Coffin (whaling family)

Tristram Coffin, born in 1609 in Brixton, Devon, sailed for America in 1642, first settling in Newbury, Massachusetts, then moving to Nantucket.

[4] Later that year, while working in the central Pacific, James is said to have discovered Enderbury Island in the Phoenix group, naming it after the London whaling firm Samuel Enderby & Sons.

[8] Alternative sources claim the island was sighted by whaler Joshua Gardner, also reported to have captained Ganges in 1825.

[9] Some sources report that in 1823 or 1824, a "Reuben Coffin" was captain of an American whaler named Transit, out of Nantucket, and was responsible for the discovery of the Bonin Islands.

[13] Owen Coffin (1802–1821) was a teenaged sailor aboard the Nantucket whaler Essex when it set sail for the Pacific Ocean on a sperm whaling expedition in August 1819.