The Long Brothers · Hub
Three brothers. Thirteen lines. Nine hundred and sixty years.
In the 1970s, at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, Carol Perry — born in Cambridge, raised in Framingham — met John Patrick Long, who grew up in Fall River. John Patrick’s family began building a home at Westport Point during his high school years and relocated full-time by the time he was in college. Carol’s family had been rooted in Rhode Island and southeastern Massachusetts since the 1650s. John Patrick’s grandparents had arrived from Ireland in the 1890s. They married soon after. Their three sons carry forward thirteen documented family lines across nine hundred and sixty years — from Sir Richard Coffin at Hastings in 1066, through the English gentry at Portledge, through the founders of Nantucket in 1659, through Revolutionary soldiers, Mayflower passengers, and Irish famine refugees, to John, Perry, and Patrick Long.
A longer account of the convergence generation — Carol Perry and John Patrick Long — is coming.
The Convergence · Rule #86
In 1744, on Nantucket, a woman named Eunice Gardner (PID LZD4-RLB) was born. Her mother was Jedidah Folger — Peter Folger’s great-granddaughter. Peter Folger was the Nantucket surveyor whose daughter Abiah became Benjamin Franklin’s mother. Eunice’s father was Robert Gardner, whose mother Hannah Coffin was Tristram Coffin’s granddaughter. Tristram organized the purchase of Nantucket in 1659.
One woman — Eunice Gardner — carried both lines forward. Nine generations later, her descent reaches three brothers in Massachusetts.
[JOHN’S VOICE HERE — a reflection beat on what this convergence means.]
The arrival
Three sons of Carol Perry and John Patrick Long.
The eldest
John Long is a realtor, investor, and builder based in Newport County, Rhode Island. He works across residential real estate, investment property, and digital infrastructure — including the archive that this page lives in. He thinks in systems and documents what he builds.
The middle son
Perry Long is a multi-generational mover, a community contributor, and a South Coast New Englander through and through — carrying a family name and legacy forward with pride and purpose. He and his wife Carmel are passionate about giving back, supporting charitable causes across Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and beyond.
The youngest
Patrick Long is President and CEO of BayCoast Insurance in Fall River, Massachusetts, where he has been since 2006. He is active in the southeastern Massachusetts business community and in youth sports, and lives in Westport with his family.
Between them, the three brothers have five grandchildren of Carol Perry and John Patrick Long living today. By the archive’s standing policy, living minors are not named on public pages; full family detail stays in the private vault.
The descent
fl. 1066 · Norman knight, Hastings
Recorded as a companion of William the Conqueror at the Battle of Hastings. The Coffin family subsequently held the Portledge estate in north Devon, where the male line remained for roughly five centuries before Tristram Coffin left for Massachusetts in 1642.
The Portledge Centuries→1609–1681 · Founder of Nantucket
Organized the 1659 purchase of Nantucket Island for thirty pounds sterling and two beaver hats, and drafted the share-and-proprietor governance that structured the settlement. First Chief Magistrate of Nantucket (1660–1681). His descent to the brothers runs through his younger son John Coffin (KNZ2-13G) and granddaughter Hannah Coffin into the Gardner, Macy, and Folger Nantucket marriages.
Ancestor Spotlight: Tristram Coffin→1645–1717 · Quaker convert, Nantucket
Tristram Coffin’s daughter. Contemporaries called her the “Great Woman” of Nantucket for the influence she held over island governance and commerce. Her 1702 conversion to Quakerism, following John Richardson’s visit, shaped the island’s religious and civic culture for the next century.
Tristram Coffin and the Founding of Nantucket→1617–1690 · Nantucket founder, interpreter of Wampanoag
Surveyor and schoolmaster who surveyed Nantucket between 1659 and 1662 and served as interpreter to the Wampanoag. Author of “A Looking Glass for the Times,” a 1676 verse petition on behalf of persecuted Quakers and Baptists. His daughter Abiah Folger was the mother of Benjamin Franklin; his son John Folger carries the direct line into the brothers’ maternal descent.
Cousin: Benjamin Franklin (via Peter Folger)→1706–1790 · First cousin, 10 times removed
Franklin’s mother Abiah Folger was born on Nantucket in 1667. Her brother John Folger is the brothers’ direct ancestor; Abiah is Franklin’s mother. The descent is first-cousin at the sibling level, eleven generations removed — verified through the Peter Folger (99BX-1P2) common ancestor.
Cousin: Benjamin Franklin→1793–1880 · Abolitionist, Seneca Falls, scheduled $10 bill
Born on Nantucket to the Coffin–Folger community. Co-organizer of the 1848 Seneca Falls Convention that launched the American women’s-rights movement; co-founder of the American Anti-Slavery Society. A Tristram-Coffin-line cousin through James Coffin (1640) and Benjamin Coffin (1705), not in the brothers’ direct line.
Lucretia Coffin Mott→c.1623–1686 · Quaker dissenter, Rhode Island
Publicly whipped in Weymouth and Boston in the 1650s for preaching Quaker doctrine, an incident documented in contemporary Puritan court records. Among the earliest recorded women to dissent from Massachusetts Bay religious authority; an early member of the Rhode Island community that sheltered similar dissenters.
The Women→1744–1809 · Coffin–Folger convergence (Rule #86)
The single ancestor where the Coffin line (through her father Robert Gardner, whose mother was Hannah Coffin, Tristram’s granddaughter) and the Folger line (through her mother Jedidah Folger, Peter Folger’s great-granddaughter) converge. Her daughter Margaret “Peggy” Macy carries both lines forward into the Folger surname at Frederick William Folger in 1805.
The convergence in context→1927–1989 · Massachusetts House of Representatives, 1956–1980
Eleventh Bristol District. Assistant Majority Leader. Instrumental in the founding of Bristol Community College and the formation of what became UMass Dartmouth. Personal correspondent of John F. Kennedy, Edward Kennedy, and Michael Dukakis. Paternal grandfather to the brothers.
The Long Family→1850s–1890s · Longs, Coogans, Sullivans, Manions
Four Irish surname lines arrived in Fall River and surrounding New Bedford between the Famine emigration and the 1890s, establishing the parishes, trades, and extended family networks that the twentieth-century Longs grew into. The Coogan line reaches back to the ancient kingdom of Uí Maine in Connacht; the Manions and Sullivans came from Connacht and Munster respectively.
The Coogan Line→Heritage of each line
Each documented line has its own heraldic history where one is recorded. Where no shield is yet sourced, the placeholder reserves the space. Rule #77 applies once assets land: original work, CC0, or licensed; earliest recorded armiger; source cited.
This page is the end of the chain. Every generation between Sir Richard at Hastings and the three brothers in Massachusetts is documented, cited, and linked in the archive itself.
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