Early settlers in New England are frequently described as outsized men doing outsized things. For most of these, the description does not bear up well under scrutiny. Tristram Coffin, however, was truly a man who set the shadow of history, like a giant pine over the low scrub brush.

Once in Massachusetts, Coffin bounced around the settlements. They started in Salisbury, then Haverhill, then Newbury, and finally back to Salisbury. In Newbury, he was involved in a crime that exemplifies the problems Coffin had with authorities. He and his wife, Dionis, were running a tavern and making beer. The Puritans, being somewhat meddlesome, had decreed that you could only use four bushels of malt to make beer. Coffin used six bushels and charged more for it. While he got in trouble with the authorities, he did a brisk business.

So, when the Coffins came to the island, they came with a plan. Tristram not only wanted to come to Nantucket in order to get away from the meddlesome Puritans, but also to consolidate his gains. When the original 20 “full-share” purchasers got the land, five of those twenty were either sons or sons-in-law of Tristram. Many of the others lived off-island and Coffin controlled their votes. As a result of this dominance and of the scarcity of wood on-island, the new town was able to install Peter Coffin as the on-island wood monopoly. To a modern eye, this may seem silly considering the distance between Dover and Nantucket. However, in the seventeenth century, boats traveled much faster than anything did on land. Nantucket was far less of an island than it is now.

The Coffins did well out here and reproduced prodigiously. By Tristram’s death in 1681, he had seven children and sixty grandchildren. By 1728, 1582 descendents had been born, of which 1128 lived in New England. There were more Coffins alive than there were settlers on the island.

In order for the island to remain viable, they needed a moneymaker. Sheep seemed to be the right answer. Sheep were often raised on islands because there were relatively few predators and there weren’t too many tricky places for the notoriously dumb animals to get lost. Coffin got a deal with the Natives were they could graze over the entire island from October to May; away from the Natives growing season.

Sheep were profitable and the island grew. More men moved out here, including William Worth for “sea affairs” and Peter Folger as a surveyor, miller, and interpreter. They kicked the Vineyarders and their grazing horses off, since there wasn’t that much grazing land. Finally, they limited the number of horses to one per family. Horses, it appeared, hassled the cash crops of steer and sheep. Every household was allowed to have forty sheep and forty steers. If anyone had anymore, the animals were impounded and held by the town.

The island was a unique place in the mid- to late seventeenth century. For one thing, it wasn’t particularly religious. Religious meetings were held in private homes, but not in churches. The settlers were more likely to go on a “rantom skoot” on Sundays than go to church. Further, they were able to eject undesirables by placing them on a boat. They ejected one Sarah Neefield from the island because she was a single, unmarried woman. The island did not pay much attention to the mainland. It sent its tax (two barrels of marketable cod) to New York occasionally.

This split between the older and established Coffins and the newcoming Gardners would later ignite a revolt on-island. Nonetheless, Coffin’s astute investment and prudence brought the island into the world of colonial New England. While his dream of seeing Nantucket as his own country manor may have faded, the island was shaped by his presence.