♂John Coggeshall

John Coggeshall (born 24 July 1576 – buried 4 August 1615) was a gentleman of Halstead in Essex, England, whose baptism entry in the parish register records the hour of his birth: he was “born the Tewsday before in the morning between twelve and one of the clock”. English parish registers of the time usually gave only the day of baptism. He was the ninth great-grandfather of Frederic Roger Curtis (1928–2007), through his son John Coggeshall^W (1601–1647). That son, still a minor when his father died, later became the first president of the colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations.

Early life

He was baptized at Halstead on Sunday 29 July 1576, the son of John Coggeshall, gent., of Halstead, and his second wife Katherine, whose surname is not known. His father had two living sons named John, and his will calls this one “the Younger”, “which I had by my now wife Katherine”. The other, his half-brother John “the Elder”, was the son of his father’s first wife, Elizabeth, who died before 1600; the 1919 article places the third brother, Richard, with the same mother. Two older sisters had been baptized at Halstead, Katherine in 1564 and Elizabeth in 1571/2; Katherine married Thomas Harrington, and Elizabeth the Rev. John Watson, vicar of Halstead, who supervised their father’s will.

When his father made his will on 27 December 1600, the younger John was the heir: Richard was to have £20 only if he released any claim to the lands their father had conveyed to the younger John’s use. John and his mother Katherine were the residuary legatees and executors, and after his father died on 1 January 1600/1 they proved the will at Braintree a week later.

Marriage and family

He married Anne Butter, a sister of John Butter, a yeoman of Thorrington. Their son John was baptized at Halstead on 9 December 1601, eleven months after his grandfather’s death, and two daughters followed, Anne and Catherine. In 1608/9 John and his mother Katherine were taxed together in the subsidy rolls^W on goods worth £3.

Debts

In April 1605 he borrowed £100 from John Sydaye of Pebmarsh, a gentleman and “a common lender of money”, at interest of £10 in the hundred. As security he mortgaged twenty-four acres in the hamlet of Stansted in Halstead: an arable field called Millers Close, a wood called Swiftes Grove, and Swiftes Croftes. In June 1605 he pledged further parcels that had once been part of Stansted park. His payments came late, and in 1608 he borrowed £120 or £140 more, after which Sydaye reconveyed the lands to him on condition that he pay £300 by 20 June 1609.

How much of that he paid became the question at law. His son’s later complaint called him “somewhat unthrifty in his estate and not provident to preserve the same”, said that Sydaye had known him “to be a man both weak and improvident and much neglecting the good of himself, his wife, and children”, and claimed that the whole £300 had been paid “in money, corn, cattle, and other goods”. Sydaye’s executor answered that £148 15s. was still owing. Sydaye died on 2 August 1613, and John then came to the executor to settle, “confessing a great deal of money to be due but saying that he thought not much above £100”, but he died before they reached any agreement.

Death and the Chancery suit

He was buried at Halstead on 4 August 1615 as “Mr. John Coggeshall, gent.” His heir was under twenty-one. On 26 June 1620 his widow Anne, as “his mother and guardian assigned”, brought a complaint in the Court of Chancery^W in the boy’s name, in which the man who had been “the Younger” in his own father’s will was now “John Coggeshall the Elder”. The Sydaye heirs had leased the Stansted land to Walter Bright, who was suing to evict the Coggeshall tenants, Richard Mullyns and John Diglett. The executor offered to give up the land for the £148 15s. with interest and damages, and the younger John replied that the defendants’ answers were false. The printed abstract of the case ends there.

Anne later lived at Castle Hedingham, where she made her will as a widow in 1645. Her brother John Butter had left £40 to each of her three children in 1624/5. Their daughter Anne married Richard Raymond, and Catherine was buried at Castle Hedingham in 1640, still bearing the name Coggeshall. In 1632 the son, John, sailed for New England.

Notes

• His baptism and burial, his father’s will, John Butter’s will, Anne’s will, the subsidy entries and the 1620 Chancery case are printed in abstract in “Genealogical Research in England: Coggeshall”, New England Historical and Genealogical Register 73 (1919), pages 19–30. The outcome of the 1620 case is not given there.
• The register entry names his father only as “John Coggeshall, gent.” The 1919 article identifies the child baptized in 1576 as John “the Younger” of his father’s will, and so as the father of the John baptized in 1601.
• His daughter Catherine was written “Catteren Kockssell” when she was baptized at Halstead on 18 April 1607, with no parent named; John Butter’s will names her as a daughter of his sister Anne.
• The lender’s name is written Sydaye, Sydaie, Sidaie and Sidey in the case.