Alexander Coffin, Jr.
b. November 17, 1764 Nantucket, MA d. November 1, 1839 Hudson, NY
Revolutionary Service: American Navy; prisoner on ship Jersey in Wallabout Bay, Bklyn
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In his Father’s Footsteps: A Life of Adventure, Heroism, and Patriotism
In 1781 Alexander Coffin, Jr. began serving as a midshipman on an American Navy frigate, the South Carolina, which captured several British ships while sailing to Havana. He was captured by the British in 1782 and was held on the notorious prison ship Jersey in Wallabout Bay, Brooklyn. Conditions on prison ships were horrendous and death from starvation and disease so common that General George Washington wrote letters to British commanders imploring them to afford the prisoners better treatment. Coffin described the horrid conditions in a narrative published in American Prisoners of The Revolution by Danske Dandridge:
"When I reflect how many hundreds of my brave and intrepid countrymen I have seen, in all the bloom of health, brought on board of that ship, and in a few days numbered with the dead, in consequence of the savage treatment they there received, I can but adore my Creator that He suffered me to escape; but I did not escape, Sir, without being brought to the very verge of the grave."
When Coffin and the other men on board were given a choice of being released and serving in the British Army or staying prisoner, they stayed on the prison ship. Coffin writes:
"And I must mention...to the everlasting honor of those unfortunate Americans who were on board the Jersey, that notwithstanding the savage treatment they received, and death staring them in the face, every attempt which was made by the British to persuade them to enter their ships of war or in their army, was treated with the utmost contempt...and if there be no monument raised with hands to commemorate the virtue of those men, it is stamped in capitals on the heart of every American acquainted with their merit and sufferings, and will there remain as long as the blood flows from its fountains."
After the war Alexander, Jr. continued in maritime trade and, quite unfortunately, was again captured while on a merchant ship during the War of 1812. After the war, he worked as a whaling master on several voyages; out of New Bedford, 1820 and 1822, and then three voyages out of Hudson, 1832 - 1836 (on the Meteor, the James Munroe, and the Edward).
Alexander Coffin Jr.’s grave, like his father’s is in Section 1A of the Hudson Cemetery.