FOR PROMOTING AGRICULTURE. 103 



try in youth, engaged in the service of a nation now foreign 

 to us, look back with a kind, affectionate and devoted at- 

 tachment to the land of their birth. This family, as is 

 probably well known to you all, were among the earliest 

 settlers of Nantucket, an island which has done more than 

 any other spot to raise the reputation of our nation for 

 hardy enterprise and unblemished morals. Shall I receive 

 a single dissentient vote, when I propose the thanks of this 

 assembled body of full-blooded Yankees to General Coffin 

 and his brother, Admiral Sir Isaac Coffin? * 



The vote was carried unanimously by a show of hands. 

 At an earlier date the society had signified its appreciation 

 of these generous gifts, in bestowing its gold medal upon 

 each of these benefactors, and by electing them as honorary 

 members. 



In 1821 the trustees ordered an importation of two pairs 

 of the breed of Leicester sheep. In the same year an im- 

 ported bull was presented to the society by John Hubbard 

 of Boston. In 1822 an Arabian ram, of the long-vvooled 

 breed, was presented by D. L. Pickman of Salem. In 1823 

 three sheep from the province of Astrachan, in Russia, a 

 breed remarkable for their excellence as mutton, were re- 



*The brothers, John and Isaac Coffin, were sons of Nathaniel Coffin, who, 

 towards the middle of the last century, was a merchant in Boston, and for 

 a time, was the king's cashier of customs. His residence was at the wester- 

 ly corner of Essex street and Rainsford's lane. The lane, much widened, 

 is how known as Harrison avenue. The houselot and garden extended 

 southerly to the shore, the line of which is denoted by the present Beach 

 street, and the waters of South Cove washed against the garden wall of the 

 estate. The mansion house, which stood near Essex street, was the birth 

 place of John and Isaac ; and it may be surmised that their fondness, or r 

 certainly, fearlessness of the sea, traceable in part to a Nantucket ancestry, 

 gained something from this proximity of the tide water to the garden wall. 

 It may be suspected that cautious youthful voyages were made in some 

 frail canoe along the shore now marked, in a general way, by Harrison 

 avenue, with occasional bolder ventures across the cove to the shore of 

 Dorchester Heights, now First street, South Boston. 



John Coffin was born in 1751, and died in New Brunswick, in 1838. In 

 early manhood he entered the British army and was with the body of troops 

 that fought at Bunker Hill. As a captain and major he made a military 

 reputation in campaigns in the southern colonies during the war. He con- 

 tinued in the service and became a colonel in 1797 ; major general, in 1803; 

 lieutenant general, in 1809; and general, in 1819. After retiring from the 

 army he was a member of the legislative assembly of New Brunswick. 



Isaac Coffin was born in 1759, and died in Cheltenham, Eng., in 1839. 

 He entered the British navy as a midshipman, in 1773, and 'had a long and 

 varied experience in the service, including several naval encounters in the 

 war of the Revolution. He became a lieutenant in 1778; commander, in 

 1789; rear admiral, in 1804; vice admiral, in 1808; admiral, in 1814. In 1804: 

 he was made a baronet and was a member of parliament in 1818 and 1826. 



