Transcript:Colonial Society of Massachusetts. Publications of the Colonial Society of Massachusetts/v10p265

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Whether the court complied does not appear. This case was tried before a jury, at the quarter court, September, 1639.

On 3 September of the next year, 1640, was tried another suit of the Coles against Francis Doughty, concerning a deed of trust made between the Coles, before marriage, and Francis and Bridget Doughty.¹ The jury found for the defendant, and Doughty was given £10 costs. Doughty then, at the same session of the court, sued the Coles "for unjust molestation," asking to have the before mentioned deed of trust delivered into the court and cancelled; the jury found for Doughty with costs, and "thereupon ye judgment of ye Co'te was accordingly yt ye said deed indented should be cancelled;" but as Mrs. Cole, who was chiefly interested in the deed and had procured "ye said Doughty to be arested," was not present with her husband at the trial, the court respited the cancelling of the bond for eight months, to give the Coles opportunity, if they wished, to show cause why the indenture should not be cancelled. As they did not appear, the deed was cancelled by order of the court in May, 1641.

Meanwhile, Mr. Doughty was in Cohannet, hoping, I suppose, to be received as a minister, or, at least, to be allowed there the privileges of a church member, which, owing to his more liberal opinion concerning the baptism of children, and, probably, from his Presbyterian leanings, he could not have acquired in the Bay Colony. Cohannet was organized in the autumn of 1638, and it seems that the name was changed to Taunton and that the church there was organized, after the strictest Bay Colony model, in the end of the year 1639 or the beginning of 1640. At this organization Mr. John Wilson and Mr. Richard Mather with some others were present to "give the right hand of fellowship." Lechford'a account is as follows:

Cohannet, alias Taunton, is in Plymouth Patent. There is a Church

gathered of late, and some ten or twenty of the Church, the rest excluded. Master Hooke Pastor, master Streate Teacher. Master Hooke

¹ " The Answers & Complaint" of Mrs. Cole, "Boston (4). 25. 1640," are in Lechford's Note-Book, p. 150. Mr. Doughty's brief letter to Governor Winthrop asking what to do about it, is in 5 Massachusetts Historical Collections, i. 308. For a general account of the trial and result, see Massachusetts Colony Records, ii. 205-207. See also Records of the Court of Assistants (1906), iii. 5 note.