RIAMCO

Rhode Island Archival and Manuscript Collections Online

For Participating Institutions

Coffin/Robinson Family Papers (Mss. Gr. 50)

University of Rhode Island Library

15 Lippitt Road
Kingston, RI 02881-2011
Tel: 401-874-4632

email: archives@etal.uri.edu

Scope & content

The collection spans the years 1870 to 1970 with the bulk of the papers between the years-of 1900 and 1940. It is divided into five series: Series one, Personal Papers; Series two, Business Records; Series three, Scrapbooks; Series four, Photographs; Series five, Maps and Blueprints.

In Series one can be found the Personal Papers of the Coffins and the Robinsons. The bulk of these are from the Coffin side of the family and consist of correspondence, prep school and college grade reports for Peter and Tristram P. Coffin, and the personal financial records and income statements of Elsie Potter Robinson Coffin. Though less fully represented than the Coffins in this series, the papers of the Robinson side of the family include the personal financial records of Isaac and Jeremiah Robinson, letterpress copybooks of Isaac, and correspondence and sketches of Isaac's daughter Ruth.

Series two, Business Records, is indistinguishable as to family source and contains materials relating to the Marginal Dock Company, a family-owned business in New York and Edgewood Farm, the family homestead in Wakefield and a working commercial farm in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Included are financial ledgers, crop ledgers, annual reports, day books, and journals.

Series three, Scrapbooks, consists of a number of scrapbooks of newspaper clippings, coats of arms, and monograms compiled by Elsie Potter Robinson [Coffin] when she was a child. Also included in this series are scrapbooks of newspaper clippings relating to the Marginal Dock Company and the New York Athletic Club.

The Photograph Series, Series IV, consists of a substantial number of both identified and unidentified photographs of members of the Coffin and Robinson families and the places they frequented. Included are photographs of Isaac and Jeremiah Robinson, Ruth Robinson, Elsie Potter Robinson Coffin and Tristram, Peter, and Trelsie Coffin. In addition, there is a group of unidentified photographs of people and places at the end of the series.

Series five, the Map and Blueprint Series, contains a group of blueprints and maps that reflect the Robinson family's extensive financial interests and landholdings in both Wakefield and New York City. Included are maps depicting family landholdings in South Kingstown, Narragansett and New York City, Marginal Dock Company blueprints, and floor plans for the family home at Edgewood Farm.