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Governor William Coddington
Facts and Events
William left Boston in 1637 due to religious differences. He was a supporter of Anne Hutchinson, and relocated along with her to Portsmouth, Rhode Island. In 1639, he was deposed as leader of that settlement by Hutchinson and Samuel Gorton, and set out with a group to form the nearby town of Newport.
Coddington held numerous public offices. He was a judge at Portsmouth, and then Newport until 1640. He was governor of "Rhode Island" (at the time just Portsmouth and Newport) from 1640 to 1647, and again from 1651 to 1653. After the towns were united as Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, he was elected governor in 1674 and 1678. He died in office in 1678.
He became a Quaker in the early 1660s, and hosted meetings in his home.
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 William Coddington, in Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia.
- the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia
William Coddington (c. 1601 – 1 November 1678) was an early magistrate of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and later of the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. He served as the judge of Portsmouth and Newport, governor of Portsmouth and Newport, deputy governor of the four-town colony, and then governor of the entire colony. Coddington was born and raised in Lincolnshire, England. He accompanied the Winthrop Fleet on its voyage to New England in 1630, becoming an early leader in Boston. There he built the first brick house and became heavily involved in the local government as an assistant magistrate, treasurer, and deputy.
Coddington was a member of the Boston church under the Reverend John Cotton, and was caught up in the events of the Antinomian Controversy from 1636 to 1638. The Reverend John Wheelwright and dissident minister Anne Hutchinson were banished from the Massachusetts colony, and many of their supporters were also compelled to leave. Coddington was not asked to depart, but he felt that the outcome of the controversy was unjust and decided to join many of his fellow parishioners in exile. He was the lead signer of a compact to form a Christian-based government away from Massachusetts. He was encouraged by Roger Williams to settle on the Narragansett Bay. He and other supporters of Hutchinson bought Aquidneck Island from the Narragansetts. They settled there, establishing the town of Pocasset which was later named Portsmouth. Coddington was named the first "judge" of the colony, a Biblical term for governor. A division in the leadership of the town occurred within a year, and he left with several others to establish the town of Newport at the south end of the island.
In a short time, the towns of Portsmouth and Newport united, and Coddington was made the governor of the island towns from 1640 to 1647. During this period, Roger Williams had gone to England to obtain a patent to bring under one government the four Narragansett towns of Providence, Warwick, Portsmouth, and Newport. This was done without the consent of the island towns and these two towns resisted joining the mainland towns until 1647. Coddington was elected president of the united colony in 1648, but he would not accept the position, and complaints against him prompted the presidency to go to Jeremy Clarke. Coddington was very unhappy with Williams' patent; he returned to England, where he was eventually able to obtain a commission separating the island from the mainland towns, and making him governor of the island for an indefinite period. He was initially welcomed as governor, but complaints from both the mainland towns and members of the island towns prompted Roger Williams, John Clarke, and William Dyer to go to England to have Coddington's commission revoked. They were successful, and Dyer returned with the news in 1653. However, disagreements kept the four towns from re-uniting until the following year.
With the revocation of his commission, Coddington withdrew from public life, focusing on his mercantile interests, and becoming a member of the Religious Society of Friends. After nearly two decades away from politics, he was elected deputy governor in 1673, then governor the following year, serving two one-year terms. The relative calm of this period was shattered during his second year as governor of the colony when the King Philip's War erupted in June 1675. It became the most catastrophic event in Rhode Island's colonial history. He was not re-elected in 1676, but he was elected to a final term as governor of the colony in 1678 following the death of Governor Benedict Arnold. He died a few months into this term, and was buried in the Coddington Cemetery on Farewell Street in Newport.
- ↑ Anderson, Robert Charles. The Great Migration Begins: Immigrants to New England, 1620-1633. (Boston: New England Historic Genealogical Society, 1995).
ORIGIN: Boston, Lincolnshire MIGRATION: 1630 FIRST RESIDENCE: Boston REMOVES: Portsmouth 1638, Newport 1639
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].)
- Savage, James. A Genealogical Dictionary of the First Settlers of New England: Showing Three Generations of Those Who Came Before May, 1692, on the Basis of Farmer's Register. (Boston: Little, Brown, and Co, 1860-1862)
1:416.
- Deposed to being about 76 on Sept 27, 1677. [Records of Colony of RI & Plymouth Plantation]
Admitted to Boston Church during winter of 1630/1. [The Great Migration Book 1]
| The Winthrop Fleet (1630)
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| The Winthrop Fleet brought over 700 colonists to establish a new colony at Massachusetts Bay. The fleet consisted of eleven ships: the Arbella flagship with Capt Peter Milburne, the Ambrose, the Charles, the Mayflower, the Jewel, the Hopewell, The Success, the Trial, the Whale, the Talbot and the William and Francis.
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| Sailed: | April and May 1630 from Yarmouth, Isle of Wight, England
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| Arrived: | June and July 1630 at Salem, Massachusetts
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| Previous Settlers: | The Higginson Fleet (1629)
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| Founders of Portsmouth, Rhode Island
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| On March 7, 1638, a group of religious dissenters signed the Portsmouth Compact. They had been disarmed by leaders of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. William Coddington, Anne Hutchinson, and John Clarke conferred with Roger Williams in Providence, who suggested that they buy land from the Native Americans on Aquidneck Island. They formed the settlement of Pocasset, later Portsmouth, on Aquidneck, later called Rhode Island. Portsmouth and Newport later united with Providence and Warwick in 1654 as the colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations.
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| Text of the Compact: The 7th Day of the First Month, 1638. 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.
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| Signers: William Coddington - John Clarke - William Hutchinson, Jr. [husband of Anne Hutchinson]- John Coggeshall - William Aspinwall - Samuel Wilbore - John Porter - John Sanford - Edward Hutchinson, Jr. Esq. - Thomas Savage - William Dyre [husband of Boston martyr Mary Dyer] - William Freeborne - Philip Sherman - John Walker - Richard Carder - William Baulston - Edward Hutchinson, Sr. - Henry Bull - Randall Holden
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Current Location: Newport County, Rhode Island Parent Towns: Boston Daughter Towns: Newport
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| Founders of Newport, Rhode Island
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| Newport was founded in 1639. Its eight founders and first officers left Portsmouth, Rhode Island after a political fallout with Anne Hutchinson and her followers. As part of the agreement, William Coddington and his followers took control of the southern side of the island. They were soon joined by Nicholas Easton, who had recently been expelled from Massachusetts for holding heretical beliefs. The settlement soon grew to be the largest of the four original towns of Rhode Island. Many of the first colonists in Newport quickly became Baptists, and in 1640 the second Baptist congregation in Rhode Island was formed under the leadership of John Clarke. Portsmouth and Newport later united with Providence and Warwick in 1654 as the colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations.
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| Original Founders: Nicholas Easton - William Coddington - John Clarke - John Coggeshall - William Brenton - Jeremy Clark - Thomas Hazard - Henry Bull
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Current Location: Newport County, Rhode Island Parent Towns: Portsmouth Daughter Towns:
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