July 12-14, 2022 Collectible Firearms & Militaria
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 7/12/2022
Colt 1849 Pocket Model 5 shot percussion revolver made by Colt in Hartford, Connecticut in 1861. Gun has name "Lieut. T. M. Coane" stamped on left grip. The addition of the "e" is likely an error due to a well intentioned presenter, perhaps a former patient. Titus Munson Coan was one of the few, if not only, Hawaiian born Civil War officers. Born at Hilo in 1836, the son of Christian missionaries, he was educated at the Royal and Punahow Schools of Honolulu before coming to the states in 1856 where he completed his B.A. at Williams in 1858, and M.A. in 1859. He then studied medicine in New York City with Dr. Elijah Harris, graduating Columbia’s College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1861, and becoming a Fellow of the New York Academy of Medicine. He spent 17 months as an intern in hospitals run by the NY Commissioners of Public Charities and Corrections at the Bellevue, Blackwell’s Island, Small Pox and Randall’s Island hospitals where he served as house surgeon or house physician and attended clinics run by doctors and medical professors in the various wards. Coan applied to the U.S. Board of Naval Surgeons in September 1863, passed their examination, and on October 27 was accepted as an Acting Assistant Surgeon, the post given by the U.S. Navy to a group of civilian doctors taken into the Navy to cope with its expanded wartime duties in enforcing the blockade, safeguarding commerce, and active combat operations, along internal waterways, the coast, and international waters. Navy rank equivalencies usually equated an Acting Assistant Surgeon as a Mate, but Coan’s experience may have gained him the extra grade: he is consistently referred to as a lieutenant in contemporary biographies, one explaining that he briefly held that rank and post in the army and transferred with it to the Navy. This might refer to earlier service as a contract surgeon, which does not leave traces in the usual military records. Coan served on the U.S.S. Sebago, a double-ended sidewheel gunboat built in 1861 at Portsmouth, likely joining it in New York, where it was undergoing repairs before sailing in early December for the Gulf of Mexico. There it served in Farragut’s West Gulf Blockading Squadron and in addition to blockading duties, in August 1864 took part in the Battle of Mobile Bay, by which Farragut closed off the last major Confederate Gulf port east of the Mississippi. The ship returned to New York and was decommissioned at the end of July 1865. Coan was discharged December 21, 1865. In later years Coan was active in MOLLUS, the organization for veteran U.S. officers of the Civil War, in particular acting as editor in the publication of memoirs. Coan had resumed the practice of medicine in New York in 1866, but by 1880 had become interested in writing and publishing. Some of his early work was medical: he published on hygiene and was interested in the effects of mineral waters and climate on health, but veered into ethnography and other subjects, natural from his Hawaiian upbringing, eventually opening his own editorial and publishing business in New York, where he died in 1921. This is a nice condition pistol with a great carved inscription and is typical of sidearms purchased for self-defense and carried by officers sailing in harm’s way no matter what their post or official duties. Pistol has 4" octagon barrel with 2 line Colt Hartford Address. Gun has all matching serial numbers including the wedge. 5 shot cylinder has 40% visible remaining stagecoach scene with visible matching number. Brass trigger guard with matching numbers and 1 piece walnut grips with Coan's name on left. PROVENANCE: Comes with several letters to Dr. John K. Lattimer stating origin and background of Coan. CONDITION: Metal worn to a silvery patina with some old pitting. Brass has traces of nickel finish. Grips have traces of original varnish. Dark bore with crisp mechanics. DLM
Caliber/Bore
.31 Percussion
Paperwork
Consigner Notes and Letter