In my efforts to sort out all the Hugh Coles in my ancestry, I am trying to find interesting stories to share! This generation of Hugh Cole II and Deborah Buckland was interesting because of the ancestry of Deborah Buckland that we can trace back to England and because family of Hugh II was involved in King Phillip’s War. This couple are my 9th Great-Grandparents. Read on for more!
Firstly, regarding Hugh Cole II, he was born 8 March 1657/58 at Plymouth, Massachusetts Bay Colony and was the son of immigrants Hugh Cole I and Mary Foxwell. In 1680, Hugh II was admitted as a freeman in Swansea and then began building a house in Swansea in 1681. Amazingly, the house is still standing with some additions having been made to it!
That same year, 1681, on May 6th, Hugh II married Deborah Buckland in Swansea, Bristol County, Massachusetts Colony. Deborah was the daughter of immigrant Joseph Buckland (also spelled Bucklin) and Deborah Allen. Deborah died 7 November 1724 in Swansea at age 64 and he husband Hugh II died 17 February 1737-38 in Swansea at age 80. They are buried in Kickemuit Cemtery, Warren, RI. Their grave markers are pictured below.
Cole Roots
Now to first trace the roots of Hugh Cole II. His father, Hugh Cole I, was born about 1627 in London, England and was the son of James Cole and Mary Tibbes. Hugh I came to Plymouth MA with his father James and mother in 1633 when he was about six years old. From Plymouth records, I found James Cole and son Hugh kept the cows for the community from April to November by bringing the cows to pasture and back for milking. They were paid 50 bushels of corn for this! Later, as an adult, he was admitted as a freeman in 1657 in Plymouth Colony.
He married Mary Foxwell, daughter of Richard Foxwell and Ann Shelley, on 8 August 1654 and they had ten children. Mary Foxwell was born in 1635 in Scituate MA and she died in 1688-89 in Swansea at age 53. She was Hugh’s first wife and he married twice after that but all the children were by his first wife Mary. She was buried in Tyler Point Cemetery in Bristol County, RI and her grave is unmarked but a marker was placed in 2015 commemorating her and her husband.
Hugh I was a shipwright (ship builder) and civil engineer among other things. He also was a surveyor of highways in Barnstable, a selectman in Swansea and a deputy to the General Court. Some sources also list his occupation as shoemaker, innkeeper and sailer. Indeed, a jack of all trades!
The Cole’s lived at the time and place of King Phillip’s War when Native American tribes of the Northeastern Woodlands plundered and killed settlers in an attempt to drive the colonists away. In this calamity of war, 12 of the region’s towns were destroyed and many more damaged. The economy of Plymouth and Rhode Island Colonies was ruined and their population decimated after losing one-tenth of all men for military service
Hugh I had also purchased 500 acres from Native American leader, King Phillip. During the King Phillip’s War, Hugh’s own home was burned and he served as a Sargeant in the conflict. He and King Phillip were actually good friends and when the King warned him that he could no longer keep his braves under control, Sergeant Cole loaded his household goods and family on a raft and left for Tiverton, Rhode Island where he had friends. His home was afire in less than an hour, but he returned about 1680 and built a new house.
Hugh Cole I died in Swansea, Bristol, MA on 22 January 1698-99 and was buried in the southern part of Meadow Neck in the Tyler Point Cemetery next to his wife. The cemetery is now called Howland Meadow.
Buckland Roots
Joseph Buckland, father of Deborah who married Hugh Cole II, was indeed an immigrant but he came to America as an infant in 1634 from England on the ship “Elizabeth Dorcas” along with his mother from Weymouth, Dorset, England where Joseph was born on 26 Jun 1633. His parents, if we can go back a generation, were William Buckland and Mary Bosworth.
A sad story comes out of this journey to America in 1634 on the “Elizabeth Dorcas.” From what I can gather, William Buckland, a carpenter and shipbuilder, had already traveled to Plymouth in 1630 with the Winthrop fleet, but returned to England to bring his wife, Mary Bosworth Buckland, and family back to Plymouth. The Buckland clan coming by ship in 1634 included William and William’s wife Mary, their infant son Joseph Buckland, her mother Mary Bosworth, and her brothers and her father, Edward Bosworth. Here is the sad part, Edward Bosworth died on board ship, just as it landed in Boston Harbor, never to set foot on the land of his choice! The Bosworth Genealogy states that Edward, being close to death, asked to be carried to the deck, “so that he might see the promised land, and after this, consigned his soul to God, and died.”
The Buckland family first settled in Hingham, Massachusetts and by 1656, William Buckland, who was a shipwright, moved his family to Rehoboth, MA. Joseph Buckland married Deborah Allen on 5 November 1659 in Rehoboth, Bristol, MA, British Colonial America. This Deborah Allen was the daughter of John Allen and Elizabeth Bacon of England of whom no further information is verified or written. Deborah Allen was born about 1637 in Huverton, Leicestshire, England and it is assumed she immigrated with her parents.
Joseph Buckland died on 28 Mar 1718 in Rehoboth, Bristol, MA. Deborah died there two years later in 1720. They are buried in Newman Cemetery, East Providence, RI.
William Buckland died in 1683 and Mary Bosworth Buckland was buried in1687, four years later. They were buried in Rehoboth MA and their son Joseph administered his father’s estate.
Sources:
First Families of America, database, Ancestry.com, p. 117.
Massachusetts Vital Records, 1621-1850 & Plymouth Vital Records, p. 670: AmericanAncestors.com, NEHGS
Find a Grave for Hugh Cole: Memorial 9258336
Cole, Ernest Byron. The Descendats of James Cole of Plymouth 1633. Grafton Press, New York, New York, 1908, pp. 25-27, 32-34.
W. R. Cutter. New England Families, Genealogical and Memorial. 1914, Vol. II, p. 630
James Newell Arnold. Vital Record of Rehoboth, 1642-1896: Marriages, Intentions, Births, Deaths…etc. p. 65. Digital copy from http://www.archive.org.
WikiTree for Joseph Buckland (1633-1718)
Ancestry.com, New England, The Great Migration and The Great Migration Begins, 1620-1635 [database online]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2013.
Savage, James. A Genealogical Dictionary of the First Settlers of New England Boston, Little Brown and Co., 1862, Vol. 1, pp. 416-429.
England, Select Marriages, 1538-1973; database online at Ancestry.com.
The Lyons Tracks 