Coker, Robert Adams, 1807-1833.

West Newbury, Massachusetts, native and mathematics teacher.

Robert Adams Coker of West Newbury, Massachusetts, was born in 1807 and died in 1833, only eighteen months after graduation from Harvard College. His class of 1831 included a handful of prominent mid-nineteenth century names, among them Wendell Phillips, the anti-slavery orator. His major field of study was mathematics, which he taught in two schools after college: an academy in Francestown, New Hampshire, in 1831-1832, and the Highland School in Cold Springs, New York (near West Point), from July 1832 to January 1833. Coker then went home to West Newbury, and died there of consumption in March. His abiding love of mathematics helped him through the rough days when he was feeling poorly, although he did not know at that time that he was suffering from tuberculosis.