Charles Albert Coffin

Charles Albert Coffin, co-founder and the first president of the General Electric Company, was one of the most influential industrial leaders of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Born in Fairfield, Maine, on December 31, 1844, he was the son of Albert Coffin and Anstrus Varney Coffin. As a young man he showed an aptitude for business and enterprise. At the age of eighteen he moved to Lynn, Massachusetts, where he joined his uncle Charles E. Coffin's shoe company. For the next two decades he worked in the shoe trade, eventually establishing his own firm, Coffin and Clough, which became a successful manufacturer in Lynn.

Although he prospered in footwear, Coffin's second career would prove even more remarkable. In 1883 he was approached by Silas A. Barton, a Lynn businessman, who proposed bringing to the city a struggling electrical firm from New Britain, Connecticut. The company's great asset was the inventive talent of Elihu Thomson, but it needed sound business leadership and capital to survive. Coffin agreed to finance and lead the reorganized company, which was renamed Thomson-Houston. Under his steady management and Thomson's engineering genius, the firm quickly became a formidable rival to Thomas Edison's enterprises. Thomson-Houston not only competed in manufacturing electrical equipment but also established power plants, including installations in Atlanta, Georgia, to run both electric lighting and streetcar lines.

Original factory, Thomson-Houston Electric Company, 1883, General Electric Company, 1883/1883, From the collection of: Museum of Innovation & Science

In 1892 Coffin negotiated the merger of Thomson-Houston with Edison General Electric, creating the General Electric Company. He became its first president, serving from 1892 until 1912, and then chairman of the board from 1913 until 1922. His leadership was tested almost immediately during the Panic of 1893, when financial markets collapsed and credit dried up. Coffin skillfully negotiated with New York banks, offering utility stocks held by General Electric as collateral, thereby securing the funds that kept the company afloat. His decisive action not only saved GE but positioned it for growth during the recovery. Coffin understood the importance of innovation in a rapidly changing industry.

Thomson-Houston factory interior, General Electric Company, 1885/1895, From the collection of: Museum of Innovation & Science

In 1901 he established the first industrial research laboratory in the United States at Schenectady, New York. This groundbreaking move institutionalized research and development within a corporation, ensuring a steady stream of technical advances. He supported engineers in the adaptation of the Curtis steam turbine, which revolutionized electric power generation and became one of the company's most important contributions to modern industry. Under his leadership General Electric expanded into a global enterprise and became a symbol of American industrial power.

Associates remembered Coffin as a gracious and diplomatic executive, a leader who preferred suggestion and persuasion to command. He welcomed ideas from colleagues, reserved decisions for essential matters, and was known for his personal involvement in major negotiations. He often wrote proposals to customers in his own hand, and he had a gift for easing tense situations with humor and anecdote. Customers and competitors alike regarded him as both the statesman and the salesman of the electrical industry.

Coffin retired from active leadership in 1922, leaving the company in strong condition and entrusting its future to Owen D. Young, who would himself become a towering figure in American business. By the time of his retirement Coffin had accumulated a substantial personal fortune through his General Electric holdings, making him one of the wealthiest men in the world.

He married Caroline Russell of Holbrook, Massachusetts, and together they had three children. In his later years he divided his time between New York and his estate in Locust Valley, Long Island. It was there, on July 14, 1926, that he died at the age of eighty-one. He was buried at Locust Valley Cemetery, With his wife Caroline, son Edward, & daughter Alice.

The Coffin Family plot can be seen here. This is an interactive map of Addition 1, of the Locust Valley Cemetery. In 1917, a group of wealthy men including J.P. Morgan Jr., Robert Lovett, and Charles Coffin bought land next to the Locust Valley Reformed Church. Their hope was to create a special place for a burial, worthy of the wealth they had acquired in life.

Portledge

The Charles Albert Coffin Estate

Portledge, the country estate of Charles Albert Coffin, was built in Locust Valley, Long Island, New York, in the early 1910s. Coffin, co-founder and first president of General Electric, began acquiring land in Matinecock around 1910, assembling about 130 acres for his residence. The estate was named Portledge after the Coffin family’s ancestral home in Devon, England, known as Portledge Manor.

Coffin hired architect Howard Greenley to design the main house and supporting buildings. Greenley planned the mansion in the Tudor Revival style, a common choice for Long Island estates of the period. Construction began around 1909 and continued into the early 1910s. The main residence featured asymmetrical massing, stone and half-timbered walls, and tall clustered chimneys typical of Greenley’s work.

Beatrix Farrand, a leading landscape architect, was commissioned to design the formal gardens and grounds. Her plans included terraces and organized garden spaces that aligned with the Tudor character of the house.

By 1914, the estate’s development was well advanced. That year, American Architect and Building News published Greenley’s designs for the Gardener’s and Chauffeur’s Cottages at Portledge, confirming the continued expansion and detailing of the property. These structures matched the style of the main house and show that Greenley oversaw both residential and service planning for the estate.

The completed property included the main mansion, carriage house, greenhouses, and multiple staff cottages, functioning as a self-contained country estate. Coffin used Portledge as his residence until his death in 1926.

In 1965, the estate became the home of Portledge School. The original mansion and carriage house remain in use, preserving much of the early twentieth-century design and layout established under Coffin’s ownership.

Photos of Portledge courtesy of Oldlongisland.com.