Nielsen Hayden genealogy
Mary Coffin

-
Name Mary Coffin [1, 2, 3] Birth 20 Feb 1645 Haverhill, Essex, Massachusetts [4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9]
Gender Female Death 13 Nov 1717 Nantucket, Massachusetts [4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9]
Burial Friends Burying Ground, Nantucket, Massachusetts [5]
Person ID I13182 Ancestry of PNH, TNH, and others Last Modified 30 Jan 2024
Father Tristram Coffin, Governor of Nantucket, b. Bef 11 Mar 1610 d. 3 Oct 1681, Nantucket, New York (Age > 71 years)
Mother Dionis Stevens, b. Bef 4 Mar 1610, Brixton, Devon, England d. Aft 29 Nov 1681, Nantucket, New York
(Age > 71 years)
Marriage Between 16 Dec 1627 and 18 Jul 1630 Brixton, Devon, England [10]
Family ID F6298 Group Sheet | Family Chart
Family Nathaniel Starbuck, b. Abt 1635 d. 6 Aug 1719, Nantucket, Massachusetts (Age ~ 84 years)
Marriage Bef 30 Mar 1663 [6] Children + 1. Mary Starbuck, b. 30 Mar 1663, Nantucket, Massachusetts d. Aft 12 Sep 1696 (Age > 33 years)
+ 2. Jethro Starbuck, b. 14 Dec 1671 d. 12 Aug 1770, Nantucket, Massachusetts (Age 98 years)
Family ID F8221 Group Sheet | Family Chart Last Modified 2 Apr 2020
-
Notes - From Alison M. Gavin, "A Tale of Two Women: Seventeenth-Century Coffin and Starbuck Matriarchs", citation details below:
Tristram and Dionis's daughter Mary Coffin Starbuck undertook first alone, and later with her eldest son Nathaniel, a number of commercial ventures, including a country store, extensive land trading, and investment in the nascent Nantucket whaling industry. Mary not only knew how to read and write; she also mastered Latin and Greek, and was "well read in the Scriptures." Despite the fact that children growing up in the Bay Colony were required to attend school, Mary's level of education would have been unusual. The ability to read and write classical languages was usually a skill possessed only by young men studying for the ministry at Harvard College. All sources point to Mary being precocious and charismatic.
From Noyes-Gilman Ancestry, citation details below:
She was a remarkable woman, and in the language of a preacher of the day, "The Islanders esteemed her as a judge among them, for little of moment was done without her." She attended town meetings and took part in the debates, usually beginning "my husband thinks" so-and-so, or "my husband and I, having considered the matter, think" so-and-so; in 1701 she became a Quaker, and was distinguished as a teacher.
- From Alison M. Gavin, "A Tale of Two Women: Seventeenth-Century Coffin and Starbuck Matriarchs", citation details below:
-
Sources - [S2272] Vital records of Nantucket, Massachusetts to the year 1850. Boston, Massachusetts: New England Historic Genealogical Society, 1925-1928. Also online here and here.
- [S3420] Thomas Gardner, Planter, and Some of His Descendants by Frank A. Gardner. Salem, Massachusetts: Essex Institute, 1907.
- [S3449] New Englanders in Nova Scotia, manuscript and collection of articles and research material, including articles written by Fred E. Crowell in the 1920s and 30s for the Yarmouth Herald, and also Crowell's research notes. R. Stanton Avery Special Collections, New England Historic Genealogical Society. Searchable at americanancestors.org.
- [S544] Noyes-Gilman Ancestry: Being a Series of Sketches, with a Chart of the Ancestors of Charles Phelps Noyes and Emily H. (Gilman) Noyes, His Wife by Charles Phelps Noyes. St. Paul, Minnesota, 1907.
- [S630] Ancestry of Charles Stinson Pillsbury and John Sargent Pillsbury by Mary Lovering Holman. Concord, New Hampshire: The Rumford Press, 1938.
- [S756] Early New England Families Study Project: Accounts of New England Families from 1641 to 1700 by Alicia Crane Williams. Online database, New England Historic Genealogical Society.
- [S1562] The History of Nantucket, County, Island, and Town, Including Genealogies of First Settlers, by Alexander Starbuck. Boston: C. E. Goodspeed & Co., 1924.
- [S1568] Alison M. Gavin, "A Tale of Two Women: Seventeenth-Century Coffin and Starbuck Matriarchs." New England Ancestors 9.4, Fall 2008, p. 21.
- [S5882] Ancestral Lines from Maine to North Carolina by Carl Boyer III. Santa Clarita, California, 2015.
- [S756] Early New England Families Study Project: Accounts of New England Families from 1641 to 1700 by Alicia Crane Williams. Online database, New England Historic Genealogical Society., says "Probably at Brixton".
- [S2272] Vital records of Nantucket, Massachusetts to the year 1850. Boston, Massachusetts: New England Historic Genealogical Society, 1925-1928. Also online here and here.