As a Magistrate of Boston, William Coddington was forced to take part in the trial of Anne Hutchinson. He defended her as best he could, but Coddington could see the writing was already on the wall, so he tried shaming Anne’s accusers.
Shaming the court was a dangerous tactic, and ineffective, but perhaps Coddington knew they would not banish the richest members of their community. In the end, he was one of only three dissenters in the guilty verdict and banishment of Anne Hutchinson. Another was John Coggeshall (my wife’s 9th GGF).
BTW, John Coggeshall’s childhood home was Hedingham Castle in Halstead, Essex, just north of London. The Coggeshall family was one of the oldest noble families in England with “ten manors and estates in Essex and Suffolk” according to the Genealogy of the Anthony Family from 1495 to 1904.
For more on the Coggeshall family history visit this page from the Coggeshall Museum: https://coggeshallmuseum.org/coggeshall-family/
We spoke before of the three voyages of the ship Lyon to the Massachusetts Bay Colony. John and family were to arrive on the third and final successful voyage before her shipwreck.
Finding that his friend from Essex, Rev. John Eliot, who arrived a year prior with Roger Williams on the Lyon, had left Boston to found the Church of Roxbury (where he would stay for the next sixty years), Coggeshall removed his family to nearby Roxbury, Massachusetts. He would be one of the first members of John Eliot’s church, and the two would be instrumental in establishing this new community of Puritan transplants from Essex, England.
Also, BTW, in the Roger Williams Part 2 blog, remember we mentioned the statue of Roger Williams in the US Capitol Rotunda being replaced with the bust of Susan B. Anthony? She was the 5th Great-granddaughter of John Coggeshall!
So, John Coggeshall would become tight with William Coddington and Edmund Quincy. Ever heard of John Quincy Adams or been to Quincy Market in Boston? Yes, we are talking that Edmund Quincy. (I can smell the pizza and buttery lobster rolls!)
Anyway (about lost my train of thought), John would help Coddington and Quincy survey the Mount Wollaston area as they made plans for Braintree (see the previous Coddington blog post). He would move to Boston in 1634 and become a Deputy. You could imagine, the former silk merchant, now working primarily as an importer/exporter, would likely find Boston much better for business.
Soon afterwards, the ship Griffin would sail into Boston Harbor, and from that ship would emerge someone who would change the course of history for all three men. Anne Marbury Hutchinson.
Back to the trial…
Following the Boston court’s decision, Anne Hutchinson was placed on house arrest, but they would not let her stay in the Hutchinson house. No, she was remanded to the custody of one Joseph Weld in Roxbury. And, you are correct, he is related to former Governor of Massachusetts Bill Weld, actually his 8th GGF.
Rarely able to see her children, Anne instead was forcibly interrogated by several area ministers who would stand in judgment over her during her upcoming ecclesiastical trial. And, the trial would not begin until March 1638.
Knowing the trial already had a foregone conclusion, they decided to follow the immortal words of Public Enemy, “If you can’t join ‘em, beat ‘em.” Rev. John Clarke, a very newly arrived physician and minister of the heretical Baptist faith, William Hutchinson, husband of Anne, along with their adult sons, John Coggeshall, William Coddington, and William Dyer (husband of Mary Dyer, who will be featured in a future blog post) met secretly on March 7, 1638, with over a dozen other men determined to remove their families from this Puritan hornet’s nest. They signed a Compact, designed by Rev. Clarke, to form a new colony subject only to the laws of God, as they saw them.
“We whose names are underwritten do hereby solemnly in the presence of Jehovah incorporate ourselves into a Bodie Politick and as He shall help, will submit our persons, lives and estates unto our Lord Jesus Christ, the King of Kings, and Lord of Lords, and to all those perfect and most absolute laws of His given in His Holy Word of truth, to be guided and judged thereby.
Signers: William Coddington, John Clarke, William Hutchinson, Jr., John Coggeshall, William Aspinwall, Samuel Wilbore, John Porter, John Sanford, Edward Hutchinson, Jr. Esq., Thomas Savage, William Dyre, William Freeborne, Phillip Shearman, John Walker, Richard Carder, William Baulston, Edward Hutchinson, Sr., Henry Bull, Randall Holden, Thomas Clarke, John Johnson, William Hall and John Brightman, Esq.”
BTW, I’ve mentioned only two of the three dissenters in Anne Hutchinson’s civil trial. The other was Deputy William Aspinwall.
And, so the die was cast. Not that they would cast dice. I’m pretty sure they had rules about that, but perhaps now that they had formed a new covenant, they would.
Not waiting for the farcical trial, a contingent of the men, including William Hutchinson, set out immediately to locate Roger Williams’ colony on Narragansett Bay. Once they found him, they discussed their intentions to move to New Netherlands (now the Bronx, NY), but Williams knew of a good spot nearby, and was willing to broker a deal with the Narragansett.
The settlers purchased a spot known as Pocasset by the Narragansett Natives, on Aquidneck Island, for forty fathoms of white beads (a fathom being a six foot chain of beads worth about five shillings at the time), ten garden rakes, and twenty garden hoes. Seems like a bargain (author glances at chest full of Mardi Gras beads and wonders).