By Jared L. Olar
December 2018
Updated August 2019
Nothing is known of the ancestry of this Cocke family, but it is likely that they had been living in East Anglia, England, for a very long time before they first appear on record in the mid-1500s. By that time they were yeomen living at the village of Mendlesham and the town of Ipswich in Suffolk, and in matter of religion they were Anglicans with Calvinist/Puritan leanings. Unsurprisingly, the descendants of this Cocke family would become active members of the Baptist sect in New England. As for the origin of the surname, "Cocke" presumably is a variant form of "Cook," and thus would be an occupational surname, but the name may rather derive from the words "cock" or "coke."
Here follows a brief account of what is known of our Cocke ancestors:
1. THOMAS COCKE, parentage and ancestry unknown, born circa 1544 in Mendlesham, Suffolk, England, died after 1581 at St. Mary, Whitechapel, Middlesex, England. Thomas's wife was named AGNES PUTNAM ("Ann"), born circa 1555 in Mendlesham, Suffolk, England, died 1607 in Chesham, Buckinghamshire, England. Thomas and Agnes also lived for a while at Ipswich in Suffolk, about 25 miles from Mendlesham. It was at Ipswich that their daughter Naomi was born. Thomas and Agnes were English Puritans and Baptists, and their grandchildren were active in Baptist sects in New England. In 1673, their grandson SAMUEL HUBBARD (see below) recorded in his journal the following fascinating family traditions of his maternal grandfather: "I have a Testament of my grandfather Cocke's, printed in 1549, which he hid in his bed-straw, lest it be found and burned in Queen Mary's days."
This was a copy of a Coverdale New Testament with Psalms (also known as a Cranmer Bible), which included the William Tyndale New Testament, an unauthorised Protestant translation into English of the Catholic Greek New Testament. It was not only during the reign of Queen Mary I of England (1553-1559) that a Coverdale or Cranmer Bible would have been in danger, for Tyndale's New Testament was not only banned by the Catholic Church but also came to be rejected by the Anglicans because Tyndale had deliberately eliminated all of the New Testament's references to the Church, Christian priests, charity, and penance.
As for the fate of Thomas Cocke's Bible, William Richard Cutter's 1913 New England Families, Genealogical and Memorial, Vol. 1, pages 460-461, says, "This Testament was given by Samuel Hubbard to his granddaughter, Naomi Burdick, who married Jonathan Rogers, and it is said that this Testament is now in the library of Alfred University, and known as the Rogers Bible." The Potter family, descendants of Naomi and Jonathan Rogers, gave the Bible to the Seventh-Day Baptist denomination in 1866, after which the Bible was given to Alfred University. However, because Samuel Hubbard and many of his descendants had been Seventh-Day Baptists, in 1946 Alfred University donated the Cocke Bible (also called the Rogers Bible) back to the Seventh-Day Baptist Historical Society.
Thomas and Agnes Cocke are known to have had at least one child, a daughter:
2. NAOMI COCKE, born circa 1570.
2. NAOMI COCKE, daughter of Thomas and Agnes Cocke, born circa 1570 in Ipswich, Suffolk, England, died circa 1618 in Mendlesham, Suffolk, England. Naomi married in 1592 in Suffolk, England, to JAMES HUBBARD, born circa 1565 in East Anglia, England, died 18 April 1611 in Mendlesham, Suffolk, England, son of Thomas Hubbard of Norfolk, England. James' social rank and status at Mendlesham was that of a yeoman. Some online genealogies claim that James had previously married Alice Complyne, born circa 1527, but that is chronologically impossible. Alice rather was apparently the wife of Thomas Higbed, Gent., of Horndon House, Essex, who James and Naomi's youngest son Samuel Hubbard, a colonist of Rhode Island, mistakenly identified as his grandfather Thomas Hubbard of Norfolk.
Concerning his mother Naomi, Samuel wrote in his journal, "Such was the pleasure of Jehovah towards me, I was born of good parents; my mother brought me up in the fear of the Lord in Mendelsham, in catechizing me and in hearing choice ministers" (The Wightman Heritage, 1990, by Wade C. Whiteman, page 729). Naomi's son Samuel Hubbard and his wife Tacy were noted for their leading role in the early years of the Seventh-Day Baptists in Rhode Island, a sect of English Judaisers that eventually gave rise to the Seventh-Day Baptist and Seventh-Day Adventist denominations in America along with numerous later Judaising splinter sects of those denominations.
James and Naomi Hubbard are said to have had 10 children, several of whom emigrated to New England, but only eight of their children's names are known:
-- SARAH HUBBARD, born 1593 in Mendlesham, Suffolk, England, died before 24 Oct. 1645 in Yarmouth, Norfolk, England, married John Jackson.
-- RACHEL HUBBARD, born circa 1600 in Mendlesham, Suffolk, England.
-- THOMAS HUBBARD, born circa 1603, died after 24 Oct. 1645 in England, married Esther (NN).
-- BENJAMIN HUBBARD, born circa 1604, Mendlesham, Suffolk, England, died 28 Oct. 1660 in England, married Alice Ward.
-- ANNA HUBBARD, born 3 Sept. 1605 in Mendlesham, Suffolk, England, died 23 June 1674 in Scituate, Plymouth, Massachusetts, married twice.
-- BERTHA HUBBARD, born perhaps circa 1607 in Mendlesham, Suffolk, England.
-- JAMES HUBBARD JR., born circa 1609 in Mendlesham, Suffolk, England, died 26 April 1639 in Watertown, Suffolk County, Massachusetts, married Sarah Ives.
-- SAMUEL HUBBARD, born 10 May 1610 in Mendelsham, Suffolk, England, died 1692 in Westerly, Newport, Rhode Island, married Tacy Cooper.
Cocke Genealogy Resources:
John Brundish [Brundage] of Wethersfield, Connecticut, by Perry Streeter, copyright 1999 Perry Streeter, updated 16 Sept. 2009. Mendlesham: A Vibrant Community Mendlesham: GEN-UK-I Webpage Rachel (Hubbard) Brundish Find-A-Grave Memorial, with links to memorials of her husband and children. Extracts From the Letter Book of Samuel Hubbard, in Magazine of New England History, Vols. 1-2, R.H. Tilley, 1891. Burdick family genealogy, with Hubbard and Cocke genealogical information, from New England Families, Genealogical and Memorial, Vol. 1, William Richard Cutter, 1913.