Lemuel was the Great-great Grandson of Tristram Coffin Sr. of Newury and Nantucket. Lemuel was an early member of the Dernier Fire Society. The members of the society were required to keep at their residences, two leather buckets and a knapsack containing two canvas bags, ready for use at all times.
This
was the first, known, formally organized, volunteer fire department in
Newburyport. Lemuel was also a veteran of the Revolutionary War. On April 19,
1775, he was in the Minute Company, under the command of Captain Moses Little
that answered the alarm precipitated by the battle of Lexington and Concord. He
enlisted May 9, 1775 in Captain Benjamin Perkins' Company, Seventeenth Regiment,
Continental Infantry.
Lemuel served at the battle of Bunker Hill, June 17,
1775. He re-enlisted January 1, 1776 in Capt. Benjamin Perkins Company, Twelfth
Regiment, Continental Infantry, again under the command of Col. Moses Little. On
March 12, 1776, he was transferred at Cambridge, to the Commander in chief's
(Washington) Guard commanded by Caleb Gibbs.
He served at the battle of White
Plains, N.Y., October 28 1776; he was discharged at Newtown, Pa., December 4,
1776; re-enlisted in Capt. George Lewis' Troop, Third Regiment, Continental
Dragoons, commanded by Col. George Baylor; he was again assigned to the cavalry
in the Commander-in-Chiefs Guard on May 1, 1777 and was a member of General
Washington's body guard.
He served at the battle of Germantown Pa., October
4, 1777; at the battle of Monmouth, N.J. Lemuel wintered at Valley Forge with
Washington and on June 28, 1778 was at the skirmish at Tappan, N.Y., September
28, 1778. He was discharged at Philadelphia, December 12, 1779.
Marrying in
Fredrick, Md. in 1780, he lived there until 1785, when he returned to
Newburyport with his wife Catherine and infant daughter Olive. Lemuel, for
thirty five or forty years occupied a house at the corner of Warren and Merrimac
Streets.
Lemuel's son Abel (born 10/21/1792) was the master of the ship
"Sachem" which brought the Siamese twins to Boston from Siam in 1829.
Submitted by: Bob Bamford - bob@essexbooks.com © 1997 Heritage Associates
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Last Updated February 26, 2005