of the night, I returned to walk in silence through your streets and squares. I found them at peace and heartwarming. Through the lights of windows in your houses, we saw ourselves reunited at the table by the hearth.

Without haste nor fear, you made me tell the motives of my absence, the causes of my having left you for so long a time and the promise of not doing so again.

Peacefully I slept once again in my home, as if I had never been away, covered by those old and aged trees. They know of your secrets and are witnesses of your anxieties, your faith and your happiness. Once again I clasped friendly hands, and saw faces of my own people after an absence of one hundred years.

Thus, while I return once again, I leave you my spirit, Nantucket, for always imprisoned as a reflection of my mother's eyes in your blue and brave waters of New England.

Pedro F. Quintanilla Coffin Monterey, N.L., Mexico 10 April 1976

M r s . M a r i e M . C o f f i n A p r i l 2 4 , 1 9 0 0 - A p r i l 2 4 , 1 9 7 6