[2] He graduated at Dartmouth College in 1817, and taught school for many years, numbering among his pupils the poet John Greenleaf Whittier, who addressed to him a poem entitled "To My Old School-Master".

Coffin was ardent in the cause of emancipation, and was one of the co-founders of the New England Anti-Slavery Society in 1832, being its first recording secretary.

[1] He published The History of Ancient Newbury (Boston, 1845), genealogies of the Woodman, Little, and Toppan families, and magazine articles.

On December 2, 1817, Coffin married his first wife Clarissa Dutch of Exeter, New Hampshire.

On April 20, 1835, Coffin married his second wife Mrs. Anna Wiley Chase, of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.