Tristram Coffin (settler)

Tristram Coffin (or Coffyn) (c. 1609 – 2 October 1681) was an immigrant to Massachusetts from England. He came to the Massachusetts colony with his family in 1642. In 1659 he led a group of investors that bought Nantucket from Thomas Mayhew for thirty pounds and two beaver hats. He became a prominent citizen of the settlement. Many descendants became prominent and wealthy in North American society when they participated in the whaling industry and facilitated the triangle trade. Some descendants became loyalists and migrated to Canada. Other descendants migrated away from colonial America's eastern seaports and settled in Quaker communities in places such as North Carolina. While some descendants were engaged in the slave trade and illegally smuggling slaves into the US or Canada after the international slave trade was banned in 1808, others were leading influential anti-slavery and abolitionists movements in multiple states across the country. Some Coffins were involved in the later history of Nantucket during and after its heyday as a whaling center. Almost all notable Americans with roots in Nantucket are descended from Tristram Coffin, although Benjamin Franklin was an exception.