Daniel Wadsworth Coit (1787 - 1876)

Born 24 Nov 1787 in Norwich, New London, Connecticut, United States

Ancestors

Husband of Harriet Frances Coit — married 1 Sep 1834 in Norwich, CT

Descendants

Died 18 Jul 1876 at age 88 in Norwich, New London, Connecticut, United States

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This person was created through the import of HOAGUE.GED on 22 May 2011.

Biography

Gilman writes:

"Daniel Wadsworth Coit, was named for his father's friend and companion in Europe, Col. Daniel Wadsworth, of Hartford. He was born in his father's house, "up-town," under the elms, in Norwich, Connecticut, on November the twenty-ninth, 1787, and in that house he died, on the eighteenth of July, 1876.

"Our knowledge of him has been increased ... by letters to his family now in the possession of Mrs. Charles W. Coit [and, since 1998, in the possession of his great-great-granddaughter, Eleanor Clinton Hoague], and of his granddaughter, Mrs. Edward Wilder Haines, and still more from letters, greater in number and of equal interest, from his parents, and brothers and sisters, preserved in the archives of Lowthorpe.

"His father, Daniel Lathrop Coit, who was descended from John Coit, of Salem, Massachusetts (about 1630), and from the Reverend John Lathrop, a victim of persecution in England, and an emigrant to Massachusetts in 1635, died in the year 1833 at the age of seventy-nine years.

"His mother, Elizabeth, daughter of Captain Ephraim Bill, was descended from John Bill, of Boston (1635), and from Simon Huntington, of Saybrook and of Norwich (1659). She died at the age of seventy-nine in the year 1846."

D. W. Coit traveled extensively in South America (1818-28), Europe (1820-22, 1829-32) Mexico (1848-49), and California (1849-52), all on business. In the course of these travels he made, lost, then regained a fortune.

The visual arts played an important role in his life -- he was both an artist and a collector. Gilman writes:

"Another source of unceasing pleasure to the end of his days was in the sketches and drawings he had made in South America, Europe, Mexico, and California. When house-bound or shut in, the time passed quickly while he was arranging and finishing them, and using them as illustrations he became eloquent in describing the places and scenes he had visited.

"The paintings, also, that he had brought from foreign lands and that adorned his walls gave him continual enjoyment. They could be fully appreciated by those only who, like himself, had carefully studied the works of the old masters, but he watched with keen interest their renovation under the hands of an artist skilled in such work, — an eccentric Dutchman,— who spent two summers under his roof for that purpose, and was not less enthusiastic than Mr. Coit in admiration of them."

Examples of some of his sketches can be found here.

Burial

Yantic Cemetery, Norwich, New London, Connecticut

Sources

• Find A Grave: Memorial #98266166

• "A Memoir of Daniel Wadsworth Coit" by William C. Gilman, Cambridge MA: privately published, 1908

https://archive.org/details/memoirofdanielwa01gilm

• "The Coit Family, Descendants of John Coit" by Rev. F. W. Chapman, A.M., Hartford Press, 1874

http://www.archive.org/stream/coitfamilyordesc00chap/coitfamilyordesc00chap_djvu.txt

• "The Art of Daniel Wadsworth Coit"

http://www.historygrandrapids.org/collection/4261/art-of-daniel-wadsworth-coit

• "Digging for Gold Without a Shovel: the letters of Daniel Wadsworth Coit" ed. by George P. Hammond, Denver CO: Old West Publishing Company, 1967
• "Autobiography of Daniel Wadsworth Coit of Norwich Conn" Grand Rapids MI: Printed for the family, 1887

Events

1787 November 29. Born, Norwich, Conn

1803 Apprenticed to merchants in New York

1808 Began business on his own account

1818 September 27. Sailed from New York for Peru

1819 January 14. Arrived at Lima

1820 April. Sailed from Guayaquil for Gibraltar

1820 September 27. Arrived at Gibraltar

1820-22 Traveled in Spain, France, and England

1822 June. Sailed from London for South America

1822 October. Arrived at Buenos Aires

1822 December. Crossed the Andes to Valparaiso

1823 December. Arrived at Lima

1828 June. Sailed from Lima for New York

1829 May. Sailed from New York for England

1829-32 Traveled in Europe

1832 June. Returned to Norwich

1833 October. Visited Grand Rapids

1834 September 1. Married Harriet Frances Coit

1834-41 Lived in New York and New Rochelle

1841-47 Lived in Norwich

1848 January. To Mexico for Howland and Aspinwall

1849 March. From Mexico to San Francisco

1849-52 In business in San Francisco

1852 June. Returned to his home in Norwich

1876 July 18. Died, Norwich