George Y. Coffin: Reflections of Columbian College and Washington, 1859 - 1868

From GWUEncyc

Alumni

“George Y. Coffin: Reflections of Columbian College and Washington, 1859-1868”

The George Washington University has had a number of fascinating characters pass through its portals as students and faculty since its founding in 1821. The spotlight of attention tends to shine on the famous - J. Edgar Hoover, Edward Teller, John Foster Dulles, Red Auerbach, Margaret Truman, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Alec Baldwin, and Colin Powell, to name a few. In the shadows, however, are lesser known individuals with names unfamiliar to most, but whose stories are just as intriguing, and add much to the history of the institution and the city of Washington, D.C. One such person is George Yost Coffin.

Although he died almost a century ago, Coffin lives on in the wonderful diaries he kept while a student in the 1860s, and in the political cartoons he drew while working for various newspapers and magazines, most notably the Washington Post.

George Yost Coffin was born in Pottstown, Pennsylvania on March 30, 1850 and came to Washington with his parents when he was eight years old. He began keeping a diary a year later, and continued to do so off and on until 1868. The pages of these four diaries record the folkways of 19th century Washington, and offer insights into the political climate of the nation at that time, as interpreted by a precocious teenager.

Coffin’s connection with Columbian College (which became Columbian University in 1873 and The George Washington University in 1904) was established at an early age. The first entry in his diary is from Sunday July 3, 1859: “My Cousin a little girl died at the age of [sic] Five Months.” The next day Coffin wrote: “My Cousins Funeral took place. Rev. Geo. W. Samson officiated. Buried in the Congressional Burying Ground. Fireworks in the Evening at the Presidents I did not attend. Day bright and cool.”

The Reverend Samson he referred to was the pastor of the E Street Church in Washington. The good pastor had also become President of Columbian College just three days earlier, on July 1. At Sunday School as well, young George was introduced to men from the college. “This morning I went to Sunday School and at Church,” he wrote October 7, 1860, “listening to a sermon by Professor Shute of Columbian Colledge [sic].…” We later learn that Rev. Shute preached again on October 21 and November 25. On Sunday, November 4 Coffin noted that “We heard a very good sermon from Dr. Samson….” He preached the next week as well.

Although it is difficult to ascertain the extent of young master Coffin’s contact with these men socially, it is reasonable to assume that knowing them influenced him, and his mother Sarah, in choosing a school to attend years later. Coffin’s entries are rather brief at first, which is understandable for a young boy. Some days he would write little: “Nothing of much importance which I can remember occurred,” or “Today the weather was pretty cold.” He did, however, mention on October 3, 1860 that “the Prince of Wales arrived today….” as part of a state visit to the United States and Canada. As Coffin grew older the variety of activities he chronicled in his daily life expanded: he wrote of attending school and church; visiting friends and relatives; doing chores; getting a haircut from his mother - which he referred to as “a very ‘barberous’ [sic] operation;” going to the Congressional Library in the Capitol building; and getting his photo taken. It is unclear from the diaries what kind of family life George Coffin had. He mentioned his mother, cousins, aunts and uncles, but not his father or siblings (obituaries do not list a father or siblings among his survivors). It seems that Coffin’s economic status was fairly comfortable for the time, as he wrote often of going to the theater and reading many books. It is of interest to note that he kept track of the books he read, which numbered around 220 from 1859-68. They represented such authors as Dickens, Scott, Bunyan, Irving, Tennyson, and Hawthorne - quite serious reading for a young boy.

Coffin’s recreations were not all of an intellectual nature. He wrote repeatedly and enthusiastically of playing baseball, sixteen years before the formation of the major leagues. On October 4, 1860 he wrote: “I played Base Ball this morning and practiced.…” Playing the game is mentioned seven times over the next four weeks and only halted, one might surmise, by encroaching winter weather. He also occupied himself by drawing and painting when the weather turned bad, which he recorded doing all day long on December 8 and 31. These were skills he would hone over the years and which would lend themselves well to the career path he followed as an adult.

The first gap in Coffin’s diary began after December 31, 1860, and he did not pick up again until July 8, 1864. By that time the Civil War had been raging for three years, and was a reality of daily life in Washington. On July 11, 1864 he reported that the day had been full of “rumor and excitement, the Confederates are between Rockville and Tenallytown & are reported at Silver Spring. About 9 A.M. a brigade of dismounted cavalry passed up 10th street…The excitement increases as the day advances. the [sic] clerks and others in government employee are forming companies and arming to defend the city.” Coffin was speaking of Jubal Early’s raid on Washington, which had as its objective bringing 20,000 men to bear in capturing the Capitol building itself.

The next day, July 12, he talked of trying to go with a friend to Fort Stevens (in the northern part of the city near present day Georgia Avenue), where fighting was taking place, but being turned back by guards. Walking home they observed a large detachment of troops, prompting Coffin to observe, “The city undoubtedly is in great danger. The firing at the forts is fairly audible in the heart of the city.” He later noted seeing troops marching up H Street, yet the tone of his entries never conveyed a sense of panic or prolonged tension. In fact, he didn’t mention military matters much at all in comparison to documenting his daily routine.

Union Army reinforcements were able to beat back the Confederate forces, but not before President Lincoln arrived at Fort Stevens to witness the fighting first hand, coming under enemy fire in the process. On July 15 Coffin and another friend procured passes to go to the battlefield. With passes in hand, they “started for the field which we soon reached. we [sic] saw the graves of several of those who fell in the fight, one man buried with a forefinger left uncovered.” Unfazed, he and his friend wondered about observing the destruction around them and picked up souvenirs. They met up with three soldiers, who “invited us to lunch with them in their ‘crib’ which they called the ‘Hotel de posh.’” Humor is timeless, and exists even in wartime. After sharing a lunch of hard tack, pork and beans, and coffee, the soldiers went back to work and the boys returned home. Coffin added: “Our walk home was a weary one, we being loaded down with about 95 cartridges apiece, besides other weighty trophies. However we enjoyed ourselves very much.” The carnage of war seems not to have tempered his sense of youthful adventure.

The next week he and his mother would leave for Pottstown, where they habitually spent their summers, until school began again in September. There he spent time with his Uncle Yost and cousins and other relatives. On August 31, Coffin reported that George McClellan had won nomination as the Democratic party’s candidate for President, news which “sent a thrill of joy to the heart of every true patriot.”

Coffin and his mother returned to Washington in September, and he resumed his studies in the Preparatory Department of the Columbian College. The college had been founded in 1821 and was originally comprised of five buildings on “College Hill,” a parcel of land consisting of approximately 47 acres north of Boundary Street (now known as Florida Avenue) between 14th and 15th Streets. This "rural" campus was about a half-hour walk from the Capitol Building. The main college building, a brick edifice consisting of five floors, 58 rooms and 60 fireplaces, could accommodate 100 students. Three other buildings were occupied by the President and his family, faculty, and a Steward. One additional building was used for classrooms.

The Preparatory Department played a significant role in the first seventy-six years of the university, and was designed to provide thorough training for admission to the regular college. The faculty supervised its work, and frequently gave instruction to students enrolled in the Preparatory Department. The student body always exceeded and sometimes doubled that of the college. George Coffin entered in 1862, and records show that he took courses in geography, history, Latin, Greek, and algebra, among others. Tuition was $50 a year. Since he did not keep a diary during the first two years we have no record of his experiences for that time.

Picking up with 1864, on September 19 he wrote: “To day I commence school. I am in the first class, and have for my teachers Prof. Shute, Messrs. Mason, Lovejoy, Fendall & T. Samson. Many of my old schoolmates are back again, but there are also a great many new scholars.” The next day he described the routine: “Went to school again today. It takes in at 9 o’clock in the morning and lets out at 3 1/2 in the afternoon, giving a recess of ten minutes at 11 o’clock and another of an hour at 1 o’clock.” Coffin was a member of the Hermesian Literary Society, serving as editor of its newspaper, the Casket, in 1863.

The Hermesians conducted debates, which he discussed frequently. “I found myself,” he wrote September 30, 1864, “a debater on the affirmative side of the question ‘Should suicide be considered as an evidence of courage or cowardice.’ It was decided in the affirmative.” The chair cast the deciding vote, according to the minutes of the society. This society had a number of prominent members in its time, including Otis T. Mason, principal of the Preparatory School from 1861-84, and later the head curator of the Department of Anthropology at the Smithsonian Institution; John B. Larner, who served the university for twenty years as Chairman of the Board of Trustees; and Theodore W. Noyes, who later became editor of the Washington Evening Star.

As 1864 drew to a close, Coffin could be found commenting on the race for president. On November 7: “Attended school today. At the long recess the school-boys balloted for the two candidates for the Presidency. Mr. Lincoln received 12 votes and Gen. McClellan received 46.”

“Today the election for President takes place,” he recorded November 8, “and it will be decided whether we are to have four more years of bloodshed, misery, taxation and ruin, or peace once more spread its wings over our distracted land, bringing blessings and prosperity in its train.” A week later, on November 15 he commented: “The election has passed and we are doomed to another four years of anarchy & disaster.” This statement suggests that the President did not get Mr. Coffin’s vote.

For Christmas, Coffin tells us that he received as presents: “’Don Quiote and another book, a bottle of perfume, a pair of gloves, and a cornucopia filled with bon-bons. I spent the greater part of the day playing checkers, firing my pistol, etc….At night I went with my cousins to a party over at Mrs. Dodson’s across the street.” He spent the rest of his holiday visiting friends and reading. On December 31 he wrote: “I have made several good resolutions for the new year, and sincerely hope that I may be able to keep them.”

The new year began well. In February Coffin was examined in Latin, geometry, French, Greek, philosophy, algebra, and passed all with flying colors. For entertainment, he went to Ford’s Theater to see King Lear and Richard III. Ironically, on February 21 he mentioned going there to see Our American Cousin, noting that “The performance was very good and truly amusing.”

Even though he appeared to be no fan of Lincoln, Coffin reported going with two friends to see the inaugural procession, which until 1937 was held on March 4. “After having waited for some time in the mud & rain, in the immense crowd that lined the avenue, the president or rather his closely shut carriage (for he was invisible) hove in sight. He was attended only by his usual cavalry guard and some of the marshals.” Coffin noted that the day “opened with floods of rain but about noon the clouds cleared away. Perhaps this is ominous.” A little more than a month later, Lincoln would be dead.

The lighter side of life was recorded on March 9, as Coffin wrote that “Base Ball clubs are being formed at school.” A week later, on March 15, he noted that he and his classmates “play baseball at every recess & after school. The club held a meeting today, I was appointed centerfield, first nine, one of the directors to keep bats & balls & one of committee to draft a constitution.”

As the war was drawing to a close, Coffin detailed it. On April 5 he wrote of seeing “some terrible scenes among the wounded who have arrived from the front at Columbian Hospital.” When the war began the government took over the main building and the grounds of Columbian College and established two hospitals (the other was Carver) as well as soldiers’ barracks, paying $350 rent per month to the college.

On at least one occasion President Lincoln made a visit to Columbian Hospital, which had a capacity of 844 beds. Senator Orville Hickman Browning of Illinois recorded in his diary that on the day of May 18, 1862 the President sent for him. Together they rode out to the hospital, “went all through it, and shook hands and talked with all the sick and wounded.” Walt Whitman spent considerable time tending to the injured at Carver Hospital, which had beds for 1,300 men. In a letter to his mother June 3, 1864 he mentioned taking ice cream to the wounded there. “Many of the men had to be fed; several of them I saw cannot probably live, yet they quite enjoyed it. I gave everyone some – quite a number [of] Western country boys had never tasted ice cream before.”

Somehow the College and Preparatory Department continued operations during the war. When George Coffin entered in 1862 there were 31 students enrolled in the Preparatory Department and 22 in the Columbian College. By war’s end there were 106 and 36 students, respectively.

By 1865, Coffin’s last year in the Preparatory Department, the South was in its death throes. “Great rejoicing is going on over the surrender of Gen. Lee’s army,” Coffin wrote on April 11. Two days later he described the city: “All the public and nearly every private building are illuminated & tastefully trimmed with flags, lanterns, wreaths, etc. Many of the patriotic inscriptions were very appropriate. Bands are playing, magnificent fireworks are being set off and the city is a blaze of light…Every-one is rejoicing at the prospect of peace.”

Then, suddenly, the next day, April 14, brought horrible news which Coffin documented. “At about 10 P.M. during the third act of ‘Our American Cousin’ at Ford’s Theater, where Miss Laura Keene is playing, a pistol shot was fired in the private box of President Lincoln & a man leaped upon the stage brandishing a dagger, shouted ‘Sic Semper Tyrannis, the South is avenged,’ rushed out, gained his horse & escaped.”

The following day he wrote: “The President died at 22 min. past 7 this morning. Thus has our rejoicing been changed into grief. Nearly every house public & private is draped in black & deep sorrow is manifested over the land, even the clouds drop tears...There is now no doubt that the assassin of the President was John Wilkes Booth, the actor. ” On April 19th George walked from his home at 354 New York Avenue to 14th and Pennsylvania Avenue to see the “magnificent” funeral procession from Willard’s Hotel, which passed by for an hour and a half. Coffin noted that he spent the remainder of the day playing ball. Life went on, for him and the nation.

Coffin was fully taken with baseball, as it is a constant theme in his diaries. He wrote about going to see organized teams playing on the “White Lot” by the White House, the area now known as the Ellipse, as well as noting the outcomes of some of his own games. On May 2, 1865 he wrote that “This afternoon the 1st nine of our Club beat the second nine of the Columbian.” On June 6 he noted that a game against the Columbian nine was not finished on account of the “ball giving out….” From these and other entries it is apparent that the regular college had a team as well as the Preparatory Department. Coffin wrote of the “National Base Ball Club” and the “Excelsior[s] of Brooklyn” playing an “Interesting & exciting” match on October 9, 1865. “The score stood National 36 runs. Excelsior[s] 30. A very large crowd was present, & much enthusiasm was manifested, both sides being repeatedly and enthusiastically cheered.” Coffin was so enthralled with the game that three years earlier (June 23, 1862) he had written a tribute to this “very healthy and invigorating exercise.”

The aftermath of the war and Lincoln’s assassination are subjects of his entries that spring and summer. May 15, 1865 he wrote that “The trial of the parties accused of the murder of the President is now going on.” On May 23 he made note that: “We had a holiday to-day to go to see the review of Grant’s Army including Sheridan’s. The troops were passing from 9 A.M. to 3 P.M.” President Andrew Johnson had declared on May 10 that all armed resistance had virtually ended, and plans commenced for the review of troops. Coffin described seeing the 80,000 members of the Army of the Potomac marching twelve across Pennsylvania Avenue. “I went with our family and Walter Clarke down to Mrs. Willard’s. The troops marching up the avenue, were reviewed by Gens. Grant and Sherman, etc., in front of the President’s House. They all seemed in splendid condition, though bearing marks of hard service.”

The following day he returned to see the review of Sherman’s Army of Georgia, 65,000 strong, going up “to the head of the Avenue at the Treasury where could be seen a glittering sea of steel extending from the Capitol to the White House & thousands yet to follow…As Sherman & other prominent Generals passed along the Avenue they were hailed with loud cheers. Such sights seldom occur twice in a lifetime.” The excitement of the occasion was marred by events afterward, as the troops lingered in the city. “The streets abound in officers & men shamelessly drunk, yelling, fighting & rioting,” Coffin observed on May 26. “Saw one of them stabbed through the body & back of the neck on my way from school.”

On June 13 Coffin went with his friend George Ferris to the trial of the Lincoln conspirators. “Several witnesses for the accused were examined. The proceedings were very interesting...At the Court saw all of the prisoners, Payne, Herrold [sic], Dr. Mudd, Mrs. Surratt, Spangler, Atzerodt, Arnold & O’Laughlin [sic].” On July 7, 1865, he noted the excitement in the city surrounding the outcome of that same trial: “The cars were filled with persons going down to the Penetentiary [sic] to see at 1 o’clock the execution of Mrs. Surratt, Payne, Atzerodt & Herrold [sic]. President Johnson approved of the finding of the court on Wednesday and fixed the day.”

A few weeks later he and his family took their traditional summer vacation to his hometown of Pottstown, Pennsylvania. They had to return home early, however, after receiving a telegram informing then that his young cousin Arvin was seriously ill. They arrived home too late. “On my return I found my cousin – dead,” Coffin sadly lamented September 18th. “The spark of life had just flown. At first I could not realize my loss. But soon the appalling truth burst upon me, that the light of our house had gone out.” At the age of fifteen, George Coffin demonstrated a tremendous capacity for expressing with great eloquence his thoughts and feelings.

On September 27, 1865 Coffin began studies as a member of the freshman class of Columbian College, having completed his courses in the Preparatory Department. To be admitted a student had to provide “testimonials of good moral character,” in addition to the $10 admission fee. There were 50 students enrolled in the College that year. He and his roommate Eugene Sofier chose Room 18 on the first story of the main building as their quarters (even non-boarding students had to pay room rent of $22 a year in addition to the $55 per year tuition). Coffin noted that “The building is being renovated after its four years appropriation to hospital purposes.” At that time, according to the University Bulletin, it had a library with about 5,000 books and was steam heated.

That afternoon George went with his mother to get his books, and recorded them in his diary: “Loomis’ Geometry, Fasquelle’s French Grammar; Felton’s Selections from Greek Historians; Kuhners’s Greek Grammar & Arnold’s Greek Prose Composition; Gould’s Ovid; Andrews’ & Stoddard’s [sic] Latin Grammar & Arnold’s Latin Prose Composition; & Smith’s History of Greece.”

President Samson was his French teacher. He also had “declamation & composition,” Greek and Greek history, math, and Latin. George became a member of the Philophrenian Society, another student debating group, and was editor of its newspaper the Spectator. Coffin was an excellent student. Old ledger books recording students’ grades show him receiving between 7 and 9.9 as marks in his courses, with his average being about 9.3. He was a solid “A” student in both the Preparatory Department and the College, with no weak subjects.

The post-war years are mostly full of news regarding his studies, his friends, improvements to the college grounds, and the daily routine of life, including his ever evident love of baseball. On February 16, 1866 he wrote that his examinations ended that day, prompting him to rejoice, “Gloria in excelcis.”

The spring of 1866 had him commenting on the weather. On April 5 he wrote: “Our daily morning walks to & from ‘the Hill’ are, in this bright, beautiful weather not the dreaded ordeals they were when the snow, the rain, the mud, & the cold of February, or the freezing, warring blasts of March, used to render them, objects of terror, rather than something to be looked forward to with pleasurable anticipations….” He added that such lovely weather would renew the student’s energies “scattered & prostrated by the terrible conflict with teachers & lessons.”

On April 7 he noted that: “Great improvements are taking place in the College grounds; terraces & the edges of the grass plots have been sodded; trees are being planted; the grass seed, sown sometime ago all over the grounds, is springing up; the walks & drives have been provided with paved gutters on either side; the old gymnasium, during the war used as a dead house, has been pulled down & a new one is being erected; in short everything is undergoing a thorough renovation & improvement.” These improvements marked the return to normal life on the campus after over four years of occupation by the federal government.

George Coffin was a product of his times, and his writings reflect that fact. One poignant entry made May 3, 1866 regards African-Americans he observed in the city: “Some of the negroes look bright & intelligent, others it is difficult to imagine human beings. Taking them all in all, it seems to me, that it is absolutely impossible for any power under Heaven to make this people equal in ¬any particular, by any measure in any length of time, to the white race & that time will show the scheming party cabal, who now hold and abuse their power in the National Congress, how impotent are their ‘civil rights bills’ to effect that purpose.” He joined men like Abraham Lincoln and Thomas Jefferson in the conviction that whites were superior to blacks, a notion held by all but a few Americans of Coffin’s generation. The 14th Amendment, which guaranteed citizenship to former slaves and other basic civil rights, would be proposed in Congress the next month, and ratified two years later, yet it did not end the problem of race in America.

At the end of the school year Coffin revealed his concerns with final exams. On June 18, 1866 he wrote: “Trotted out 14th St. as usual, on examination morning in fear & trembling.” The more things change the more they stay the same, as this sentiment is as true now as it was then. At the beginning of June he was headed to Pottstown for summer vacation, and the diary entries become sporadic after that. Nothing is recorded for the fall of 1867 or 1868.

On January 8, 1868 Coffin passionately communicated a telling irritation with his college and his classmates: “But Columbian is not Oxford or Cambridge, Yale…Our routine is made up of a great deal of failure, of humbug, of bad puns, of nonsense, of egotism, of vanity, of selfishness, of jealousy, of hypocrisy, of sycophancy & of meanness & very little learning, improvement, independence, modesty, generosity, friendship or true manliness.” His frustrations, on some level or another, are no doubt shared by students today.

The next month Coffin was preparing for exams, which were difficult. On February 7 he wrote: “My habits of application are so exceedingly slight, that now, when it is ‘study or flunk,’ my attempts at ‘cramming’ are pitiful to behold. From room to room, up stairs & down, I wandered disconsolate and desperate.” By the end of the next week he had survived, and remarked on February 14 that he was “feeling happy, in the ‘pastness’ and the ‘passedness’ of the examination.”

Coffin was a young man who did not just go to and from his classes with blinders on. He was engaged in the political climate of the times, as evidenced by this entry from February 22, 1868 which spoke of a national government, with an “Executive Officer, to say the least, undignified; its Legislature mad with party passion, corrupt in high places; the people indifferent or unfair; military despotism imminent; ruin ahead and fanatics at the wheel; & the whole maelstrom of anarchy & destruction seething and whirling….” His words display a real passion for the troubled times of Reconstruction and the turmoil surrounding President Andrew Johnson. This passion would be employed during his career as a political cartoonist for the Washington Post, when his opinions could find expression in images reaching thousands of people.

On March 3rd, two days before going to the Capitol to see the impeachment trial of President Johnson, Coffin made this entry: “Attended college and said my lessons. Performed likewise an extraordinary [a]mount of loafing & howling. The former is an ancient & well known [em]ployment, which has been popular among college students & indeed [m]ankind in general, from time immemorial….” This is an excellent example of the sense of humor found in his writing. In the last few pages he spoke of drawing, which he had been doing since a child. Legend has it that as a college student he frescoed the walls of his dormitory room with scenes and characters from Shakespeare. They were considered so good that officials spared them from destruction when the interiors of the building were painted, and they remained until the building was razed.

On May 16 Coffin noted the country’s good fortune that “Impeachment as a party weapon “ had been defeated when the Senate failed by one vote to remove President Johnson from office. On May 25 he added “In the ‘High Court’ today the 1st and 2nd Articles were successively disposed of by the same vote as before, & then the Destructives fled in despair; i.e., adjourned the Grand Inquest, Sine die. So endeth the farce.” It would be one-hundred twenty years before impeachment would again be successfully employed as a “party weapon.”

Coffin made the final entry in these diaries less than a month later, on June 15, 1868. It’s a shame he stopped - or that no more survived for posterity.

George Coffin graduated from Columbian College in 1869 with an A.B. degree, followed by an LL.B. in 1871. While a law student he also took on the duties of art tutor. Upon completion of law school, Coffin entered the civil service as a clerk in the Revenue Marine division of the Treasury Department, where he remained until his death. This position provided him a fixed income and the freedom to follow his art. His career as a political cartoonist began in the mid-1870s with the Washington Chronicle, the city’s first illustrated newspaper. After its demise he contributed to Harper’s Weekly, Puck, and Judge until 1883, when he took a job as an artist for The Hatchet, another short-lived weekly paper. During this time Coffin contributed to a number of papers in Washington and elsewhere, including the Washington Star, The Sunday Herald, and the National Tribune. In 1891 he gave up his free lance work and became the official cartoonist for the Washington Post.

In his cartoons Coffin was not a partisan. As an article from the December 5, 1896 Columbian Call, a student newspaper of his alma mater, quoted him as saying: “Every political situation has half a dozen comical sides to it, according to the view point.” His humor was wholesome, the article went on to say. Commented one who knew him: “He was a most charming man at a social gathering. A born gentleman, a gifted conversationalist, and a narrator with hardly a peer in his circle.”

Coffin’s thorough knowledge of Washington, its customs and characters, gave his cartoon’s a particular flavor and bite. From reading his diaries one gets a feel for his intelligent and witty personality. Yet his work was without malice. Coffin believed that “A drop of ink will make a million think.” It was his rule never to make his cartoons offensive or grotesque. “You need not make a man odious or repulsive in order to caricature him,” he once remarked. Even those he cartooned were not offended, and often called upon him for a friendly interview. Coffin also illustrated a number of books, and was a dramatic critic for the Washington Post, Sunday Herald, and Critic.

George Coffin died November 28, 1896 of locomotor ataxia (a late form of syphilis affecting the spinal cord). How he was stricken with this affliction we do not know. For the last year of his life he was rendered an invalid, but was said to have remained in good spirits and hopeful. After he died, his body was taken from Washington back to Pottstown, Pennsylvania, where he was buried in the family plot next to his mother. He had no wife or children survive him. Commented the Washington Post the day after he died: “He was the laughing philosopher of his generation. He saw the fun in everything.” His spirit lives on today in his writings and drawings - extracts of his soul freely given, captured and held fixed on the pages of yellowing paper. These live on to tell a story of a time gone by, but not forgotten.

(Written May 2006)

See also, article in Washington History magazine (Winter 2006/07) [1]

Document Information

Images: 3
Photographic Credit: George Coffin Papers/MS2048[2]
Author or Source: Lyle Slovick
Document Location: University Archives
Date Added to Encyclopedia: December 21, 2006
Prepared by: Lyle Slovick, Assistant University Archivist

For more information about GW history

Contact:

Special Collections Research Center [3]
The Melvin Gelman Library [4]
The George Washington University [5]
2130 H Street, NW Suite 704
Washington, DC 20052
202-994-7549
mailto:archives@gwu.edu
Please send us your questions and comments about the encyclopedia.
This site is maintained by the Special Collections Research Center and the Web Development Group.