John Cogswell

“John Cogswell, with his wife Elizabeth and eight children, embarked May 23, 1635, at Bristol, England, on the Angel Gabriel.” The ship was lying off Pemaquid, on the Maine coast, in the great storm of 15 Aug 1635 and “became a total wreck”; Richard Mather, crossing on another ship, wrote that she “was burst in pieces and cast away” (Jameson pp. xvi-xvii). He had sold a homestead in Westbury and Westbury Leigh, Wiltshire, “just on the eve of his departure.” The story that the Angel Gabriel was built for Sir Walter Raleigh’s Guiana voyage comes from John Aubrey. Not in Mollie’s typescript.

William Tarbox, who also came on the Angel Gabriel, deposed in December 1676 that “there was saved a tent of Mr. Cogswell’s, which he had set up at Pemaquid, and lived in it with the goods that he saved from the wreck.” That November Tarbox found him living at Ipswich and “hired myself with him for one year” (Jameson p. 11). His servant Samuel Haines, who had worked for him in England for about three years, remembered “a Turkey worked carpet in Old England, which he commonly used to lay upon his parlour table.” It “came safe ashore,” and “good-man Gallup” carried the salvaged goods from Pemaquid to Ipswich in his bark (Jameson pp. 11-12).

Freeman 3 Mar 1635/6 (Jameson). Ipswich granted him “Three Hundred acres of land at the further Chebokoe” (later Chebacco Parish, now the town of Essex) and an eight-acre lot on Bridge Street, “upon part whereof ye sd John Coggswell hath built an house” (town grants of 1636, quoted by Jameson). On 21 June 1637 “John Goggswell” signed the Ipswich petition asking the Governor not to take John Winthrop Jr. away to command the Castle: “It was for his sake that many of vs came to this place.” Robert Lord, Thomas Borman and John Procter signed it too (Winthrop Papers 3:432-433). In March 1653/4 a “John Cogswell” helped appraise the estate of William Varney (Probate Records of Essex County 1:173), probably this John.

He died without a will. Administration was granted 29 Mar 1670 to his widow Elizabeth, “she to enjoy the whole estate during her life.” His inventory (27 Dec 1669, £115 19s) lists “one mosket, sword, belt and Rest,” “Books, 1li.,” “Peuter platers” and “one Carpite, 3li.” His sons-in-law Simon Tuttle and Thomas Clarke Jr. swore that “our father Cogswell did promise upon mariage that he would give all hee had” to his daughters Abigail and Sarah (Probate Records of Essex County 2:180).