perseverance, in overcoming
his modesty--entitled "Recollections of Seventy Years." To this, we,
also, that is, the biographer and others, often urged him. It was not
to be.

Excepting, then, these hastily jotted notes, Mr. Coffin never
indicated, gave directions, or prepared materials for his biography.
To the story of his life, as gathered from his own rough notes,
intended for after-reference and elaboration, let us at once proceed,
without further introduction.

CHAPTER II.

OF REVOLUTIONARY SIRES.

The Coffins of America are descended from Tristram Coffin of England
and Nantucket. Charles Carleton Coffin was born of Revolutionary
sires. He first saw light in the southwest corner room of a house
which stood on Water Street, in Boscawen, N. H., which his
grandfather, Captain Peter Coffin, had built in 1766.

This ancestor, "an energetic, plucky, good-natured, genial man,"
married Rebecca Hazeltine, of Chester, N. H. When the frame of the
house was up and the corner room partitioned off, the bride and groom
began housekeeping. Her wedding outfit was a feather bed, a
frying-pan, a dinner-pot, and some wooden and pewter plates. She was
just the kind of a woman to be the mother of patriots and to make the
Revolution a success. The couple had been married nine years, when the
news of the marching of the British upon Lexington reached Boscawen,
on the afternoon of the 20th of April, 1775. Captain Coffin mounted
his horse and rode to Exeter, to take part in the Provincial Assembly,
which gathered the next day. Two years later, he served in the
campaign against Burgoyne. When the militia was called to march to
Bennington, in July, 1777, one soldier could not go because he had no
shirt. Mrs. Coffin had a web of tow cloth in the loom. She at once cut
out the woven part, sat up all night, and made the required garment,
so that he could take his place in the ranks the next morning. One
month after the making of this shirt, the father of Charles Carleton
Coffin was born, July 15.

When the news of Stark's victory at Bennington came, the call was for
every able-bodied man to turn out, in order to defeat Burgoyne. Every
well man went, including Carleton's two grandfathers, Captain Peter
Coffin, who had been out in June, though not in Stark's command, and
Eliphalet Kilborn. The women and children were left to gather in the
crops. The wheat was ripe for the sickle, but there was not a man or
boy to cut it. With her b