First Generation

1. John COGGESHALL^1,2 was born about 9 Dec 1601 in Halstead, Essex Co., England. He died on 27 Nov 1647 in Newport, Newport Co., RI. The Great Migration Begins
Sketches
PRESERVED PURITAN

JOHN COGGESHALL

ORIGIN: Castle Hedingham, Essex
MIGRATION: 1632 on Lyon [Hotten 150]
FIRST RESIDENCE: Roxbury
REMOVES: Boston 1634, Portsmouth 1638, Newport 1639
OCCUPATION: Mercer, merchant. (On 4 March 1634/5 he was the Boston delegate to a consortium which was to have a monopoly of trade with vessels in Boston Harbor [MBCR 1:142].)
CHURCH MEMBERSHIP: "John Coggshall" and "Mary Coggshall, the wife of John Coggshall," were admitted to Roxbury church as members #30 and #31, in the midst of a group of 1632 immigrants [RChR 75]; "John Coggeshall mercer and Marie his wife ... admitted from Roxbury" to Boston church, 20 August 1634 [BChR 18].
FREEMAN: 6 November 1632 (as "Mr. Jo: Coggeshall") [MBCR 1:367]. (Pope assigned John Coggeshall a date of freemanship of 3 March 1635/6, but this is for John Cogswell of Ipswich.)
EDUCATION: Contributed 13s. 4d. to maintenance of schoolmaster, 12 August 1636 [BTR 1:160].
OFFICES: Deputy to General Court for Boston, 14 May 1634, 4 March 1634/5, 6 May 1635, 25 May 1636, 8 September 1636, 7 December 1636, 9 March 1636/7 [MBCR 1:116, 135, 145, 174, 178, 185, 191; BTR 1:13, 16]; replaced as deputy, 6 November 1637 [BTR 1:20]. Auditor, 4 March 1634/5 [MBCR 1:136]. Assessor, 25 May 1636, 8 September 1636 [MBCR 1:175, 180].
Committee to survey Mount Wollaston, 14 May 1634 [MBCR 1:119]. Boston member of committee to oversee ammunition, 3 September 1634 [MBCR 1:125].
Boston selectman (for six-month terms), 1 September 1634, 14 March 1635/6, 16 September 1636, 20 March 1636/7, 8 October 1637 [BTR 1:1, 9, 11, 16, 20]; assessor, 6 October 1634 [BTR 1:2].
Committee to lay out land at Portsmouth, 20 May 1638 [RICR 1:55-56]. Treasurer, 27 June 1638 [RICR 1:57]. Committee "for the venison trade with the Indians," 16 November 1638 [RICR 1:62]. Chosen elder, 2 January 1638/9 (in this case a civil and not a church office) [RICR 1:64], an office which he retained after the move to Newport [RICR 1:87, 100]. Assistant for the combined government of Portsmouth and Newport, 12 March 1639/40, 16 March 1640/1, 16 March 1641/2, 13 March 1643/4 [RICR 1:101, 112, 120, 127]. Committee to lay out land at Portsmouth, 12 March 1639/40 [RICR 1:102]. Treasurer, 1640 [RICR 1:106]. Auditor, 1641 [RICR 1:113, 119].
Chosen moderator of the first meeting under the charter for the colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, and then at the same meeting elected president, 19-21 May 1647 [RICR 1:147-48]. (He died after six months in office.)
ESTATE: Granted two hundred acres at Rumney Marsh, 8 January 1637/8 [BTR 1:28].
Contributed £5 to the building of the seafort, 1 April 1634 [MBCR 1:113].
Granted six acres at Portsmouth, 20 May 1638 [RICR 1:55].
BIRTH: Baptized Halstead, Essex, 9 December 1601, son of John and Ann (Butter) Coggeshall [NEHGR 73:21].
DEATH: Buried Newport 27 November 1647 [RIMM, Deaths 1; see also TAG 34:169].
MARRIAGE: By about 1624 Mary _____ (she is first seen in 1632 at admission to Roxbury church, but there is no evidence of an earlier wife); she died at Newport 8 November 1684 [see COMMENTS below].
CHILDREN:
i JOHN, b. say 1624; m. (1) Portsmouth or Newport 17 June 1647 Elizabeth Baulston [PoVR 1:32] (divorced 25 May 1655 [RICR 1:314, 319]); m. (2) December 1655 Patience Throckmorton; m. (3) 1 October 1679 Mary (Hedge) Sturgis [see COMMENTS below].

ii ANNE, bp. Castle Hedingham, Essex, 7 May 1626 [NEHGR 86:257]; m. 15 November 1643 Peter Easton, son of Nicholas [see COMMENTS below].

iii MARY, bp. Castle Hedingham 22 June 1628 [NEHGR 86:257]; named in the will of her grandmother, 16 April 1645; no further record.

iv JAMES, bp. Castle Hedingham 14 March 1629/30 [NEHGR 86:257]; named in the will of his grandmother, 16 April 1645; no further record.

v JOSHUA, b. say 1632; m. (1) 22 December 1652 Joan West [see COMMENTS below]; m. (2) 21 June 1677 Rebecca Russell [see COMMENTS below].

vi HANANIEL (daughter), bp. Boston 3 May 1635 [BChR 279]; no further record.

vii WAIT, bp. Boston 11 September 1636 [BChR 280]; m. 18 December 1651 Daniel Gould [see COMMENTS below]. (The name of this child, the short interval before the baptism of the next child of her parents, and the date of her marriage suggest that Wait may have been born before Hananiel.)

viii BEDAIAH (son), bp. Boston 30 July 1637 [BChR 282]; no further record.

ASSOCIATIONS: In her will, dated 16 April 1645 and proved 10 November 1648, Anne Coggeshall of Castle Hedingham, Essex, made bequests "unto my son John Coggeshall, now dwelling in New England, my house and lands at Sibble Hedingham," and £50 "to be divided equally between my eight grandchildren, John, Anne, Mary, Jos [sic] and James Coggeshall, the children of my son John, before mentioned, and John, Richard and Elizabeth Raymond, the children of Anne Raymond, my daughter" [Waters 748, citing PCC Essex 171]. (Anne Coggeshall seems not to have known of her granddaughter Wait Coggeshall; if she did not know this, she may also not have learned if Mary and James had already died, as they are not seen in any records other than their baptisms and her will.)
In a letter to John Winthrop Jr. dated 29 March 1634 Edward Howes enclosed a letter from "Sir Symon Harcourt's brother" to "Mr. Coggeshall" [WP 3:158].
COMMENTS: Several of the vital records given above (death date for the widow of the immigrant and five of the marriage dates for various children) are found in secondary sources [Austin 49; Coggeshall Gen passim], but have not been found in contemporary documents.
On 1 April 1633 "John Sayle is bound with Mr. Coxeshall for 3 years, for which he is to give him £4 per annum; his daughter is also bound with him for 14 years. Mr. Coxeshall is to have a sow with her, & at the end of her time he is to give unto her a cow calf" [MBCR 1:104]. On 4 March 1633/4 it is "ordered that John Sayles shall be whipped for running from his master, Mr. Coxeall" [MBCR 1:112]. On 7 April 1635 William Coddington and William Pynchon were appointed to "examine & prepare the business betwixt Mr. Coxeall, Sayles his daughter, & John Levens, & to return the same to the next Court" [MBCR 1:144]. On 6 June 1637 in "regard Phebe Seales was, by order of Court, put apprentice to John Coggeshall, of Boston, merchant, who, at the instant request of the Court, accepted the same, & for that the said girl hath proved overburdensome to him, the Court, as formerly, so now, have thought it just to ease him of it; & whereas the said girl was put by the said John Coggeshall to one John Levins, of Roxberry, to be kept at a certain [blank], it is now ordered, that Mr. Deputy, calling to him Mr. Brenton & Will[iam] Parks, chosen by the said 2 parties, shall have power to end the difference between the said parties, & to set down such order for the ease & discharge of the said John Coggesall, & disposing of the said Phebe, as they shall think equal" [MBCR 1:198].
On 6 December 1635 "Marie Martin our brother John Coggeshall's maidservant" was admitted to Boston church [BChR 20].
John Coggeshall was one of the strongest supporters of Rev. John Wheelwright during the Antinomian Controversy. On 2 November 1637, immediately after William Aspinwall was dismissed as Boston deputy to the General Court, "Mr. John Coggeshall affirming that Mr. Wheeleright is innocent, & that he was persecuted for the truth, was in like sort dismissed from being a member of the Court, & order was given for two new deputies to be chosen by the town of Boston" and "being convented for disturbing the public peace, was disfranchised, & enjoined not to speak anything to disturb the public peace, upon pain of banishment" [MBCR 1:205, 207], and the town of Boston replaced him on 6 November 1637 [BTR 1:20]. On 20 November 1637 "Mr. John Coggeshall" was disarmed [MBCR 1:212]. On 15 February 1637/8 Governor John Winthrop rebuked William Coddington, John Coggeshall and William Colbron for a remonstrance they had written, apparently relating to the Antinomian Controversy [WP 4:8-9].
Despite the severity of these actions, Coggeshall continued to sit as a Boston selectman until 19 February 1637/8, and received a grant of land on 8 January 1637/8 [BTR 1:28, 31]. On 12 March 1637/8 he was the second of eleven men "having license to depart, summons is to go out for them to appear (if they be not gone before) at the next Court, the third month, to answer such things as shall be objected" [MBCR 1:223].
John Coggeshall had indeed "gone before," as he was fourth on the list of founding settlers of Portsmouth, Rhode Island, on 7 March 1637/8 [RICR 1:52]. He attended town meetings at Portsmouth for the following year [RICR 1:53, 54, 56, 60, 62, 63], and then on 28 April 1639 was one of the founding settlers of Newport [RICR 1:87], where he continued in the office of elder.
Savage was unaware of the death of the immigrant in 1647, and so assumed that many of the records after that date belonged to the immigrant when they applied to the son (although Savage was clearly not sure of himself). Because John Coggeshall the son was born about 1620, he was just beginning to fill important offices about the time his father died, and so the records give the appearance of recording one life rather than two. (A different sort of problem appears in the list of Rhode Island freemen which is dated 1655. The list includes both "John Coggeshall" and "John Coggeshall, Jun[io]r" [RICR 1:300-01]. Since the immigrant John Coggeshall had died in 1647 and the third generation John Coggeshall was born in 1649, there should be only one of the name in this list. Perhaps this compilation, like those in Plymouth, was augmented and revised after initial compilation in 1655.)
BIBLIOGRAPHIC NOTE: The standard genealogy of the family was compiled and published by Charles Pierce Coggeshall and Thellwell Russell Coggeshall [The Coggeshalls in America: Genealogy of the Descendants of John Coggeshall of Newport with a Brief Notice of Their English Antecedents (Boston 1930), cited above as Coggeshall Gen]. In 1884 Henry T. Coggeshall delivered an address in which he outlined the life and career of John Coggeshall in the style expected at that time [Rhode Island Historical Magazine 5:147-72].
The English ancestry of John Coggeshall has been presented in a series of articles in the Register, the first by Frederick Samuel Fish and the last two by George Andrews Moriarty [NEHGR 73:19-32, 86:257, 99:315-22, 100:14-24].

Mary (?) was born about 1604 in England. She died on 19 Dec 1684 in Newport, Newport Co., RI. John COGGESHALL and Mary (?) had the following children:

+2

i.

Joshua COGGESHALL.