One otherwise quiet evening, several years ago, my telephone rang and I was greeted by the plaintive voice of an unknown woman, who identified herself as Bernice Sonna, from Wyoming.  As I gathered my wits to present a vigorous defense against unwanted magazine subscriptions, life insurance, or credit cards, she added: "...from the Cogswell Family Association - I  just wanted too know why you didn't renew your membership this year."  Now totally off guard, I innocently allowed the conversation to proceed.  Bernice told me that my complaint was not uncommon, and that the Association was working hard to overcome its shortcomings, and the problem that I had identified, the useless database, was the most urgent of her problems.

    Being a man of strict and proper upbringing, I was powerless to ignore the suffering of a damsel in distress, and asked if, perhaps, I might be of some service.  The trap was thus sprung.  She said, "Yes, we have only about a hundred members, and someone should copy their family records into some kind of an accessible database."  I agreed to tackle this little project, as had the Rev. Jameson, in my spare time.   About two weeks later, a large cardboard box arrived by United Parcel Service, and I became the keeper of a pile of assorted papers, and the victim of the most ridiculous, frustrating, irritating excuse for a computer program I had ever encountered.

    Six months later, having had very little success in learning to use the so-called "program," and having managed to extract a total of eleven names from it, I ordered a new program, and began writing the Cogswell descendants for additional information, or for interpretation of illegible information. (In one case, I had an oil-stained, well used grocery bag, upon which someone had written his family history, in pencil.)  After about a year had passed I had accumulated a certain body of information, and, during a not infrequent call from Bernice, the comment was made: "Oh, by the way, did I mention that we intend to publish a book?"  How difficult could it be, I asked myself, to update the information on a few hundred people?   (Those who fail to understand Rev. Jameson's Preface are doomed to repeat it.)

    Two more years, a heart attack, an angioplasty, and many hundreds of cartons of cigarettes and barrels of coffee later, my original goal of locating my own great-great-grandfather Cogswell remains somewhere over the genealogical horizon, but you are holding the Cogswell Family Association's latest "Little Pamphlet Update," which became this volume.

    Obviously, this book would not have been possible without the invaluable assistance and labors of many dozens of cooperative people, whose names would fill many, many pages, and cannot all be listed here.  The Cogswell Family Association is deeply in debt, and I hope this volume will provide some small measure of repayment.  In addition to the three people mentioned in the introduction, a few of the many, many descendants who were particularly helpful and most dedicated to the success of this volume were: Charles Atwood, Rev. A. Charles Cannon, Marion Cavin, Edward Everett Cogswell, Edward Russell Cogswell, Jr., Horatio Adams Cogswell, Howard J. Cogswell, Dr. Howard L. Cogswell, John Heyland Cogswell, Keith & June Cogswell, Lawrence H. Cogswell, Rev. Malcolm Cogswell, Ralph E. Cogswell, Lt. Col. William C. Cogswell, Claire Cogswell Daigle, Alexine Dempster, Tanis Diedrichs, Betty M. Dodge, Etta Faulkner, Edith Hall, Lucia Heins, Phyllis Leverton, Caroline Lutz, Karen Prickett, Peg Simons, William Wood, and Janice Yates.

Excerpt from the "Descendants of John Cogswell: The Cogswell Family 1635-2019"

by Donald James Cogswell and Eloise (Kananen) Gassert

First Generation

1. John COGSWELL was born on 2 Apr 1592 in Westbury Leigh, Wiltshire, England. He was baptized on 7 Apr 1592 in Westbury Leigh, Wiltshire, England. In "The Great Migration," his date of Baptism is given as 2 Apr 1592. He was buried in 1669 at Old North Burying Ground in Ipswich, Essex, MA. Find A Grave Memorial #21536932.  CFA Historian's records:  Buried in Highland Cemetery; Buried in Phipps Street Burying Ground - both documented by Ancestry. John died on 29 Nov 1669 at the age of 77 in Chebacco, Ipswich, Essex, MA.

Rev. E.O. Jameson:  At the age of twenty-three years he married the daughter of the parish vicar, succeeded to his father's business, and settled down in the old homestead.  His parents died soon after his marriage, and he received his inheritance "The Mylls called Ripond, situate within the Parish of Frome Selwood," together with the home place and certain personal property.  Like his father, he was a manufacturer of wollen fabrics, largely broadcloths and kerseymeres.  The superior quality of these manufactures gave to his "mylls" a favorable reputation, which appears to have been retained to the present (1884) day.  There are factories occupying much the same locations and still owned by Cogswells, which continue to put upon the market wollen cloths that in Vienna and elsewhere have commanded the first premium in the world exhibitions of our times.  John Cogswell doubtless found in London a market for his manufactures. He may have had a commission house in that city, which would account for his being called, as he sometimes has been, a London merchant.

Mrs. Cogswell's father was the Rev. William Thompson, vicar of Westbury from 1603 to his death in 1623.  About twenty years after their marriage, with a family of nine children about them, and having the accumulations of a prosperous business, Mr. and Mrs. Cogswell determined to emigrate to America.  The particular reasons which led them to leave England may have been much the same that influenced others in their times.  It appears that early in 1635 Mr. Cogswell made sale of his "mylls" and other real estate, and soon after, with his wife, eight children, and all their personal effects, embarked at Bristol, May 23, 1635, for New England.  Their passage was long and disastrous.  Their arrival in America was after a most unexpected fashion.  Having reached the shores of New England, they were landed very unceremoniously at a place called Pemaquid, in Maine, being washed ashore from the broken decks of their ship "Angel Gabriel," which went to pieces in the frightful gale of August 15, 1635, when such a "sudden, dismal storm of wind and rain came as had never been known before by white man or Indian."  Traces of this storm remained for years.

Mr. Cogswell and his family escaped with their lives, but well drenched by the sea and despoiled of valuables to the amount of five thousand pounds sterling.  They were more fortunate than some who sailed with them, whom the angry waves gathered to a watery grave.  On leaving England Mr. Cogswell had taken along with him a large tent, which now came into good service.  This they pitched, and into it they gathered themselves and such stores as they could rescue from the waves.

The darkness of that first night of the Cogswells in America found them housed beneath a tent on the beach.  The next day they picked up what more of their goods they could, which had come ashore during the night or lay floating about upon the water.  As soon as possible Mr. Cogswell, leaving his family, took passage for Boston.  He there made a contract with a certain Capt. Gallup, who commanded a small barque, to sail for Pemaquid and transport his family to Ipswich, Mass.  This was a newly settled town to the eastward from Boston, and was called by the Indians, "Aggawam."  Two years earlier, March, 1633, Mr. John Winthrop, son of Gov. John Winthrop, with ten others, had commenced a settlement in Aggawam.  An act of incorporation was secured August 4, 1634, under the name of Ipswich. The name Ipswich is Saxon, in honor of the Saxon queen Eba, called "Eba's wych," i.e., Eba's house; hence Yppyswich or Ipswich.  Some derive it from Gippewich, meaning "little city."  "August 5, 1634.  It is ordered that Aggawam shal be called Ipswich.

It was probably near the last of August, 1635, when Capt. Gallup sailed up the Aggawam River, having on board Mr. and Mrs. Cogswell, their three sons and five daughters, and whatever of household goods his barque would carry, the rest of their effects being taken by another ship.  The settlers of Ipswich at once manifested an appreciation of these new-comers.  They made John Cogswell liberal grants of land, as appears from the following municipal records:  "1636.  Granted to Mr. John Cogswell Three Hundred acres of land at the further Chebokoe, having the River on the South east, the land of Willm White on the North west, and A Creeke romminge out of the River towards William White's farme on the North east.  Bounded also on the West with a Creek and a little creeke."  "Also there was granted to him a parsell of ground containinge eight acres, upon part whereof ye sd John Cogswell hath built an house, it being the corner lot in Bridge street and hath Goodman Bradstreet's house-Lott on the South East.
"There was granted to him five acres of ground, which is thus described:  Mr. John Spencer's buttinge upon the River on the South, having a lott of Edmond Gardiner's on the South East, and a lott of Edmond Sayward's on the south west; with six acres of ground, the sd John Cogswell hath sold to John Perkins, the younger, his heirs and assigns.

The grant of three hundred acres of land at the further Chebokoe was some five miles to the eastward, in a part of Ipswich that was constituted, May 5, 1679, Chebacco Parish; and February 5, 1819, incorporated the town of Essex.  A settlement had been commenced in the Indian Chebokoe, in 1635, by William White and Goodman Bradstreet."

It appears that John Cogswell was the third original settler in that part of Ipswich, which is now Essex, Mass.  On the records of Ipswich his name often appears and it is uniformly distinguished by the appellation of Mr., which in those days was an honorary title given to but few, who were gentlemen of some distinction.  There were only about thirty of the three hundred and thirty-five original settlers of Ipswich who received this honor.

Very soon after his arrival, March 3, 1636, by an act of the Court, John Cogswell was admitted freeman, to which privileges none were admitted prior to 1664 except respectable members of some Christian church.  To freemen alone were the civil rights to vote for rulers and to hold public office.
See: The Family of John Perkins of Ipswich, Massachusetts, Part 1, Descendants of Quarter-Master, John Perkins, by Geo. A. Perkins, M.D., Salem, printed at the Salem Press, 1882, pgs 7-8.  Regarding the 45 acre parcel sold by John Perkins to John [1] Cogswell in 1635.

Ipswich In The Massachusetts Bay Colony, pp. 290-291, by Thomas Franklin Waters, The Ipswich Historical Society, 1905:  "Five members of the Cogswell family were among the twenty prominent people who signed the petition drawn up by the Rev. John Wise on behalf of Goodwife Proctor, who stood accused of witchcraft.  Mary Warren alleged that she had been threatened and abused by Goodwife Proctor, and that she had seen apparitions of people who had long since been murdered by the wife of John Proctor. This evidence prevailed and the good woman was sentenced to death."

For several years Mr. Cogswell and family lived in the log-house with its thatched roof, while many of their goods remained stored in boxes, awaiting some better accommodations.  It is said there were pieces of carved furniture, embroidered curtains, damask table linen, much silver plate; and that there was a Turkey carpet is well attested.  As soon as practicable Mr. Cogswell put up a framed house.  This stood a little back from the highway, and was approached by walks through grounds of shrubbery and flowers.  There is an English shrub still, 1884, enjoying a thrifty life, which stands not far from the site of the old Cogswell manor.  This shrub, tradition says, John Cogswell brought with him from England.

John served on the Grand Jury of Essex 25 Sep 1649 - EQC 1:175.
Libby Noyes Davis, in Maine and New Hampshire Sources, writes: "ROLLINS, James, Dover (part later Newington), Signed Dover Comb., 1640, bought a house at Long Reach from James Johnson, 1651, presented for neglecting meeting in 1656 and for entertaining Quakers in 1659. In 1661 he was in London, where he received cloth to be delivered to Mr. Cogswell of Ipswich and Mr. Raynes of York."

Not long since, Mrs. Aaron Cogswell, of Ipswich, had in her possession, it is said, the famous coat of arms which has been widely copied in the family.  This is described as "wrought most exquisitely with silk on heavy satin."  A few years ago, a stranger borrowed the curious relic of this too obliging lady, and, like the jewels of the Egyptians, borrowed by the Israelites, it was never returned.
For some years after the completion of their new dwelling-house Mr. and Mrs. Cogswell lived to enjoy their pleasant home, surrounded by their children, well settled, some of them on farms near by, made of lands deeded to them by their now aged parents.  The time came at length, after a life of change, adventure, and hardship, and Mr. Cogswell died at the age of seventy-seven years. The funeral service for John Cogswell was conducted by the Rev. William Hubbard, pastor in Ipswich and since known as 'the Historian of New England'.  The funeral procession traversed a distance of five miles to the place of burial, the Old North graveyard of the First Church.  They moved under an escort of armed men, as a protection against the possible attack of Indians.

Mrs. Cogswell survived her husband but a few years.  She was a woman of sterling qualities and dearly loved by all who knew her.  Side by side in the old churchyard in Ipswich have slept for more than three hundred years the mortal remains of this godly pair, whose childhood was passed near the banks of the river Avon; who, leaving behind the tender associations of the Old World, came with their children to aid in rearing on these shores a pure Christian state.  They did greater work than they knew, died in the faith of the Gospel, and while their graves are unmarked by monument of stone, their souls are safe in heaven, their memory blessed, and their names honored by a posterity in numbers hardly second to that of Abraham.

When the inventory of John's estate came to court, 12 April 1670, Simon Tuttle and Thomas Clark, Jr., made oath that "our father Cogswell did promise upon marriage that he would give all he had and what he should more get unto his daughters Abigail and Sarah, and they should have it when he and his wife died." Thomas Clark, Sr. supported their claim.  (EQC 4:249.

John [1] COGSWELL and Elizabeth THOMPSON were married on 10 Sep 1615 in Westbury Leigh, Wiltshire, England. Listed in New England Marriages Prior to 1700, page 167. Elizabeth THOMPSON, daughter of William THOMPSON and Phillis Rycharde LYCHSTON, was born in Apr 1594 in Westbury Leigh, Wiltshire, England. She died on 2 Jun 1676 at the age of 82 in Ipswich, Essex, MA. She was buried at Old North Graveyard, First Church, Plot D1 in Ipswich, Essex, MA. Her body was carried five miles from her home to her gravesite under guard against Indian attack.  Find A Grave Memorial #23966643.  "Old Burying Ground." Elizabeth was the daughter of the Vicar of their church.  Steve Aberle has photographs of the baptism records from the time period in Westbury Leigh, and neither Sarah or Abigail are listed.  Rev. Jameson, having no proof, estimated their dates of birth.
See: Vital Records of Ipswich, Vol. II, the Essex Institute, 1910.  Page 525: "Abigail, an Antient Wido," Apr. 2, 1728, a 87y."  Page 698: "Sarah, wid., Jan 24, 1731, a. 86 y."  Elizabeth would have been ages 47 and 52 at the time of their births.
"New England, The Great Migration, and The Great Migration Begins, 1620-1635, Vol. 2, C-F" lists twelve children born to John and Elizabeth, including the last two daughters.
Elizabeth's father, William Thompson, named her husband as one of his executors - [PCC 26 Byrde].

John [1] COGSWELL and Elizabeth THOMPSON had the following children:

i.   Elizabeth [2] COGSWELL, born 1616, Westbury Leigh, Wiltshire, England; married Nathaniel MASTERSON, 31 Jul 1657,
     Ipswich, Essex, MA; died 24 Jan 1692, York, York, ME.
ii.   Maria [3] "Mary" COGSWELL, born 1618, Westbury Leigh, Wiltshire, England; married Godfrey ARMITAGE, 1650, Boston,
      Suffolk, MA; died 5 Apr 1677, Boston, Suffolk, MA.
iii.   Deacon William [4] COGSWELL, born Feb 1619/20, Westbury Leigh, Wiltshire, England; married Susanna HAWKES,
      1649/50, Lynn, Essex, MA; died 15 Dec 1700, Chebacco, Ipswich, MA.
iv.   John [5] COGSWELL Jr., born 1622, Westbury Leigh, Wiltshire, England; married Elizabeth Thoth ROGERS, 1642, Ipswich,
      Essex, MA; died 27 Sep 1653, at sea.
v.   Phyllis [6] COGSWELL, born 26 Apr 1624, Westbury Leigh, Wiltshire, England; married John BROADHURST, 23 Jan 1644,
     Chirton, Wiltshire, England; died Westbury Leigh, Wiltshire, England.
vi.   Hanna [7] COGSWELL, born 1626, Westbury Leigh, Wiltshire, England; married Deacon Cornelius WALDO, 2 Jan 1652,
       Ipswich, Essex, MA; died 25 Dec 1704, Charlestown, Suffolk, MA
vii.   Esther [8] COGSWELL, born 1628, Westbury Leigh, Wiltshire, England; married Samuel BISHOP; died 7 Jun 1655, Boston,
       Suffolk, MA.
viii.   Edward [9] COGSWELL, born 1629, Westbury Leigh, Wiltshire, England; married Hanah BROWNE, Ipswich, Essex, MA;
         died 1698, Ipswich, Essex, MA.
ix.   Alice [10] COGSWELL was born in 1631 in Westbury Leigh, Wiltshire, England. She was baptized on 24 Sep 1631 at All
      Saints Church in Westbury Leigh, Wiltshire, England. She died in May 1635 at the age of 4 in Westbury Leigh, Wiltshire,
      England. Alice is not listed as a passenger aboard the Angel Gabriel.
x.   Ruth [11] COGSWELL was born in 1633 in Westbury Leigh, Wiltshire, England. She died in 1633 at the age of 0 in Westbury
      Leigh, Wiltshire, England. She was baptized on 28 Nov 1633 at All Saints Church in Westbury, Leigh, Wiltshire, England. Her
      baptism record reads, Ruth Coggswell. Ruth is not listed as a passenger aboard the Angel Gabriel.
xi.   Abigail [12] COGSWELL, born 2 Apr 1641, Ipswich, Essex, MA; married Thomas CLARKE Jr., 1664, Ipswich, Essex, MA;
      married Thomas ANDREUS, 29 Nov 1712, Ipswich, Essex, MA; died 2 Apr 1728, Ipswich, Essex, MA.
xii.   Sarah [13] COGSWELL, born 1645/6, Ipswich, Essex, MA; married Simon TUTTLE Sr., 29 Mar 1663/4, Ipswich, Essex, MA;
       died 25 Jun 1732, Ipswich, Essex, MA.