♂William Cogan

William Cogan (died 1654 or 1655) was a tanner of South Chard, in Somerset, England. He was the tenth great-grandfather of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006), through his daughter Eleanor Cogan (died after 1693). When he made his will in April 1654, he named two living daughters called Eleanor: one married and living across the ocean as the “wife of Walter Deane in New England”, the other still under age at home.

Family

The Cogans and the Deanes lived in the same place. In 1634 a William Cogam, most likely the same man, witnessed the will of William Deane of South Chard, who is believed to have been the father of Walter Deane. By 1654 his elder daughter Eleanor, probably his child by a first wife, was the wife of that Walter, who had settled at Taunton, in Plymouth Colony. At home in South Chard were his two other daughters, Joane Cogan and the second Eleanor Cogan.

His will

He made his will on 24 April 1654, “sicke in bodye”, and signed it with his mark. He lived in a cottage at South Chard with a garden and a close of land behind it, and he owned an acre of meadow in Chard Meade and another in Good Meade. He meant the land to stay in the family. He entailed^W the cottage, after the death of his daughter in New England, on the younger Eleanor and her sons, then on Joane and her sons, and failing both on the sons of Eleanor Deane; the two meadows went to Joane and her sons, then to the younger Eleanor. Any heir who tried to sell, lease or otherwise part with the land was to lose all right to it.

Joane was to have for life the lower, north end of his dwelling house, a low room with the chamber over it, together with the barn, a plot for an herb garden and part of the orchard. The rest of his goods was to be shared equally between Joane and the younger Eleanor. He made the younger Eleanor his executrix and, because she was a minor, asked two “good freinds”, Robert Cogan, a clothier, and William Palsery, a tanner, to act for her until she came of age. He was dead by 23 June 1655, when the will was proved in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury^W.

Notes

The will

The will of William Cogan of Southchard, tanner, dated 24 April 1654 and proved 23 June 1655, is in the register of the Prerogative Court of Canterbury (Aylett, 283). It was printed in full in the New England Historical and Genealogical Register 51 (1897), pp. 434–435, from a copy made by William Dean of London. Its witnesses were Robert Newbery and Robert Pitts. His death is known only from the will and its probate.

Two daughters named Eleanor

The will names “my daughter Eleanor Deane wife of Walter Deane in New England”, and also Joane Cogan and Eleanor Cogan, the executrix, who was under age. H. Clark Dean, “Eleanor Cogan, the Wife of Walter Deane of Taunton: An Evaluation of the Evidence”, NEHGR 147 (1993), pp. 240–254, argued from this that the wife of Walter Deane was “an elder daughter of William Cogan, by a first wife”, as the Great Migration Newsletter summed it up. The name of neither wife is known.

The 1634 witness

The will of William Deane of Southchard, dated 22 July 1634 and proved 11 October 1634 (Seager, 86), is printed in NEHGR 51, pp. 432–433; one of its witnesses signed as “William Cogam”. The editor there saw “strong reasons for believing” that William Deane was the father of John and Walter Deane of Taunton; that link is a strong probability, not a proof.