JAMES HENRY COFFIN. 449 



In August, 1829, he opened a private school for boys at Green- 

 field. Three months later he added a boarding house to the 

 school, and the next spring he annexed a manual labour depart- 

 ment. For the latter purpose he hired about two hundred 

 acres of land and a farmer to superintend its cultivation. The 

 students had each a share in whatever profits the business of 

 the year might afford, and in this way were able to pay half 

 their expenses. The enterprise had a rapid growth, and in its 

 third year Mr. Coffin converted it into a joint-stock company, 

 having obtained for it by subscription a capital of eight thou- 

 sand dollars. It was chartered under the name of the Fellen- 

 berg Manual Labour Institution, and the spring term of 1832 

 began under the charter. The number of pupils reached one 

 hundred and nine, and frequently applicants for admission had 

 to wait their turn for a vacancy. An ample corps of assistants 

 was provided, and at the close of 1833 the trustees lightened 

 the labours of the principal by appointing a superintendent of 

 the farm and boarding house. An unwise choice of superin- 

 tendent proved the ruin of the enterprise. The man selected 

 kept no proper accounts, and two years later it was discovered 

 that two or three thousand dollars had been sunk in his depart- 

 ment. The institution was reduced to the scope of an ordinary 

 school, and Mr. Coffin left it, carrying away with him perhaps 

 two hundred dollars' worth of household effects as the out- 

 come of eight years of unceasing labour. 



While at Greenfield he had taken up the practice of survey- 

 ing, and part of his time in 1836 was devoted to this employ- 

 ment. The ownership of a plot of land in Deerfield, formed 

 by a river having changed its course, was in litigation, and Mr. 

 Coffin was occupied for about a month, on an order of the Su- 

 preme Judicial Court, in surveying, dividing, and computing 

 this formation. He presented a thorough and exhaustive re- 

 port on riparian ownership that has been frequently referred 

 to in Massachusetts legal practice. The following winter he 

 was induced by certain townspeople of Greenfield to reopen 

 the school there. He soon received a call to take charge of 

 an academy at Ogdensburg, N. Y., on a salary of eight hun- 

 dred dollars a year, whither he removed in the following spring. 

 He remained at Ogdensburg about two years and a half. The 

 next winter was spent in astronomical and meteorological in- 

 vestigations at Williamstown, Mass., and in the fall of 1840 he 



