us a bad paper in Dutch, which I got translated and left my answer in writing for them in Dutch.-After two of them (Perkins and the Advocate) had read it, and promised to liver it in to the whole. So after a month waiting of them at their house, eleven sittings, being pretty clear of them I came away on the 30th day, and the 2d of 4th month, at Rotterdam came aboard the same ship that carried me thither. **** 1664, 30th of Ist month.

Sir Richard Coffin, Knight, accompanied William the Conqueror from Normandy to England in the year 1066, and the manor of Alwington, in the county of Devonshire, was assigned to him. The authorities respecting the County of Devonshire make honorable mention of Sir Elias Coffin, Knight, of Clist and Ingarby, in the days of King John; of Sir Richard Coffin, of Alwington, in the time of Henry II; of Sir Jeffrey Coffin and Combe Coffin, under Henry III., and of other Knights, descendants of these, during successive reigns, until the time of Henry VIII, when we find Sir William Coffin, Sheriff of Devonshire, highly preferred at Court, and one of eighteen assistants chosen by the King to accompany him to a tournament in France, in 1519. He was also High Steward of the manor and liberties of Standon in Hertford. By his will he bequeathed his horses and hawks to the King, and devised the manor of East Higgington, Devonshire, to his nephew Richard Coffin, Esq., of Portledge. His monument in Standon Church, is mentioned in Weever's "Funeral Monuments," at page 534.

Nicholas Coffin, of Butler's Parish, in Devonshire, died in 1603. His will, which was proved at Totness, in Devonshire, November 3, 1603, mentions his

wife and five children, viz: Peter, Nicholas, Tristram, John and Anne. Joanna Thimber, and died in 1627 or 1628, Peter married leaving four daughters and two sons.

One of these sons was the famous Tristram Coffyn the ancestor of the numerous families of that name now in this country. Nearly all his descendants are enabled by means of the accurate genealogical records in existence, to trace their lineage back to him, although nearly two centuries have elapsed since his death. He was born at Brixton, near Plymouth, in the county of Devonshire, England, in the year 1605

1 John Bowne was a thrifty farmer at Flushing, Long Island. He bought slaves when he needed them on his farm, raised barley, tobacco, corn, oats and wheat,and made cider, which he shipped to New York and some boiled cider to Philadelphia for William Penn and others. He left an account-book replete with interesting items concerning his daily business. In it are inventories of household effects, specifications for building his houses, and barns, and alterations of rooms, contracts for

labor, expenditures on account of travelling Friends or Qua

kers such as neck-cloths, muslin pocket-handkerchiefs, mending boots and clothes, shoeing horses, mending saddles, buying bridles and horses, and a barrel of cider put on bourd of a vessel for the use of voyaging friends. Here is an interesting item: " 1700 the 7th month, then disburst Jamaica on the account of entertainment for William Penn and other Friends. £1, 10 8." In this account book he has also some poetry addressed to one he wished to make his second wife, and accounts of expenses for building and keeping up meeting houses at Flushing and New York. "The case of John Bowne" says Besse in his Sufferings of the Quakers "was verry hard.

The Dutch Governor took him from his aged father, and from his wife and children, confined him a long time in a close dungeon where he was almost famished to death, and shipped him to Holland without being suffered to see his family before his departure. Sometime after his return home the Governor meeting him in the street, seemed ashamed of what he had done, and told him he was glad to see him safe home again, and that he hoped he should never do so any more to any of his friends. A token of repentance of an ingenuous disposi tion, such as few, if any of the rigid persecutors in New England did ever show."

The Journal of Bowne shows some of Besse's statements to be overcharged. [HENRY ONDERDONK Jr.]

(another account says 1609); married Dionis Stevens, and in 1642, came to New England, bringing with him his wife, mother, two sisters and five children. The names of these children were Peter, Tristram, Elizabeth, James and John. He first settled at Salisbury, Mass.; thence moved the same year to Haverhill, where his name appears on the Indian Deed of that town Nov. 15, 1642, and where his children Mary (Starbuck) and John (the first John having died at the same place in 1642) were born. In 1648, he removed to Newbury, where his youngest son, Stephen, was born. After residing there several years, (during which time he was licensed to keep an inn, and a ferry over the Merrimac river,) he returned to Salisbury, where he became a county magistrate, and in 1660, or 1661, he abandoned New England, and with his wife, four children and his aged mother, settled upon the Island of Nantucket. Prior to his last removal, (and early in the year 1659) he made a voyage of inquiry and observation to the group of islands off the Massachusetts coast, with a view to this change of residence. He first visited Martin's Vineyard, and taking from there Peter Folger, (the grandfather of Benjamin Franklin) as an interpreter of the Indian language, proceeded to Nantucket. It has been supposed that religious persecution was the cause of these frequent changes and of his final departure from the mainland, but I have been unable to trace the statement to any reliable source. Could he have foreseen what a multitude of descendents are now looking up to him with pride, as their common ancestor, and the long, bright century of prosperity and renown that awaited the little island of his adoption, he would have felt comforted and encouraged during the severe struggles with which his career was evidently marked.

He was one of a company of ten, who first purchased Nantucket from the Indians, which fact appears in a conveyance from the Sachems Wanackmamack and Nickanoose, dated May 10, 1660. The original manuscript of this instrument is still extant, bearing the signature of Peter Folger as one

of the witnesses to its execution. Prior to this purchase from the natives, the English title to the greater portion of the Island had been obtained from Thomas Mayhew, who held the same under a conveyance from Lord Stirling. The deed from Mayhew is dated July 2, 1659, and runs to the grantees in the following order, viz: Tristram Coffin, Thomas Macy, Christopher Hussey, Richard Swaine, Thomas Barnard, Peter Coffin, Stephen Greenleaf, John Swaine and William Pile.

Tristram Coffin and his sons at one time owned about one fourth of Nantucket, and the whole of the little island adjacent to it on the west, called Tuckernuck, containing 1000 acres, which he purchased of the old Sachem Potconet, at the time of his visit in 1659.

He appears to have been a leading spirit among the first settlers, and was frequently selected by the inhabitants to transact important public business. His letters to the Colonial Government of New York, (Nantucket was at that time a dependency of New York) are preserved in the Archives of the Department of State at Albany.

The following Oath of Office and Administrator's Bond, were copied by the writer from the original instruments, which are on file in the Record Office at Nantucket, and he believes are now published for the first time:

"Where as I Tristram Coffin Senior have Received a Commission dated the 16 of September 1677 Investinge me with power to be Chefe Magestrate one the Ile. of Nantucket and dependences for this ye four years ensuinge under further order I Tristram Coffin a bond said doe engage my selfe under the penalty of perjury to doe Justice in all causes that come before me according to Law and endeavor to my best understanding and heare unto I have Subscribed

Eistlam Coffyn

Chief Magistrat.

"Mr Tristram Coffin Senior acknow

PETER COFFIN Assistant "

November ye 5th, 1677 "We James Coffin John Coffin Steve Coffin doe bind ourselves jointly and severaly in the some of an hundred pounds sterlinge to perform the trust and

administer on our fathers estatte and to

bare the Court harmless according to law
JAMES COFFIN
JOHN COFFIN
STEPHIN COFFIN

"At a Court of Sessions held the 29th of November 1681 there granted administration unto me James Coffin, John Coffin and Stephen Coffin on the estate of mr Tristram Coffin deceased the 3d of October 1681 they having given security according to law."

The body of the Oath was evidently written by Peter Coffin (son of Tristram); the signature, a fac simile of which is given, is an autograph. It will be observed

i, in writing the family name. It is said, whether truthfully, I do not know, that his ancestors spelled it in the same manner. The letter of Administration appended to the bond, fixes the date of his death (Oct. 1681,) beyond question.

3,

In the year 1826, Sir Isaac Coffin, a native of Boston, who went to England in early life and became a Baronet, and Nantucket, and founded the an Admiral in the British Navy, visited "Coffin School," (the original fund being 2,500 pounds sterling,) which is still flourishing. The Act of Incorporation provides for the establishment of "a school by the name of Admiral Sir Isaac Coffin's Lancasterian School, for the purpose of promoting decency, good order and morality, and for giving a good English education to youth who are descendants of the late Tristram Coffin, who emigrated from England," etc. The Act further provides "that the Trustees shall all be the descendants of the above mentioned Tristram Coffin in the male or female line."

HONOUR TO

TRISTRAM COFFIN THE FIRST

The Medal of which the above is an accurate outline representation, was struck by order of Sir Isaac, about the time of his visit to the Island, in memory of his distinguished ancestor.

Upon Tristram Coffyn's arrival with his

family, at Nantucket, he took up his abode on the eastern slope of what are now called Trot's Hills, near Cupaum pond, towards the western end of the Island, and in course of time, a little hamlet grew up in the vicinity. It is now almost entirely

abandoned. One brown farm house, of comparatively modern build, with two or three time-worn outbuildings, are all that remain. A few indentations, here and there, in the green sward, with pieces of brick and mortar mingled with the soil, show where the dwellings of some of the first settlers were located. One of these ancient cellars is pointed out as the site of the habitation where the subject of this sketch lived and died. Half a mile to the eastward, on elevated ground, hard by two fresh water ponds, and overlooking the ocean,

is the oldest grave yard upon the Island; and near at hand, a quantity of mortar, and a cluster of low bushes, tell where the first Friends' meeting house once stood. Two furrows turned together around several acres of pasture land, and one solitary head stone, still bearing upon its shattered face the information that John Gardner died in 1706, alone mark the spot as a burial place of the dead. Somewhere within this space-this "God's Acre"doubtless rest the ashes of the old pioneer, Tristram Coffyn.

The first converts to christianity, among the North American Indians, that rewarded the labors of the Moravians or United Brethren, were three Mohegans living in the eastern part of Duchess county, in the State of New York, not far from the boundary between it and Connecticut. Their names were Shabash, Tabawanemen, and Kiak. Their place of abode was called Shekomeko, and was a short distance from the present village of Pine Plains. There Christian H. Rauch planted a missionary station in the summer of 1740, and on the twenty-second of February, 1742, the three converts were admitted into the Moravian Church, by the rite of baptism, with the respective names of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. "While I live," Rauch wrote to a friend, "I shall never lose the impression this first communion with the Indians in North America made upon me.'

At the beginning of September, 1743, a congregation of "believing Indians" was organized by Count Zinzendorf, at Shekomeko. It was the first Moravian missionary fruit in that form. In October following young Gottlieb Büttner and his younger wife, joined Rauch at Shekomeko. These devoted missionaries worked zealously, and at the end of the year, the congregation of dusky Christians numbered thirty-one. It was a propitious beginning. The "believing Indians" were admitted

to the rites commemorative of the Lord's last Supper, in March 1743, and in July following a neat little chapel, covered with smooth bark, was completed at Shekomeko and dedicated to gospel work.

A cloud now began to gather over this promising mission. White people who had profited largely by the sale of rum to heathen Indians had no longer any customers among the Christian Indians, and they determined to drive away the missionaries. They circulated evil stories about them. They were called "Papists" and "traitors," and were cited before civil magistrates. No charges were sustained. The old French war, as it is called in America, broke out. The Jesuits labored to detach the Indians from the interests of the English. The enemies of the missionaries accused them of being Jesuit spies. They were frequently called from their labors to distant places to answer these charges. Nothing could be found against them.

Failing in their mischievous work in the name of law, the white people determined to act without law. They drove away the missionaries by brute force, under a pretence that the land of Shekomeko, on which the Indian village stood, belonged to them. They took possession and set a watch to prevent the return of the faithful Moravians. So the mission was broken up. Before the final blow was struck, the