Charles Woolsey Coit, son of Daniel Wadsworth and Harriet Frances (Coit) Coit, was born on December 14, 1840, in New Rochelle, N. Y., but entered college from Norwich, Conn. For six months following graduation he was in Grand Rapids, Mich., and then for nearly three years in Union Theological Seminary, New York City. During this time he visited the

South in the interest of the Sanitary Commission, and of the Christian Commission, with which his brother (Yale 1864) was also connected. During the next three years he was again in New York, teaching, attending lectures in the Columbia Law School, and occupied in general study. In 1869 he removed to Grand Rapids, where his father had real estate interests, the administration and development of which was thereafter his main occupation. He became a member of the Kent County

Bar in 1869, but did not practice. Induced by the easy and liberal terms of payment which he made, many workingmen became owners of homes, and now form an important and elevating element in the community. He was a deacon of the Park (Congregational) Church for eleven years, and a trustee of Olivet College for several years.

He died of pneumonia after an illness of four days, at Milford, Conn., on October 23, 1901, in his 61st year.

He married, on October 16, 1878, Clara Guernsey, daughter of Lucas Guernsey and Eunice (Nichols) Merrill, of Kenosha, Wisc., who survives him with three sons, of whom the eldest is an undergraduate student in Yale University.

From the 1901-02 Yale University University Obituary Record