Robert Coe (colonist)

The Coe family, originally recorded as "le Queu" and then "Coo",^[1] were Normans considered gentry and acquired their wealth through the cloth trade.^[2][3][4] The name was derived from Old Norse "ka" meaning jackdaw, which is also the meaning of Coe in Old English. The English heraldry of the Coe family uses the martlet, a small black bird like the jackdaw. The birds on his supplementary seals had legs, unlike the mythical martlet, more closely resembling the jackdaw. The first Coe was probably known as "the Jackdaw".^[4]

In the 14th century, John Coo, the earliest known historical direct ancestor of Coe, served with John Hawkwood in the White Company.^[5][4] He was awarded the title of knight by Edward III of England for the Battle of San Gallo in 1364. He established the Hawkwood Chantries in Hedingham Castle in honor of Hawkwood. He is referred to as "Cocco" by Italian historians.^[6][4][7][8] Many of Coo's descendants resided at Hedingham, were educated at the Inner Temple, practiced law, held offices in England, and were extensive landowners. One Coo was listed as a justice of the peace in Essex, others became lords. Many were yeomen, gentlemen, and esquires. 17th century lord of the manor John Coo owned many lands, including at Hedingham.^[4][9]

Coe was born to Henry and Mary Coe (née Vincent) at Thorpe Morieux, Suffolk, England, and baptized there on October 26, 1596.^[4] He was described as a "fine example" of a Puritan and a "great force of character" by J. Gardner Bartlett, the American genealogist.^[10] His father had been a yeoman, probably a clothmaker, and for several years was churchwarden.^[4] He was burned at the stake for a shift in his religious beliefs.^[11]

In Boxford, Suffolk in April 1625, Coe was elected as the overseer of cloth and in 1629 as the questman of the church.^[12] His first wife and mother of his four children died in Boxford in 1628. He remarried shortly after. His only daughter, a twin to his middle son, died before 1634.^[4]

Historical records refer to him as "The Founder of the Coe Family in America".^{[4][13][14][15]} He and his family left for America on April 10, 1634^[16][17] in search of religious liberty from Ipswich aboard the Francis, commanded by John Cutting.^[18][4] Coe settled for a year in Watertown, a Boston suburb in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, with several other Puritan families from Boxford who arrived with John Winthrop. He was made a Freeman, but soon left the area due to overcrowding with permission of the General Court.^{[4][19][20][12]}

Coe was a founder of two towns in the Connecticut Colony^[5] and a founder of the New Haven Colony.^[21] In June 1635, Coe joined Andrew Warde and a few others in starting a new plantation at Wethersfield (originally Pyquag),^[22][1] in the fertile Connecticut River Valley, where he lived for five years.^[4][1] A division within the church caused Coe, Warde, and eighteen others to form the Rippowam Company, with the intent of acquiring Rippowam lands from the New Haven Colony.^{[4][23][24][25]} The land had been previously purchased from the Siwanoy peoples.^[26] In 1640, Coe and Warde were designated by the general court as representatives in colonial government matters; they secured the land and founded a new plantation called Toquams, later renamed Stamford.^[4][23][24] Stamford was included in the creation of the United Colonies of New England.^[24] On April 5, 1643, Coe was appointed as Stamford's magistrate,^[4] the equivalent of a mayor.^[18] The following year, another dispute caused Coe and the town reverend, Richard Denton, to leave the British colonies in favor of the New Netherland settlements.^[4][1]

They crossed the Long Island Sound to what is now Long Island and founded Hempstead, where Coe was appointed the magistrate and the church elder. During his eight years leading Hempstead, he became an extensive landowner.^[4][1][25] In 1652, Coe and Edward Jessup became the majority landowners of a settlement west of Long Island in what is now Elmhurst. The town was originally called Middleburgh, then Hastings, and finally Newtown. Coe was made the town's magistrate and served for four years as a deputy of the general court,^[4][18] the same "representative" government style as in the British colonies.^[27] As the deputy, Coe traveled in 1653 to Boston and New Amsterdam to ask for protection against a threatened Native attack.^[4][18][28]

After the settlement was well-established, Coe relocated again in 1655 to Rustdorp, a town on a large tract of land south of Newtown, which he purchased along with his youngest son Benjamin and several others. Rustdorp was later renamed Jamaica. Peter Stuyvesant appointed Coe magistrate of the town under the jurisdiction of New Netherland, an office Coe held until 1664.^[4][1] When the English population on Long Island revolted against Dutch rule and transferred their allegiance to Connecticut, Coe was designated as commissioner for Jamaica under British auspices. After New Amsterdam surrendered to the English fleet, New York governor Richard Nicolls appointed Coe as the judge of oyer and terminer of Yorkshire. His final position was as high sheriff of Yorkshire until 1671, after which he retired from public office at the age of 75.^[4][25][29]

Near the end of his life, Coe settled his estate among his three sons. He married a third wife when he was over 80 years of age. He bought a farm of fifty acres at Foster's Meadow in Hempstead on November 29, 1678, where he lived until his death (which occurred sometime before 1690, when his will was executed).^[4] His estates in Connecticut and England in 1900 were valued at $308 million (around $10 billion in 2025).^[11] His home on Long Island stood until 1930, when it was demolished to accommodate the construction of the Long Island Expressway.^[30]

The Bay View area of Freeport, New York, was originally named "Coe's Neck", after Coe, and remains the name of a local park.^[31][32] Cos Cob, Connecticut is named after Coe, derived from "Coe's Cob" meaning "Coe's wall".^[33]

Coe has many notable descendants and towns and important landmarks bearing the names of his descendants. Coe Township, Michigan is named after George Coe, Lieutenant Governor of Michigan^[34] and Coe Township, Rock Island County, Illinois is named for Albert S. Coe who served in the Illinois General Assembly and developed the area's agricultural industry.^[4][35] Coe, Indiana is named for one of the founders of Indianapolis and a frontier physician, Isaac Coe.^{[4][36][37][38]}

The namesake of Henry W. Coe State Park, the largest state park in Northern California and the second largest state park in the state and popular campground Coe Ranch,^[39][40][41] Henry Willard Coe Jr.^[4] The visitor center near Homestead, Florida of Everglades National Park is named for descendant Ernest F. Coe, who founded the park.^[42] Mount Coe and Coe Glacier are named for Henry Coe,^[43] a naturalist and journalist who ascended Mount Adams in the 19th century.^[44] He platted the town of Hood River, Oregon, which was settled by Nathaniel Coe, a pioneer politician and his father.^[45][4] They cultivated the Hood River Valley with fruit trees.^[46][47][44]

Coe College,^[48] is named for Daniel Coe, another descendant,^[4] and Coe Elementary School in Seattle is named after descendant Frantz Hunt Coe, though the original building burned down in 2001.^[49][50] Coe Circle, a park in Portland, Oregon, is named after descendant Henry Waldo Coe,^[51][4] where he commissioned the installation of a gilt bronze statue of Joan of Arc.^[52] Dudley Coe Hall at Bowdoin College, formerly the infirmary, is named for the son of Thomas Upham Coe, an alumnus, who was a prominent doctor and lumber baron of Bangor, Maine.^[53][54][55] Portraits of Thomas Upham Coe are in the Smithsonian Libraries and Archives^[56] and the Harvard Art Museums.^[57] Coe Hall at Wiley University was named for Herman Gurnee Coe, the commissioner of Cedar County, Iowa,^[4] and his daughter, Isabel, who taught there.^[58][59]

Coe's second great grandson, Jonas Coe,^[4] fought alongside George Washington in the American Revolutionary War. He served in the Commander-in-Chief's Guard in the Battle of Long Island and gave the military sermon upon Washington's death after having become a minister.^{[60][61][62][63]}

• American pioneers
• Fundamental Orders of Connecticut
• History of immigration to the United States
• County courthouse architecture in colonial America