Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1900, volume 1).djvu/723

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COIT
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till January, 1864, when he resigned, but served for several months in army hospitals in Phila- delphia. After a year in New Yoric, he returned to Philadelphia in 1866. Dr. Cohen has made a specialty of diseases of tlie throat and chest, and is lecturer on laryngoscopy at Jefferson medical col- lege, Philadelphia. He is consulting pliysician of several Philadelphia hospitals, and a member of many medical societies. In 1875 he was president of the Phihxdelphia northern medical association. Among his publications the most important are "Treatise on Inhalation " (Philadelphia, 1867; 2d ed., 1876) ; " Diseases of the Throat " (Xew York, 1872) ; and " Croup in its Relations to Tracheot- omy" (Philadelphia, 1874).


COIT, Henry Augustus, educator, b. in Wilmington, Del., 20 Jan., 1830 ; d. in Concord, N. H., 5 Feb., 1895. He was educated at the University of Pennsylvania, but was not graduated. He entered the ministry of the Protestant Episcopal church, and on the foundation of St. Paul's school, in Concord, N. H., by Dr. George Shattuck, was chosen its first rector. The school, opened in 1856 with five or six boys, has since grown to be one of the largest in the country, numbering about 300 pupils and twenty masters, and occupying twenty build- ings. Its rector was made a doctor of divinity by Trinity college in 1863, and the success of the school was largely due to his efforts. In 1868 he visited England, and studied the workings of the large public schools there, many features of which he introduced into St. Paul's. Dr. Coit had been a trustee of Trinity college for four years, a dele- gate to the general convention of his church for many years, and was a preacher of much power. He published numerous sermons and addresses.— His brother, Joseph Howland, was professor of mathematics and natural science in St. James's col- lege, Md., until the closing of that institution in 1865, when he became associated with his brother in St. Paul's school. Concord, of which he is now vice-principal. He wrote part of the first vol- ume of the •' Life of Bishop Kerfoot " (New York, 1885). — Another brother, James Milnor, chemist, b. in Harrisburg, Pa., 31 Jan., 1845, was educated at St. Paul's school. Concord, N. H., and at Hobart college, Geneva, N. Y., where he was graduated in 1865. In 1881 he received the degree of Ph. D. from Dartmouth. During 1873-'5 he was the general manager of the Cleveland tube-works, but has since given his attention to the teaching of chemistry and the natural sciences, principally at St. Paul's school. Dr. Coit has devised sev- eral improved forms of chemical apparatus, and has published " A Short Manual of Qualitative Analysis " (Concord, N. II., 1883), and " A Chemi- cal Arithmetic, with a Short Svstem of Qualitative Analysis " (Boston, 1886).


COIT, Thomas Winthrop, clergyman, b. in New London, Conn., 28 June, 1803 ; d. in Middle- town, Conn., 21 June, 1885. He was graduated at Yale in 1821. studied for the ministry in the Epis- copal church, and became rector of St. Peter's church, Salem, Mass., in 1827; of Christ church, Cambridge, Mass., in 1829 : and of Trinity church. New Rochelle, N. Y., in 1839. For brief periods he was professor in Trinity college, Hartford, Conn., and president of Transylvania university, Lexing- ton, Ky. Soon afterward he accepted the rector- ship of St. Paul's church, Troy, N. Y., which place he held for nearly twenty-five years. In 1854 he was appointed lecturer on ecclesiastical history in the Berkeley divinity school, the duties of which office he discharged in coimection with his rector- ship in Troy. In 1872 he resigned his church, was appointed professor in the Divinity-school, and re- moved to Middletown, Conn. Dr. Coit was one of the best scholars and ablest writers in the Episco- pal church. His contributions to church literature were numerous and effective. He published " Re- marks on Norton's Statement of Reasons " (1833); "Paragraph Bible" (1834); " Townsend's Bible, Chronologically Arranged, with Notes " (2 vols., 1837-'8) ; " Puritanism, or a Churchman's Defence against its Aspersions, by an Appeal to its own History" (1845); a monograph in Bishop Perry's " History of the American Episcopal Church," en- titled " Puritanism in New England and the Epis- copal Church " (1885) ; together with frequent con- tributions to periodical literature.


COKE, Richard, senator, b. in Williamsburg, Va., 13 March, 1829. Pie was educated at William and Mary college, studied law, and after admission to the bar removed to Waco, Texas, and practised his profession. He served as a private, and after- ward as captain, in the Confederate army. In June, 1865, he was appointed district judge, and in 1866 elected judge of the supreme court. A year later Gen. Sheridan removed him, on the ground that he was an impediment to reconstruction. In 1873 he was elected governor of Texas, and in 1876 was re-elected. Having been elected as a democrat to the U. S. senate, he resigned to take his seat in that body on 4 March, 1877. In 1883 he was elected for another term, to expire 3 INIarch, 1889.


COKE, Thomas, clergyman, b. in Brecon, South Wales, 9 Sept., 1747 ; d. 2' May, 1814. He was educated at Oxford, and in 1772 became mayor of his native town. Subsequently he studied for the church, and obtained a curacy at Petherton. In 1776 he became acquainted with John Wesley, and, joining the Methodists, was appointed superintendent of the London district in 1780, and president of the Irish conference in 1782. After being ordained by Wesley as bishop of the church in the United States, he arrived in New York in 1784, and on 27 Dec. of that year he ordained Asbury a bishop, and joint superintendent of the church in America. They proceeded together to visit the different conferences until June, 1785, when Coke returned to England and visited Wales, Scotland, and Ireland. The first mission he established was in the West Indies in 1786, which he again visited in 1788-'9, 1790, and 1792-'3. His ninth and last visit to the United States was in 1803. After the death of Wesley he was chosen secretary of the English conference, and, in conjunction with Mr. Moore and Dr. Whitehead, published, in 1792, a "Life of Wesley." In a voyage to New York, in 1797, the vessel he was in was taken by a privateer, and he was cruelly treated, being plundered of everything but his books. In 1803 he established a mission in Gibraltar, and from this time until 1808 was engaged in travelling in aid of the missionary cause. Through his influence a mission was established in 1811 at Sierra Leone. Determining, in 1813, to establish a mission at Ceylon, such was his zeal that, when the conference hesitated on account of the expense, he furnished the money from his own private purse. The missionaries embarked 30 Dec, and, after being out four months, he was found dead in his cabin. He rendered valuable assistance to Wesley in procuring what was called the deed of declaration, providing for the settlement of the Methodist chapels in the connection, and restricted the conference to 100 of the preachers, and their successors, forever. He was the author of a " Commentary of the Bible " (1807), "A History of the West Indies," " History of the Bible," " Six Letters in Defence of the Doctrine of