which in the meantime had been moved, in 1835, to Court Mills. In 1839 Court Mills were destroyed by fire. The brothers then went to Springfield and engaged as pattern makers in the foundry of Laurin Trask. While there they made an improvement in the wrench in use, and having returned to Worcester in 1840, an application was made for a patent, which was granted Loring Coes, April 16, 1841.
The firm name of this concern was L. & A. G. Coes, and they had little beside the name, save a good amount of pluck and energy coupled with great inventive genius. Henry W. Miller sold their manufactured
Loring Coes.
wrenches, and loaned them capital upon which they worked. This continued till 1843, when they bought machinery, tools, etc., that were held by their patron, and carried on both manufacturing and selling. In 1853 they took Levi Hardy as partner; they enlarged their manufacturing capacities and added the manufacture of shear-blades and knives for hay-cutting machines. This partnership was dissolved in 1864. In 1869 a division of the business was made, Loring Coes taking the factory for the manufacture of shear-blades and knives, and A. G. Coes the wrench business.
April 1, 1888, the Coes Wrench Company was formed, with Loring Coes, president, J. H. Coes, treasurer, and Frederick Coes, secretary, the two younger members of the firm being sons of A. G. Coes. They now produce fifteen hundred wrenches per day, and a large quantity of shear-blades and knives, employing one hundred hands.
Loring Coes was married in 1835 to Harriet, daughter of Dana Reed. Of this union were two children: one son and one daughter.
Coffin, Charles Carleton, son of Thomas and Hannah (K.ilburn) Coffin, was born in Boscawen, Merrimack county, N. H., July 26, 1823.
He was educated in the district school of his native town, and in the Boscawen and Pembroke academies, N. H.; but his extensive reading gave him the preparation best fitting him for his life work. He was an omnivorous reader, and his love for historical literature was early developed, and fostered by the companionship of relations and friends, who either served in the war of the revolution and that of 1812, or were intimate with those who figured conspicuously in making the early history of this country.
Ill health prevented his taking a collegiate course. While incapacitated from severe mental or physical labor, he obtained a surveyor's compass, and more for pastime than any thought of becoming a surveyor, he studied the elements of surveying; but becoming quite an adept in the use of the instruments, Mr. Coffin accepted a position in the engineers' corps of the Northern Railroad, and was subsequently employed on the Concord & Claremont Railroad.
Mr. Coffin was married in Boscawen, N. H., in 1846, to Sallie R., daughter of John and Sallie (Gerrish) Farmer.
Mr. Coffin early began to write articles for the Concord newspapers, and some of the fugitive political contributions were re-published in "Littell's Living Age." His studies led him toward scientific culture, and he, as early as 1849, constructed a telegraph line between Harvard Observatory and Boston, by which exact and uniform time was given to the railroads running out of that city. He had charge of the construction of the telegraph fire alarm in Boston, and gave the first alarm ever given, April 29, 1852. His tastes led him into journalism, and from 1850 to 1854 he was a constant contributor to the press, sending articles to the "Boston Transcript," "Boston Journal," "Congregationalism" and "New York Tribune."
