Tristram Coffin

Biography

Tristram Coffin was baptized on March 11, 1609 at St. Mary’s Church in Brixton, Devon, England. His parents were Peter Coffin of Brixton and Joan Kember. Tristram was a Royalist, loyal to King Charles I, not a Puritan. When the English Civil War broke out in 1642, his brother John was mortally wounded at Plymouth Fort, and with the war closing in Tristram took his family to safety in New England. The departure was the work of the Civil War, not of Oliver Cromwell, who held no power in 1642 and did not become Lord Protector until 1653.

In 1642 Tristram fled to Massachusetts with his wife Dionis Stevens, five children, his widowed mother Joan, and two unmarried sisters. The family first settled in Salisbury, then moved through Haverhill and Newbury. Tristram helped establish these towns and operated a ferry across the Merrimack River. His wife Dionis earned a footnote in colonial history as one of the earliest women tried in New England for brewing and selling beer.

In 1659 Tristram organized a consortium of nine men to purchase Nantucket Island from Thomas Mayhew for £30 and two beaver hats. The island lay 30 miles south of Cape Cod and had fallen outside the jurisdictions that had made life difficult for religious dissenters on the mainland. The nine original purchasers. Tristram Coffin, Thomas Macy, Christopher Hussey, Richard Swain, Thomas Barnard, Peter Coffin, Stephen Greenleaf, Tristram Coffin Jr., and John Swain, were later joined by another ten to form the twenty proprietors.

Tristram relocated to Nantucket around 1660 and served as the island’s first Chief Magistrate. He and Dionis had seven children who together produced approximately 75 grandchildren, an extraordinary expansion that wove the Coffin name into virtually every Nantucket family within two generations. He died on Nantucket on October 2, 1681. Zaccheus Macy, writing a century later, recalled the Coffins as “an industrious, ingenious people” whose descendants “have multiplied exceedingly and filled the island.”

The Barney Genealogical Record at the Nantucket Historical Association documents over 40,000 islanders descended from this single family. Through his son James Coffin (PID 9VWJ-WHJ) and the Gardner → Macy → Folger Nantucket marriages that followed, Tristram’s line runs to Carol Perry and to the brothers, the line documented on this page. (Hannah Coffin’s father was confirmed as James, not his brother John, in the 2026-05-30 parentage resolution; see audit/00.) James Coffin (1640) is the shared ancestor of both the direct line, through his daughter Hannah, and the collateral branch, through his son Capt. Nathaniel Coffin, that produced the Loyalist-Patriot cousins (General John Coffin, Admiral Sir Isaac Coffin) and the reformer branch (Lucretia Coffin Mott). John Coffin (1647), James’s younger brother and the previously-assumed father of Hannah, is a collateral ancestor.

Artifact

Key Accomplishments

• Led the 9-purchaser consortium that bought Nantucket Island in 1659 for £30 and two beaver hats
• First Chief Magistrate of Nantucket Island (1660-1681)
• Co-founder of Salisbury, Haverhill, and Newbury, Massachusetts prior to the Nantucket purchase
• Ferry operator across the Merrimack River at Newbury
• Patriarch of the American Coffin family. ~75 grandchildren in one generation; >40,000 documented descendants
• Progenitor of the lines producing Lucretia Mott, General John Coffin, Admiral Sir Isaac Coffin, Capt. Nathaniel Coffin, Mary Coffin Starbuck, Charles A. Coffin (GE), and the Nantucket whaling dynasty

Descent to the Brothers

Branching descent from Tristram Coffindown through James Coffin’s line to John, Perry, and Patrick. Named siblings shown as muted branches for context. Tristram had seven children and ~75 grandchildren; the direct line to the brothers runs through his son James, by way of James’s daughter Hannah Coffin (parentage confirmed in the 2026-05-30 resolution; see audit/00). His brother John Coffin (1647) was the previously-assumed father and is a collateral ancestor. Every generation on the descent is named with PID, dates, and role. The chain is end-to-end verified via the FamilySearch relationship view (S59). Click any PID to open the FamilySearch record.

Generation Count

Notable Descendants & Cousins

Everyone below descends from Tristram. Some are in our direct chain; most are cousins whose branches diverged along the way.

• •Mary Coffin Starbuck.Tristram’s daughter; “Great Woman” who brought Quakerism to Nantucket
• •Peter Coffin I of Exeter.Tristram’s son; Exeter NH magistrate
• •Capt. Nathaniel Coffin (1671-1721).collateral ancestor (son of James Coffin, John’s older brother); father of the Loyalist-Patriot branch split
• •Lucretia Coffin Mott.abolitionist, Seneca Falls organizer, cousin via the Nantucket line
• •General John Coffin (1756-1838).Loyalist Major General; cousin via Capt. Nathaniel’s Boston branch
• •Admiral Sir Isaac Coffin (1759-1839).Royal Navy Admiral, Baronet, founded Coffin School on Nantucket; cousin
• •Charles A. Coffin (1844-1926).co-founder & first president of General Electric; cousin via Tristram’s descendants
• •Rowland Hussey Macy.founder of Macy’s department store; cousin via the Macy-Coffin link on Nantucket

Confidence

VERIFIED on Tristram (L8BH-G24, 65 sources) and wife Dionis (MCCT-B3T, 42 sources). VERIFIED end-to-end on the S59 descent: Tristram → James Coffin (9VWJ-WHJ) → Hannah Coffin (M7FZ-T6T) → Robert Gardner (LZDF-335) → Eunice Gardner (LZD4-RLB) → Margaret ‘Peggy’ Macy (K81V-53P) → Frederick William Folger (K4TW-BFB) → Harriet Ann Folger (KZDT-ZC5) → Charles Franklin Perry Sr. → Charles Franklin Perry Jr. → Francis Swift Perry → Carol Perry → John, Perry & Patrick Long. Chain verified via FamilySearch relationship view in S59 (data/tristram-chain-verify-s59.md).

External Links & Sources

1. Tristram Coffin (settler). Wikipedia
2. FamilySearch: Tristram Coffin (L8BH-G24, 65 sources)
3. FamilySearch: Dionis Stevens, wife (MCCT-B3T, 42 sources)
4. Nantucket Historical Association. Barney Genealogical Record
5. Allen Coffin, “The Life and Times of Tristram Coffyn of Nantucket” (Argus Book & Job Printing, 1881)
6. NEHGS. “The Coffin Family of Devon and Massachusetts”, NEHGR (1871, v.25 p.170)
7. Internal: Portledge, the Coffin family in Devon before America