History of Newport County, Rhode Island. From the year 1638 to the year 1887, including the settlement of its towns, and their subsequent progress, Part 15

Author: Bayles, Richard M. (Richard Mather), ed
Publication date: 1888
Publisher: New York, L. E. Preston & Co.
Number of Pages: 1324

USA > Rhode Island > Newport County > History of Newport County, Rhode Island. From the year 1638 to the year 1887, including the settlement of its towns, and their subsequent progress > Part 15

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WILLIAM CODDINGTON. We are not informed as to the place of birth of this, the first of the founders of the Aquidueck or Rhode Island colony and its first judge or chief magistrate. There is his own written authority for the statement that he was "one of those Lincolnshire gentlemen so called, that denied the royal loan and suffered for it in the time of Charles 1." In this he no doubt refers to the forced subsidies which the king at- tempted, in 1626, to levy from his subjects under the cover of loaus to remedy the deficiency of parliamentary supplies. These were assessed upon the individual directly by commis- sioners under secret instructions and in an inquisitorial man- ner. Such a method of levy had its single precedent in a similar arbitrary act of Henry VILE, and was in contravention of English ideas of the liberty of the subject and an express article of the great charter. It was for resistance to this pro- ceeding that five gentlemen, among whom was Sir Edmond Hambden, were brought to trial before the king's bench, and many others throughout the kingdom refusing these loans were by warrant of the council thrown into prison. That Cod- ington was a man of fortune there is no doubt, as he is found in the early days of the Massachusetts colony the owner of a large tract of land in Braintree, which then embraced not only Braintree but the present towns of Quincy and Randolph. His mansion also was the first brick dwelling house built in Boston, and held to be the finest in the town.

When in 1630 the patentees of the Massachusetts Land Com- pany transferred the government and the charter of " London's Plantations in Massachusetts Bay in New England " to Massa- chusetts Bay, John Winthrop was sent out as its governor, and with him a board of assistants, of whom Coddington was one. These officers were appointed in England, but in 1632 the free- men of the colony took the right of election to themselves. Winthrop was continuously re-elected governor and Codding- ton to the board of assistants nntil 1635. when Henry Vane arrived from England and soon after was elected to Winthrop's place. Coddington, whose views were more in accord with the liberal views of Vaue than the narrow views of Winthrop. continued in his office of assistant. He was later appointed treasurer of the colony. At this time the Antinomian con- troversy was at its height. The views of Anne Hutchinson. eloquently declared from the pulpit by her brother-in-law.

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Wheelwright, were embraced by the liberal Boston party, among whom were Governor Vane and Coddington; on the other side the country towns led by Winthrop. As was natural in a community the government of which was founded on a theocratic form, the religious controversy soon turned into a struggle for political control. The next election was held in the Newtown (Cambridge) common, and resulted ( May 17th, 1637) in the choice of Winthrop and the defeat of Vane and his assistants, of whom Coddington was one. The next day Boston elected Vane and Coddington and a third, of the same opinion, delegates to the general court. The conrt refused to receive them on the plea of informality. The next day they were re-elected and took their seats. Meanwhile Wheelwright had been bronght before the general court (March, 1637,) to answer for a sermon preached by him on January Fast Day, and condemned guilty of sedition and contempt, sentence being deferred until the meeting of the next court. The governor protested against the judgment of the court without avail, and a petition of the Boston church justifying the sermon was re- jected by the court as a " seditions libel."

Thus it happened that on the first session of the newly elected general court, to which Vane and Coddington were depu- ties for Boston, the condemned minister was brought up for sentence but again respited. Now the church people took up the subject in earnest, and in session at Newtown condemned "eighty-two erroneous opinions." Thus fortified by the judg- ment of the ministers, the dominant party at the general court, in which Boston was represented by William Aspinwall, John Coggeshall and Coddington, again re-elected as third deputy, took a further step and dealt in a summary way with the Bos- ton church petition which had been pronounced a seditious libel on the court. Aspinwall and Coggeshall, both deacons of

the Boston church, were dismissed the court; the one for hav- ing signed, the other for defending the remonstrance. Cod- dington, under direct instructions, moved the repeal of the alien law (which, aimed at the Antinomians, forbid. under penalty, the harboring of any emigrant for more than three weeks without leave of the magistrates) and a reversal of the condemnation of Wheelwright. The answer of the court to this motion was the issue of a summons to Wheelwright to appear for sentence the same day. He was sentenced to banishment

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and to leave the jurisdiction within fourteen days under pen- alty of imprisonment. Coggeshall and Aspinwall were then called in turn. The one was disfranchised and ordered to keep the peace, the other disfranchised and banished.

It will be observed that these sentences were graduated to the offenses and given against them as deacons of the seditious church. Coddington, as an instructed deputy, was apparently beyond their reach. Anne Hutchinson was next brought into court, and making her own defense claimed "inward revela- tion " and inspiration. She was sentenced to banishment and handed over to the marshall. These proceedings were followed by a proscription of seventy-five of the heretical offenders in the several towns of the colony and an order to surrender up their arms and ammunition unless they would "acknowledge their sin in subscribing the seditious libel." The justification by Governor Winthrop of the judgment of the court was sufficient notice to the liberal minded that their only safety was in volun- tary withdrawal from the intolerant community. Coddington was not included in the act of proscription of November. Whether because of his high position, his personal influence or his wealth, the general court in all its proceedings seems to have had a consideration for him which it did not extend to his fel- lows; but proscription was not needed to determine him to follow the fortunes of his friends, and those of their way of thinking who had "determined to remove for peace sake and to enjoy the freedom of their consciences." The original pro- posal of removal came from John Clarke, who was " requested with some others to seek out a place." Whether Coddington accompanied Clarke to New Hampshire, to which place he first went in his search for a proper place for settlement, cannot now be ascertained, but it seems more probable that he did not join the emigrating party until they left their vessel on their return and crossed the country to Narragansett bay in the search for a warmer climate.

There is some negative evidence to show that Coddington was not of the original party. In his testimony given at Boston in 1652, relative to the purchase of the island of Rhode Island, he says : " Whereas there was an agreement of eighteen persons to make purchase of some place to the southward for a plantation whither they resolved to remove ; for which end some of them were sent out to view a place for themselves and such others as

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they should take into the libertie of freemen and purchasers with them. And upon their view purchased Rhode Island." And again in testimony at Newport in 1677 he says that " de- ponent (Coddington himself) went from Boston to find a plan- tation to settle upon and came to Aquedneck."

Nor are we informed as to whether he was one of the two per- sons who accompanied Clarke and Roger Williams to Plymouth to enquire as to the jurisdiction in which Sowams lay, which they had looked upon for a settlement. If it be permitted to hazard an opinion it seems probable that Coddington did not join the party until after the visit of Williams and Clarke to Plymonth. He was under no proscription and free in his movements.

As Coddington was a merchant it is probable that the choice of Aquidneck island in the heart of the great bay, and the later removal of the settlement to its south end, where lay the broad roadsted and safe land-locked harbor, were determined by his judgment. It seems also that he was the money patron of the enterprise. The deed of purchase of Aquidneck by Canonicus and Miantonomi is made unto " Mr. Coddington and his friends united unto him " and this title runs through all the codicils, receipts and explanatory memoranda.

Nor if we give full credence to the testimony of Coddington in 1677 already alluded to, and made in his seventy-sixth year, do we find any need of special assistance from Roger Williams in this treaty for the purchase of the island. The influence of Williams was paramount with Onsamequin (Massasoit) within whose Wampanoag domain Sowams lay, a tract brought under the jurisdiction of the Plymonth government by Massasoit's treaty of submission ; but Coddington had equal claim to the good will of the Narragansett chiefs. He says in his testimony that when " he (Coddington) was one of the magistrates of the Massachusetts colony he was one of the persons that made a peace with Canonions and Miantonomy in the colony's behalf of all the Narragansett Indians and by order of the authority of the Massachusetts a little before they made war with the Pequot Indians." This was in October, 1636, when Miantono- mi and two sons of Canonicus visited Governor Vane of Boston and were received with military state. And Coddington further says that he first applied to Wonnumetonomey, sachem of the Aquidneck to buy the land but was referred, by him to Canoni-

HISTORY OF NEWPORT COUNTY. 149

ens and Miantonomi, the chief sachems. These points are in- sisted upon that the independent character of the Aquidneck settlement may appear in its proper light, and that to the form of government set np and the modes of administration adopted on Rhode Island itself, the growth as a community, the success as a body politic and its territorial independence, the colony and the state of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations is largely, indeed chiefly due. These are general considerations. For the services of Coddington examination must be made of the rec- ords themselves. And first it may be here said that the title to Rhode Island and the small neighboring islands in the bay and to the privileges in other islands and on the main land pur- chased or obtained of the sachems, lay in the hands of Codding- ton from 1637 to 1652, when he engaged to deliver the deeds and declared that he had no more in the purchase of right than any of the eighteen purchasers.

The name of William Coddington stands at the head of the agreement of incorporation into a body politic entered into at Providence on the seventh day of the first month, 1638. The records appear as of Portsmouth, but Arnold says it was signed at Providence, and that Roger Williams was a witness. Up to this time Coddington had not been placed under the ban by Massachusetts but March 12th, five days after the signature of the compact at Providence, Coddington and ten of his compan- ions, with their families, were banished by the general court. Excommunication had already been pronounced by the church authorities. It does not appear that the voluntary exile of Cod- dington, Coggeshall and their friends had anything to do with this decree. They were heretics and this was enough.

The record of this first meeting of the freemen incorporate closes with Coddington's solemn covenant to do justice and judgment impartially according to the laws, he being called to be a "Judge amongst them." To him, as to the rest, was al- lotted a house lot of six acres, and in addition, apparently as a gratuity, ten acres of ploughing ground. In the same year three elders were chosen to share the government with the judge and to account for their actions and rules once every quarter of the year. In the agreement made at Pocasset, which was the origin of the Newport plantation, Coddington was made the judge and granted a double voice in the government, which was to be by major voice of the judge and three ellers. In ad-

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dition to the house allotment of four acres he was also granted six acres for an orchard. This was the second orchard in Rhode Island. The first was planted by William Blackstone in 1635.

In 1640 the town of Newport became the seat of government for the island, and William Coddington was chosen governor, and held the office until 1647, when the government of Provi- dence Plantations was re-organized under the charter granted in 1643 by Charles I., the office of governor was abolished, and that of president set up in its place. John Coggeshall was chosen president, and Coddington assistant for the town of Newport. The next year he was chosen president of the colony. And now there occurred a difference in the colony of which no satisfactory explanation has yet been made. Mr. Coddington was not present at the election, nor is there any means of know- ing from the records themselves whether there were any meet- ings of the assembly in the year that transpired, or if there were such, whether Coddington sat as assistant for Newport. It cannot, therefore, be decided whether or not he took offense at being set aside for Coggeshall at the first election, under the charter of the year before. Arnold states that there was jealousy in Portsmouth of the other three towns, and that the town clerk of Portsmouth was ordered to inform Newport of their intention to meet separately. Roger Williams wrote to Provi- dence that the island was distracted by two parties, but he does not mention the canse of disagreement.

At the very meeting at which Coggeshall was elected presi- dent Coddington was suspended, and with him Mr. William Boulston, one of the three assistants. He was one of the early friends of Coddington, and proscribed with him in the decree of the Massachusetts government. Divers bills of complaint were exhibited against Coddington, and it was ordered that if the president-elect be found guilty, of being cleared of the charges, refuse the place, or if he refuse to give his engagement to the next session of the court, then the assistant for Newport, Mr. JeremyClarke, shall be inserted in his place. Mr. Coddington did not attend the court to clear himself of the accusations, and Jeremy Clarke was installed at the next meeting.

The following January, 1649, Mr. Coddington sailed with his daughter for England. The preceding May William Dyre, the clerk of the assembly, brought a suit against Mr. Coddington, but whether in his official capacity or as a private individual,

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dives not appear on the records, nor yet how it was decided. That there was a faction in the colony against Governor Cod dington is certain from the account of the dissensions given to John Winthrop by Roger Williams at the time, and there is the same authority for knowing that Jeremy Clarke was at its head. That a matter of fundamental principle lay at the bot- tom of it is not doubtful from the character of the parties. It. has been found, and not without reason, in Coddington's hos- tility to the union of the governments of Rhode Island, before independent, to those of Warwick and Providence. The origi- nal purpose of the settlement was expressed by John Clarke in his interview with the Plymouth authorities, as to whether Aqnidneck lay within their jurisdiction, " to be clear of all and be of ourselves." They were not then, nor were they better satisfied by later experience with the governments, either of Massachusetts or of Providence ; as a recent authority happily puts it, " Law was found in Massachusetts, but not liberty ; in Providence there was the warmest love of liberty, but to a great extent an absence of law."

Though their early application for an independent charter for the island had come to naught and was not renewed, they still desired to maintain their autonomy. The weight of authority is that these were Coddington's views. It has been said that before his departure for England Coddington "betrayed an agitated and alienated state of mind." Certain it is that he was chosen president without his consent, and was unwilling to take office under the charter. That his neglect or refusal dis- concerted the faction led by Jeremy Clarke is evident from the immediate introduction into the assembly of the concealed bombshells of complaint, which would probably have never ex- ploded had Coddington willingly surrendered his opinions and accepted the office. Arnold has no hesitation in assigning the cause of the dispute to a fundamental difference of political opinions. "Coddington," he says, " was a royalist, and was about attempting to withdraw the island from the other towns, and to unite it to Plymouth. Clarke and Easton (the moder- ator of the assembly at the election referred to) were republi- cans and leaders of the dominant party on the island." That the · shape which the dissensions took was political is sulliciently clear, but there must have been a deeper ground for the passion shown on both sides.

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It is always safe in the search for the causes of movements in the history of New England, and indeed in the history of all times and countries, to look at the religious side. The Antino- mian doctrine had taken firm hold of the Rhode Island colony. Coddington had drank deep at the original source, the preach- ing of Wheelwright and the teachings of Anne Hutchinson. Indeed, it may be here said that the failure of Wheelwright to take the charge of their church was a disappointment for which even the preachings of Anne Hutchinson, who came to Newport upon her banishment and stayed awhile, did not compensate. There were many, and among these Coddington and Coggeshall, who held to the belief that men must look to the revelation of an inner light which was to be followed, rather than the Serip- tural word. Mr. John Clarke strennonsly opposed this ad- vanced view, and the result was a schism in 1641, in the Baptist church. Roger Williams, with whom Coddington was ever on terms of friendship, inclined from the beginning to this opinion. Callender doubts whether Williams ever joined with the Baptist church at Providence only so far as " to hold them to be nearest the Scripture rule and true primitive practice as to the mode and the subject of baptism. But that he himself waited for new Apostles." Those holding these views were termed Seekers, and later joined the Society of Friends or Quakers, whose great apostle. George Fox, began to expound in the year 1644. Coddington joined this society, the members of which thirty years later controlled the government of the colony. Roger Williams, however, never recognized Fox as an apostle. He was his own apostle. But this is a digression, the purpose of which is merely to suggest a motive for acts not as yet suf- ficiently explained.

If Coddington were a royalist, as Arnold declares, his going to England with a political purpose would seem to have been a supreme folly. The submission of Charles to the parliament was already known in the colonies, and although the fatal end was not foreseen there was no ground for any hope from royal favor. In fact the estates of the royalists were under seqnes- tration throughout the kingdom. While Coddington was toss- ing on the seas the great tragedy was being enacted, and when he arrived royalty was at an end, the commonwealth of England proclaimed and the government in the stern hand of Cromwell. For two years Coddington waited a hearing. Cromwell had

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other work on his hands in the suppression of the risings in Scotland and Ireland, and of the desperate efforts of Prince Charles "By what representations," says Arnold, "or through what influence he [Coddington] succeeded in virtually undoing the acts of the long parliament in favor of Rhode Is- land we can never know." Certainly it was not by proclaiming royalist sympathies.

However this may be Coddington received from the council of state a commission to govern the islands of Rhode Island and Conanient for life with a council of six to be named by the peo- ple and approved by himself. On his return to Newport in Angust, Easton, the president of the province of Providence Plantations, deserted his office. Newport and Portsmouth sub- mitted to the new order of government but a number of the fac- tion opposed to Coddington, and no doubt others who found it not the " Democracie or popular government" they had de- clared it to be when Coddington was their governor in 1641, de- spatched John Clarke to England to obtain a revocation of the commission, while Providence and Warwick sent over Roger Williams to secure similar privilege for themselves, in confir- mation of the charter of 1643. Of course Coddington did not at- tempt to exercise any authority outside of his jurisdiction and matters moved along quietly enough, though the situation was embarassing. In September, 1652, a letter from Roger Wil- liams announced that the council authorized the colony to con- tinne under the charter for the present, and in October an order of council was issued directing the towns to unite again under the charter, an order which William Dyre was but too happy to bring home. But the order did not bring peace ; the main- land and the islands each claiming superiority and each con- vening a general assembly. That which met at Newport de manded the statute book and book of records from Coddington, but the sturdy gentleman replied to the messengers that he would "advise with his counsel and give an answer, for he dare not lay down his commission nor hath he seen anything to show that his commission is annulled."

Not till the return of Roger Williams in 1654 was the reunion of the colony effected. At the general court held at Warwick he was chosen president. But it was not until 1656 that the hatchet was finally buried. Coddington was elected commis- sjoner for Newport to the court of that year, held at Warwick.

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Opposition was made to his taking his place and he put on rec- ord his formal submission in these words: "I, William Cod- dington, doe hereby submit to ye anthoritie of his Ilighness in this colony as it is now united and that with all my heart." Clarke, the agent in England, was requested to withdraw the complaints made against him, and certain records which might seem prejudicial to him and others were ordered to be cut from the books and delivered to Mr. Coddington. The presentments standing against him on the island book of records were not to be prosecuted but the fine imposed for not delivering up the book of records was not to be returned, and complaint having been made that the Indians had guns like those Coddington brought over from England, he was requested to account for the disposal of his.

In 1658 he appears with Benedict Arnold as a purchaser of Dutch Island. In 1663 it is pleasant to find the old gentleman, who seems through thick and thin to have held the confidence of the government as well as of the people, the first named of the committee to assess upon the towns of Conanient island the rate they should pay toward the one linndred pounds voted for supplies to John Clarke, the agent of the colony in London ; to whom Coddington chiefly owed the loss of his life estate in the office of governor of the isles.

In 1665 Coddington, having openly joined the Quakers, sent a paper on their behalf to the royal commissioners, Carr, Cart- wright and Maverick, who were sent over to settle all troubles in the reorganized colonial government, to which they at once sent answer to the governor with instructions that it be com- municated to the Quakers in the presence of the assembly. This was done verbally to Coddington and a copy of five proposals commended by the commissioners to the colony was handed to him for their consideration and observance. In 1665 and 1666 Coddington again served as assistant, in 1673 as deputy, and from 1674 to 1676 as governor. He was succeeded by Arnold who died in office in June, 1678, at the beginning of his term. At an adjourned session of the assembly held in August, Cod- dington was appointed to fill the vacancy. When this body met in October Coddington also was on his death bed. 1Ie died on the 1st of November, 1778, in the 78th year of his age. Mrs. Ann Coddington, his widow, as was usual, delivered up the

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charter and other writings belonging to the colony to the com- mittee of the assembly appointed to receive them.

Thus closed, as it had begun, the long and useful life of this, the father of the Rhode Island colony. He came to the island the first magistrate of a little settlement, small in numbers but great in purpose. He was constantly employed in its service and he left it the governor of a strong and prosperons colony. The town of Newport was especially indebted to him. His sa- gacity foresaw the possibilities for an extensive commerce and establishing himself the first mercantile business, he led the way in its development. He was interred in the Coddington burial place, which he bequeathed to the Society of Friends, in Fare- well street. The freemen of Newport in 1836, mindful of the memorable services of this, their founder, repaired the monu- ment at the head of his grave. Governor Coddington's house was on the north side of Marlborough street fronting Dnke street.

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History of Newport County, Rhode Island. From the year 1638 to the year 1887, including the settlement of its towns, and their subsequent progress, Part 15

Author: Bayles, Richard M. (Richard Mather), ed Publication date: 1888 Publisher: New York, L. E. Preston & Co. Number of Pages: 1324

Author: Bayles, Richard M. (Richard Mather), ed
Publication date: 1888
Publisher: New York, L. E. Preston & Co.
Number of Pages: 1324