Stephen Coffin

Stephen Coffin

Stephen Coffin
Born 1807
Maine
Died March 16, 1882
Dayton, Oregon

Stephen Coffin (1807 – 1882) was an investor, promoter, builder, and militia officer in mid-19th century Portland in the U.S. state of Oregon. Born in Maine, he moved to Oregon City in 1847, and in 1849 he bought a half-interest in the original Portland townsite.[1][2]

Coffin's interests included the Tualatin Plank Road between Portland and the Tualatin Valley, the Oregon Iron Company, an eastern Oregon sawmill, bridge-building, and other investments and projects.[1] In 1856, he and a neighbor, Finice Caruthers, established the Pioneer Water Works to supply drinking water to Portland.[3] In that same year, he helped found the Oregon Republican Party and was elected to the Portland city council a year later.[3] His interests in transportation extended beyond roads and bridges to investments in the People's Transportation Company, which controlled shipping on the upper Willamette River in the 1860s, and the Oregon Central Railroad.[3]

In 1863, after Coffin provided a steamboat for sending troops up the Columbia River to fight in the Yakima War, Oregon Governor Addison Gibbs made him a brigadier general in the state militia.[1][4]

Coffin donated land to Portland's Methodist Episcopal Church for construction of a boys academy and a girls seminary.[1] He and his wife also donated land to the public in 1871, including seven park blocks and several acres along the river at Jefferson Street for a public levee.[3]

Coffin died in Dayton, Oregon, on March 16, 1882.[2]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Corning, Howard McKinley (1989) [1956]. Dictionary of Oregon History: Compiled from the Research Files of the Former Oregon Writers' Project with Much Added Material (2nd ed.). Portland: Binford & Mort. p. 57. ISBN 0-8323-0449-2.
  2. 1 2 "The City", Morning Astorian, Astoria, Oregon, 19 March 1882, p. 3.
  3. 1 2 3 4 E. Kimbark MacColl (1988). Merchants, Money, & Power: The Portland Establishment, 1843–1913. The Georgian Press. p. 58. ISBN 0-9603408-4-X.
  4. ↑ "Appointed", The Weekly Oregonian, Portland, Oregon, 7 November 1862, p. 2.
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