Gov. William CODDINGTON ^{3513,4342,4343}

  General Notes:

ORIGIN: Boston, Lincolnshire
MIGRATION: 1630
FIRST RESIDENCE: Boston
REMOVES: Portsmouth 1638, Newport 1639
RETURN TRIPS: To England 1631, for two years, and 1648, for three years

OCCUPATION: Magistrate.
CHURCH MEMBERSHIP: Admitted to Boston church as member #92, which would be during the winter of 1630-1 [BChR 14].
FREEMAN: 25 May 1636 [MBCR 1:372]; this was merely a formality, since he was a freeman by virtue of his office of Assistant in England before 1630. Rhode Island freeman at Newport, 1655 [RICR 1:300].
EDUCATION: In his letters to John Winthrop, his turn of phrase is clever, his spelling better than average [WP 4:160-61, 245-47, 278-79, 393, 5:118, 149-50, 224]. His command of English law was considerable, as he displayed in his statement blasting William Dyer's illegal proceedings to seize his cattle during Coddington's absence in England, January 1651/2 [WP 6:176-79].
OFFICES: Elected Massachusetts Bay Assistant 18 March 1629/30 (at Southampton), 9 May 1632 (in absentia), 29 May 1633, 14 May 1634, 6 May 1635, 25 May 1636 [MBCR 1:95, 105, 118, 145, 174]. Massachusetts Bay treasurer 14 May 1634 (for two years) [MBCR 1:118, 182]. Magistrate, 25 May 1636 [MBCR 1:175]. Deputy for Boston, 17 May 1637, 26 September 1637, 2 November 1637 [MBCR 1:194, 204, 205; BTR 1:18].
Boston selectman, 1 September 1634 [BTR 1:1]. Committee to divide common lands, 18 December 1634 [BTR 1:3]. Commissioner to schedule work, 23 January 1635[/6] [BTR 1:8]. Committee to lay out land for Mr. William Hutchinson, 9 January 1636[/7], for Mr. John Wheelwright, 3 April 1637 [BTR 1:14-15, 17].
Signer to the 1638 compact at Portsmouth [RICR 1:52]. Elected Judge at Portsmouth, 7 March 1637/8 and continued in this office after the move to Newport (this title was for a brief period, presumably on a Biblical model, for the position of Governor or President) [RICR 1:52, 100]. Took oath to administer law, 7 March 1637/8 [RICR 1:53].
Governor at Newport, 1640-42; 1678 (elected in the place of Benedict Arnold, deceased, Coddington did not fill out the term and at his death, Major John Cranston was chosen) [RICR 1:101-110, 112, 120, 3:17, 24]. Deputy Governor, 5 May 1674 [RICR 2:516]. Committee to petition for patent [RICR 1:125]. Assistant from Newport, 1647, 2 May 1666 [RICR 1:148, 147]. President of Providence Plantations, 16 May 1648 [RICR 1:208]. Commissioner for Newport, 17 March 1655/6 [RICR 1:327]. Deputy, 27 March 1666 [RICR 2:139]. Judge at Newport, 28 April 1639 [RICR 1:87]. Rater for Conanicutt Island and the towns, 1663, 1671 [RICR 1:506, 2:413].
ESTATE: On 14 December 1635 five prominent men went to view the land at Mount Wollaston to bound out the farms for Mr. William Coddington and Edmund Quinsey [BTR 1:6]. On 9 April 1639, William Coddington of "Aquednecke", gentleman, sold to William Tyng of Boston, merchant, "all that my dwelling house situated in Boston ... with the garden and the orchard ... and all my land in the Forte Field in Boston-necke, and all my right in Spectacle Island, and my farm house at Mount Wollaston ... and two acres of ground near adjoining to the barn ... and all my land, meadow, pasture, and woody ground containing five hundred acres ... at Mount Wollaston aforesaid in two parcels ... and also a parcel of land, woody ground and pasture containing thirty acres" [Lechford 61-63; SLR 1:26]. William Tyng mortgaged the Mount Wollaston property back to Coddington 10 April 1639 [Lechford 64-65] and Coddington and Tyng came to mutual agreement about egress and liberty to cut corn, etc., 9 April 1639 [Lechford 65-67]. Tyng set it up so that John Reade actually occupied the house and ran the property [Lechford 94].
"Sergeant Collacot" of Dorchester acknowledged owing "Will[ia]m Coddington, gentleman, £123 5s. 9d. on 12 April 1639 [Lechford 67]. He was ordered to have his garden fences set up by 14 April 1646 or pay a fine [BTR 1:88]. He gave 30s. for the support of a schoolmaster, 12 August 1636 [BTR 1:160].
On 14 April 1652, William Coddington acknowledged that he had held the property deeded by the sachems in Rhode Island and agreed to deliver the deeds of the purchases and other records to the other purchasers and freemen or their representatives [RICR 1:50].
On 20 May 1638, Mr. Will[iam] Coddington was granted a Portsmouth houselot of six acres, eight poles in breadth and one hundred and twenty poles in length by the great pond [RICR 1:55]. On 5 June 1639 he was granted six acres for an orchard [RICR 1:89]. The bounds of Mr. William Coddington's property were extended in "regard of some natural bounds lying near the farm," 3 December 1639 [RICR 1:95].
His purchase of Dutch Island with Benedict Arnold is alluded to at court in 1658 [RICR 1:403].
A fragment of the will of Ann Coddington, William Coddington's third wife, survives, in which she refers to her deceased husband William Coddington and makes bequests to her son Nathaniel Coddington [Newport Town Council 17:13; RIGR 14:36].

BIRTH: About 1601 (deposed aged "about seventy-six years" on 27 September 1677 [RICR 1:51]).
DEATH: Buried Newport 6 November 1678 [RIMM, Deaths 5].
MARRIAGE: (1) By 1626 Mary _____; died Boston during the winter of 1630-1, and before 28 March 1631 [Dudley 72].
(2) Terling, Essex, 2 September 1631 Mary Moseley; she was admitted to Boston church as member #158, which would be before 6 August 1633 (see Anne Newgate, wife of JOHN NEWGATE); buried Newport 30 September 1647 [RIMM, Deaths 1].
(3) By about 1650 Ann Brinley, born about 1628 (calculated from age at death); died Newport 9 May 1708, aged 80 [RIMM, Deaths 16]. (On 19 February 1673/4 Francis Brinley of Newport sold to William Mays land which was in part "bounded on the north by land of my sister Ann Coddington, on the west by land given to my cousin William Coddington" [RILE 226-27].)
CHILDREN:

With first wife (all at Boston, Lincolnshire)
i MICAH, bp. 8 March 1626/7 [Boston PR 2:124]; bur. 22 March 1626/7 [Boston PR 2:127].
ii SAMUEL, bp. 17 April 1628 [Boston PR 2:134]; bur. 21 August 1629 [Boston PR 2:144].

With second wife
iii Child, b. England about 1632; no further record.
iv MARY, bp. Boston 2 March 1633/4 [BChR 278]; likely the daughter that went to England with him in 1648; no further record.
v BEDAIAH, bp. Boston 1 May 1636 [BChR 281]; not mentioned when his father returned to England for three years; no further record.

With third wife (all born Newport [RIVR 7:51])
vi WILLIAM b. 18 January 1651; d. Newport 4 February 1688[/9], "aged about 37 years" [RIMM, Deaths 9], unmarried.
vii NATHANIEL b. 23 May 1653; m. 19 April 1677 Susannah Hutchinson, daughter of Edward and Katherine (Hamby) Hutchinson [NEHGR 145:263-64].
viii MARY b. 16 May 1654; m. 1 December 1674 as his second wife Peleg Sanford, son of JOHN SANFORD [NEHGR 103:273; Austin 278 (this marriage has not been found in Newport or Portsmouth records)].
ix THOMAS b. 5 November 1655; m. Newport 22 January 1689[/90] "Mary Howard late of New Yorke" [RIMM, Marriages 1:13].
x JOHN b. [blank] December 1656; d. 1 June 1680 [Austin 278 (this death not found in Newport records)]; apparently unmarried.
xi NOAH b. 12 November 1658; d. Newport 12 December 1658 [RIMM, Deaths 1].
xii ANN b. 6 June 1660; d. Newport 26 June 1660 [RIMM, Deaths 1].
xiii ANN b. 20 July 1663; m. 30 May 1682 Andrew Willett, son of THOMAS WILLETT [Austin 278, 428 (this marriage has not been found in Newport records)].

ASSOCIATIONS: It has been suggested that William Coddington was son of Robert Coddington of Marston, Lincolnshire, who died 1615, leaving a bequest to his son, William [NYGBR 72:5; TAG 20:185].
In a letter to John Winthrop dated 22 May 1640, William Coddington refers to a letter "sent by my cousin Burt," evidently supplying the fodder for speculation that Coddington's first wife was a Burt [WP 4:160].

COMMENTS: William Coddington was one of those who resisted the royal loan of 1626, the so-called Forced Loan, and is so recorded on a list of 7 March 1626/7 [NEHGR 36:139].
At the end of March 1631 William Coddington was one of those who sailed for England on the Lion [WJ 1:60]. He remained in England for two years, during which time he courted Elizabeth (Fones) Winthrop, widow of HENRY WINTHROP [WP 3:22, 34]. In the end, Coddington married Mary Moseley, and Elizabeth married ROBERT FEAKE, and then went on to her notorious career. While in England Coddington wrote on 4 June 1632 to John Cotton, then still at Boston, Lincolnshire, and a fragment of this letter survives: "I am, I thank God, in bodily health; yet not enjoying that freedom of spirit, being withheld from that place which my soul desireth, and my heart earnestly worketh after; neither, I think, shall I see it till towards the next spring" [Young's First Planters 337]. Coddington and his second wife sailed for New England on the Mary & Jane, arriving at Boston in May of 1633 [WP 3:119; WJ 1:121].
William Coddington received the sachems' deed to "The Island of Acquedneck" 24 March 1636/7 [RICR 1:45, 48-49]. On 27 September 1677

William Coddington, Esq., aged about seventy-six years, testifieth ... that when he was one of the magistrates of the Massachusetts Colony he was one of the persons that made a peace with Caunnonnicus and Mianantonomy in the Colony's behalf of all the Narragansett Indians ... a little before they made war with the Pequod Indians. Not long after this, deponent went from Boston to find a plantation to settle upon, and came to Acquidneck, now called Rhode Island, where was a sachem called Wonnumetonomey; and this deponent went to buy the Island of him, but his answer was that Caunonnicuss and Miantonomy were the chief sachems, and he could not sell the land; whereupon this deponent, with some others went from Aquidneck Island into the Narragansett to the said sachems, Caunonicus and Miantonmy, and bought the Island of them [RICR 1:51].

In January 1637/8, John Winthrop wrote to William Coddington, John Coggeshall and William Colburn, telling them that he considered their "published writing" (presumably about Wheelwright) was a great mistake [WP 4:8-9]. William Coddington was one of those given a license to depart on 12 March 1637/8, along with three of his servants [MBCR 1:223]. He appointed Mr. Jer[emiah] Gould, 23 November 1640, again 26 April 1641, and 23 August 1641 his attorney to recover debts in Massachusetts Bay after his departure [SLR 1:15, 18].
In his letter from Newport 5 August 1644 to John Winthrop, William Coddington remarked that "the Lord hath begun to let me see by experience that a man's comfort doth not depend in the multitude of those things he doth possess, the Lord having this last winter taken from me a large corn barn ... my farm house, 12 oxen, 8 cows, 6 other beasts ... the fire breaking forth in the night, neither bedding nor household stuff, nor so much as my servants' wearing cloth, nothing but the shirts off their backs was saved, and lives" [WP 4:489-91].
In 1648 charges were brought against President-elect Coddington and he failed to appear to clear himself, so Mr. Jeremy Clarke, the assistant of the town "wherein the President was chosen" was ordered to substitute for the President until the next election or until Coddington was cleared [RICR 1:211]. Mr. William Dyer brought charges against Mr. William Coddington, but they were deferred, 25 May 1649 [RICR 1:219]. The litigants were hoping for John Winthrop Jr.'s intercession in June of 1653 [WP 6:176-79]. The matter was still being side-stepped 25 October 1665 [RICR 2:130]. By 1667, the matter of Mr. Dyer killing a mare of Mr. Coddington's had been heard even by the King's commissioners, and Dyer's appeal was set aside [RICR 2:144].
At the end of September 1648 William Coddington was making preparations to go to England, and on 14 October 1648 about to leave Newport for Boston, "whither I am now hasting to take passage for England with my daughter" [WP 5:262, 270], but his actual departure was apparently delayed until late January 1648/9 [WP 5:309; RW Corr 269, 271, 273-75]. He remained in England for two years, during which period he married for a third time. By August 1651 he was back in Rhode Island, with a commission naming him governor of Aquidneck Island for life. In a letter to John Winthrop, Jr., about early August 1651, Roger Williams says "It hath pleased God to bring (Sir) your ancient acquaintance and mine Mr. Coddington in Mr. Carwithy his ship.... He is made Governor of this Colony for his life" [RWCorr 333; WP 6:131].
On 18 May 1653, two men were sent to "demand of Mr. Coddington the statute book, and book of records." He was fined for failing to return all of them, but the fine was remitted in 1656 [RICR 1:330]. "Divers presentments" later, it was ordered that Mr. Coddington should not be prosecuted over any of them, "except by order from his Highness the Lord Protector" [RICR 1:333, 357]. In spring of 1656, William Coddington freely submitted "to the authority of his Highness in this colony as it is now united, and that with all my heart" [RICR 1:327]. In that year he was appointed a commissioner, and instructions were asked for from England regarding whether this was appropriate or not [RICR 1:328].
In 1656 it was suspected that the guns showing up in the hands of various Indians were much like "those Mr. Coddington brought over" [RICR 1:332].
William Coddington submitted a paper dated Newport, 9 March 1664/5, to the commissioners, and the return, dated 13 March 1664/5, was communicated to Mr. Coddington and those concerned "called Quackers" [RICR 2:118].
At his death, a committee was sent by the Assembly to "Mrs. Ann Coddington, widow to our late deceased Honored Governor" to demand the Charter and all "other writings that were in the late Governor's custody and belonging to this Colony" and Mrs. Coddington obliged them with not only the Charter, but its duplicate, 15 November 1678 [RICR 3:24-25].
Hope, the negro servant of Mr. William Coddington, was whipped for fornication with James Parr, May 1673 [RICT 3:22].
³⁴⁴⁹

  Noted events in his life were:

• He emigrated in 1630 from Southampton, , Hampshire, England. ^3513,4342

• He immigrated in 1630 to Salem, Essex Co., Massachusetts, USA. ^3513,4342

• He was employed as a Governor in 1650 in Newport, Newport Co., Rhode Island, USA. ³⁵¹³

• He has conflicting death information of 1 Nov 1678 and Newport, Newport Co., Rhode Island, USA. ⁴³⁴⁴

William married Mary, daughter of Richard MOSELY and Unknown, about 1624 in , , , England.³⁵¹³ (Mary was born Est 1600 ³⁵¹³ and died in 1630-1631 in Newport, Newport Co., Rhode Island, USA ³⁵¹³.)

William next married Mary MOSELY on 2 Sep 1631 in Terling, , Essex, England.³⁵¹³ (Mary MOSELY was born in 1604 in Boston, , Lincolnshire, England,³⁵¹³ died on 30 Sep 1647 in Newport, Newport Co., Rhode Island, USA ^4343,4344 and was buried in Coddington Burial Ground, Newport, Newport Co., Rhode Island ^3513,4344.)

William next married Anne BRINLEY, daughter of Thomas BRINLEY and Anna WASE, in Jan 1649 in Newport, Newport Co., Rhode Island, USA. (Anne BRINLEY was born about 1628 ³⁵¹³, christened on 30 Sep 1628 in Datchet, , Buckinghamshire, England,^3513,4344 died on 9 May 1708 in Newport, Newport Co., Rhode Island, USA ^{3513,4344,4345} and was buried in Coddington Burial Ground, Newport, Newport Co., Rhode Island ⁴³⁴⁴.)