Robert Coe
Judge of oyer and terminer of Yorkshire, New York
In office April 2, 1669 – July 2, 1669
Appointed by	Richard Nicolls
High sheriff of Yorkshire, New York
In office October 1669 – September 1671
Personal details
Born	1596 Thorpe Morieux, Suffolk, Kingdom of England
Died	before 1690 Hempstead, Province of New York, British America
Children	4
Occupation	public official
Known for	Early settler of American colonies
Signature

Robert Coe (1596 – bef. 1690) was an early English settler, public official, and a founder of five towns in Connecticut and New York: Wethersfield, Stamford, Hempstead, Elmhurst, and Jamaica. Coe took passage from England to the Americas in 1634 during the Puritan migration to New England. He is considered the founder of the Coe family in America and was the primary progenitor in New England of Coes. He has many notable descendants, including the 43rd President of the United States, George W. Bush, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, the screenwriter of Gone with the Wind, Sidney Howard, and the namesake of the largest state park in Northern California, Henry W. Coe State Park.

In England, Coe began his career as a public official with an election to the overseer of cloth. In the New Netherland settlements, he held appointed positions as a magistrate and a deputy of the General Court. Under the governance of the New England Colonies, he was appointed as commissioner of Jamaica, and the judge and high sheriff of Yorkshire, New York.

The Coe family, originally recorded as "le Queu" and then "Coo",^[1] were Normans considered gentry and acquired 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, Henry, had been a yeoman, probably a clothmaker, and for several years was churchwarden.^[4] In Boxford, Suffolk in April 1625, Coe was elected as the overseer of cloth and in 1629 as the questman of the church.^[11] 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][12][13][14]} He and his family left for America on April 10, 1634^[15][16] in search of religious liberty from Ipswich aboard the Francis, commanded by John Cutting.^[17][4] Coe settled for a brief time 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][18][19][11]}

Coe was a founder of two towns in the Connecticut Colony.^[5] In June 1635, Coe joined Andrew Warde and a few others in starting a new plantation at Wethersfield, Connecticut (originally Pyquag),^[20][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][21][22][23]} The land had been previously purchased from the Siwanoy peoples.^[24] In 1640, Coe and Warde were deputed in the General Court, representatives in colonial government matters, and they secured the land and founded a new plantation called Toquams, which was then renamed to Stamford.^[4][21][22] Stamford was included in the creation of the United Colonies of New England.^[22] On April 5, 1643, Coe was appointed as Stamford's magistrate,^[4] the equivalent of a mayor.^[17] The following year, another dispute caused Coe and the town reverend, Richard Denton, to leave the Thirteen 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 he was appointed the magistrate and the church elder. During his eight years leading Hempstead, he became an extensive landowner.^[4][1][23] Due to his "enterprising spirit", Coe departed Hempstead to found a new settlement. In 1652, he and Edward Jessup became the majority landowners a settlement west of long island in what is now Elmhurst. The town of was originally called Middleburgh, then Hastings, and finally Newton, where Coe was the most prominent person in the town. He was again made the town's magistrate and served for four years as a deputy of the general court,^[4][17] the same "representative" government style as the British colonies.^[26] As the deputy, Coe traveled in 1653 to Boston and New Amsterdam to ask for protections for the English and Dutch settlements along the island from native attack.^[4][17][27]

After the settlement was well-established, Coe re-settled again in 1655 as the leader of Rustdorp, a town on a large tract of land south of Newtown purchased with his youngest son Benjamin and several others. Rustdorp was later renamed to 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 from the Dutch at New Amsterdam and transferred their allegiance to Connecticut, Coe was deputed to the General Court and appointed commissioner for Jamaica. 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][23][28]

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 before 1690, when his will was executed.^[4] His home on Long Island stood until 1930 when it was demolished to accommodate the construction of the Long Island Expressway.^[29] A poem was written about him after his passing by the reverend Abraham Pierson, the elder in the New Haven Colony.^[25]

Freeport, New York was originally named "Coe's Neck", after Coe, and remains the name of a local park.^[30][31] Cos Cob, Connecticut is named after Coe, derived from "Coe's Cob" meaning "Coe's wall".^[32]

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^[33] 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][34] Coe, Indiana is named for one of the founders of Indianapolis and a frontier physician, Isaac Coe.^{[4][35][36][37]}

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,^[38][39][40] 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.^[41] Mount Coe and Coe Glacier are named for Henry Coe,^[42] a naturalist and journalist who ascended Mount Adams in the 19th-century.^[43] He platted the town of Hood River, Oregon, which was settled by Nathaniel Coe, a pioneer politician and his father.^[44][4] They cultivated the Hood River Valley with fruit trees.^[45][46][43]

Coe College,^[47] 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.^[48][49] Coe Circle, a park in Portland, Oregon, is named after descendant Henry Waldo Coe,^[50][4] where he commissioned the installation of a gilt bronze statue of Joan of Arc.^[51] Dudley Coe Hall at Bowdoin College, formerly the infirmary, is named for the son of Thomas Upham Coe, an alum and prominent doctor and lumber baron of Bangor, Maine.^[52][53][54] Portraits of Thomas Upham Coe are in the Smithsonian Libraries and Archives^[55] and the Harvard Art Museums.^[56] 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.^[57][58]

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 reverend.^{[59][60][61][62]}

• 
  George W. Bush, 43rd United States president who served two terms
• 
  Winston Churchill, who was twice Prime minister of the United Kingdom
• 
  Tony Goldwyn, American actor known for Scandal
• 
  Richard F. Post, a recipient of the James Clerk Maxwell Prize for Plasma Physics
• 
  Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young singer and guitarist David Crosby

Sources:^{[4][63][64][65][66][67][68][69][70][71][72][73][74][75][76][77][41][78][79][80][81][82]}

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