♂John Coggeshall

John Coggeshall (died 1 January 1600/1) was a gentleman of Halstead in Essex, England, whose will provided for two living sons who were both named John, one born to each of his two wives. He was the tenth great-grandfather of Frederic Roger Curtis (1928–2007), through his son John Coggeshall (1576–1615). He died eleven months before the baptism of his grandson John Coggeshall^W, who became the first president of the colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations.

Halstead

Philip Morant^W’s history of Essex (1768) records that he held Munchensies, “a capital messuage, situated near Coggeshall bridge” on the road from Halstead to Colchester, in the reigns of Edward VI, Philip and Mary, and Elizabeth, and that he “made great additions to the house in 1563”. According to a note printed in The East Anglian, he also built an almshouse in the town, and its porch bore the inscription “John Coggeshall did Bild this Hous in A° md63”, with the arms “Argent, a cross between four escallops sable” and the motto “Truth by the selfe”. These were the arms of the knightly Coggeshall family of Coggeshall in Essex, but the 1919 account of the Halstead family could not show how the two were related.

In 1570 he and Robert Swattock bought from William Waldegrave, Esquire, and his wife Elizabeth a messuage with 143 acres of land, meadow, pasture, wood and alder grove in Stansted and Halstead, for £40, by a final concord recorded in the feet of fines^W. The subsidy rolls^W for Essex taxed him at Halstead on goods valued at £6 in 1566/7 and at £8 in 1572, 1599 and 1600.

Family

He married twice. His will names “my late wife Elizabeth, deceased”, the mother of his son John “the Elder”, and his wife at the time he made it, Katherine, whose surname is not known. She was the mother of John “the Younger”, who was baptized at Halstead in 1576, for the will calls him “my son John Coggeshall the Younger, which I had by my now wife Katherine”. He had another son, Richard, and two daughters baptized at Halstead: Katherine, baptized in 1564, who married Thomas Harrington there, and Elizabeth, baptized in 1571/2, who married the Rev. John Watson, vicar of Halstead.

Death and will

He made his will on 27 December 1600. He asked to be buried in the chancel of Halstead church under “a convenient marble stone” carrying an inscription in brass “with my whole arms and ‘schocheon’ in the same to be graven”, and he left 40 shillings to the poor of Halstead. The younger John was his heir. Richard was to have £20 only if he released to “my son John Coggeshall the Younger” any claim to the lands his father had “given or conveyed to the use of my said son John Coggeshall”, and £5 if he refused; John the Elder had £10. His wife Katherine and her son John were his residuary legatees and executors.

He died on 1 January 1600/1 and was buried at Halstead two days later, and his widow and son proved the will at Braintree on 8 January. His grandson John was baptized at Halstead on 9 December 1601. Katherine was still living in 1608/9, when she and her son were taxed together on goods worth £3.

Notes

• The register entry of his death and burial, his will, the 1570 fine and the subsidy entries are printed in abstract in “Genealogical Research in England: Coggeshall”, New England Historical and Genealogical Register 73 (1919), pages 19–28. The will was proved in the Commissary Court of London for Essex and Hertfordshire.
• Munchensies and the 1563 additions rest on Morant’s history, and the almshouse inscription, arms and motto on The East Anglian, both as quoted in the 1919 article. The article adds that he “is said to have been at one time a merchant in London”, without giving a source.
• The 1570 fine names the buyer “John Coxall”; the 1919 article takes him to be this John. The subsidy rolls write the name Cockshall, Coxall, Coggishall and Coggeshall.
• The will does not say which wife was Richard’s mother; the 1919 article places him with John “the Elder” as a child of the first marriage. The article dates the second marriage “probably about 1564 or earlier” and allows that Katherine, baptized in 1564, may have been a child of the first wife.
• The register entries name the father of the 1576 baptism only as “John Coggeshall, gent.”; the 1919 article identifies that child as John “the Younger” of the will.