Voranus Lathrop Coffin (1831-1917)

 

Portrait from the Kennebec Journal, January 7, 1897.

  Distinguished on the battlefield as well as in the political arena, Voranus Lathrop Coffin rose to the rank of lieutenant during the Civil War, during which he served time at several Confederate prison camps. Following the close of the hostilities, he made his name in shipbuilding, which he followed for four decades, and served two consecutive terms in the Maine state senate from Washington County. Late in life, he returned to politics with his appointment to the governor's council, and in 1904 was a delegate to the Republican National Convention. Born in Addison, Maine on October 3, 1831, Voranus Lathrop Coffin was the son of Simeon and Rebecca (Nash) Coffin.

  Descended on his father's side from Nantucket, Massachusetts pioneer Tristram Coffin (1609-1681), Voranus Coffin attended the public schools of Addison and Harrington, Maine, and also studied at the Waterville Academy. In September 1855 he married Christina Wilson and had three sons, Charles Augustus (1856-1910), Edwin Voranus (1866-1943), and John Alphonso (1869-1903). He followed a career in education for over a decade, teaching at Addison, Harrington, and Millbridge, and resigned his position in 1863 to help organize the 31st Reg., Maine Volunteer Infantry. Enlisting in Co. B., he was soon elected a second lieutenant and saw action at the Battle of Cold Harbor in 1864, where, after "gallant and meritorious conduct", he was promoted to captain.

  Just days after Cold Harbor, Coffin was on picket duty when he was captured by the Confederates and was soon confined to Libby Prison in Richmond, Virginia. Several weeks later he was transferred to Camp Oglethorpe in Georgia, where he was imprisoned into late 1864. Later he was moved to Savannah and Charleston before being confined to Camp Sorghum in Charleston. In December 1864 he was once more transferred, this time to a prison stockade located at the infamous "Camp Lunacy" Insane Asylum in Charleston. Sometime later he and another Maine prisoner made good their escape from prison, only to be recaptured sixty miles away. After recapture, he was placed in prisons at Raleigh, Goldsboro, and Wilmington, North Carolina, where he was paroled. With his confinement in nine separate Confederate prisons, it was remarked that Coffin had been imprisoned "in more Confederate prisons than any other Union soldier, commissioned or non-commissioned."

   In the last months of the Civil War Coffin rejoined his old unit and in 1865 took part in the "Grand Review" march on Washington. Following his return to Maine Coffin established himself in the shipbuilding trade at Harrington, which he followed for forty years.  A member of the firm Ramsdell, Rumball, and Coffin, he purchased his partner's interest in 1876, and by 1884 the firm was operating under the name V.L. Coffin and Son. This business also saw the development of a general store in Harrington, which continued existence under various owners well into the 20th century.

   Coffin began his political career at the local level, serving Harrington as its town treasurer for thirty-five years. In 1880 he was elected to his first term in the Maine State Senate, and during the 1883-85 session was a member of the committees on Commerce, Ways and Means, and Engrossed Bills. He was also named to the special committee "To Inform the Governor of His Election." Reelected in 1882, Coffin served from 1883-1885 and returned to politics in 1897 with his election to the Maine Governor's Council, a group of seven men who advised the governor on the affairs of state. He served until 1898, and in the next year was appointed as a trustee for the University of Maine, serving until 1906.

Voranus L. Coffin. From Maine, A History, Vol. IV, 1917.

  In 1900 the nearly 70-year-old Coffin was elected as treasurer of his home county of Washington, serving until 1902. In 1904 he served as part of the Maine delegation to the Republican National Convention held in Chicago where Theodore Roosevelt was nominated for the presidency. Active in several Civil War veterans groups, Coffin was a past senior vice commander of the Maine G.A.R. as well as a commander of the Hiram Burnham Post, No. 50, of the G.A.R. As a longstanding Mason, Coffin "held all the degrees of the York Rite, and in the Scottish Rite had attained the 32nd degree." After decades of prominence in Washington County, Voranus Coffin died on November 18, 1917, at age 86. He was preceded in death by his wife in 1914 and was interred at the Forest Hill Cemetery in Harrington. Two years after his passing Coffin was memorialized in volume 4 of Maine, A History, which remembered him as:

"Genial, friendly, and kind, a man to be instinctively liked and trusted. His life was a useful, busy one, and to as great a degree as possible he extended to every man a helping hand."