William Coddington (c. 1601 – 1 November 1678) was an early magistrate of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and later of the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. He served as the judge of Portsmouth and Newport in that colony, governor of Portsmouth and Newport, deputy governor of the four-town colony, and then governor of the entire colony. Coddington was born and raised in Lincolnshire, England. He accompanied the Winthrop Fleet on its voyage to New England in 1630, becoming an early leader in Boston. There he built the first brick house and became heavily involved in the local government as an assistant magistrate, treasurer, and deputy.
Coddington was a member of the Boston church under the Reverend John Cotton, and was caught up in the events of the Antinomian Controversy from 1636 to 1638. The Reverend John Wheelwright and Anne Hutchinson were banished from the Massachusetts colony, and many of their supporters were also compelled to leave. Coddington was not asked to depart, but he felt that the outcome of the controversy was unjust and decided to join many of his fellow parishioners in exile. He was the lead signer of a compact to form a Christian-based government away from Massachusetts. He was encouraged by Roger Williams to settle on the Narragansett Bay. He and other supporters of Hutchinson bought Aquidneck Island from the Narragansetts. They settled there, establishing the town of Pocasset which was later named Portsmouth. Coddington was named the first "judge" of the colony, a Biblical term for governor. A division in the leadership of the town occurred within a year, and he left with several others to establish the town of Newport at the south end of the island.
In a short time, the towns of Portsmouth and Newport united, and Coddington was made the governor of the island towns from 1640 to 1647. During this period, Roger Williams had gone to England to obtain a patent to unite the four Narragansett towns of Providence, Warwick, Portsmouth, and Newport. This was done without the consent of the island towns and they resisted joining the mainland towns until 1647. Coddington was elected president of the united colony in 1648, but he would not accept the position, and complaints against him prompted the presidency to go to Jeremy Clarke. Coddington was very unhappy with Williams' patent; he returned to England, where he was eventually able to obtain a commission separating the island from the mainland towns, and making him governor of the island for an indefinite period. He was initially welcomed as governor, but complaints from both the mainland towns and members of the island towns prompted Roger Williams, John Clarke, and William Dyer to go to England to have Coddington's commission revoked. They were successful, and Dyer returned with the news in 1653. However, disagreements kept the four towns from re-uniting until the following year.
With the revocation of his commission, Coddington withdrew from public life, focusing on his mercantile interests, and becoming a member of the Religious Society of Friends. After nearly two decades away from politics, he was elected deputy governor in 1673, then governor the following year, serving two one-year terms. The relative calm of this period was shattered during his second year as governor of the colony when King Philip's War erupted in June 1675. It became the most catastrophic event in Rhode Island's colonial history. He was not re-elected in 1676, but he was elected to a final term as governor of the colony in 1678 following the death of Governor Benedict Arnold. He died a few months into this term, and was buried in the Coddington Cemetery on Farewell Street in Newport.
England and Massachusetts
William Coddington was born in Lincolnshire, England, most likely the son of Robert and Margaret Coddington of Marston. His presumed father was a prosperous yeoman; the younger Coddington possessed a seal with the initials "R.C." when he was in Rhode Island, which were likely the initials of his father. The source of his education is not known, but it is apparent that he was well educated because of his correspondence, and from his considerable command of English law.
As a young man, he married by about 1626 and had two sons baptized at St. Botolph's Church in Boston, Lincolnshire. Both died in infancy and were buried at the same church. His first wife was Mary, and speculation exists that she was Mary Burt, because Coddington once mentioned his "cousin Burt" in a letter. King Charles circumvented Parliament in 1626 by raising funds through the Forced Loan, and Coddington was one of many Puritans who resisted this royal loan; his name was recorded on a list for doing so the following winter.
Coddington was elected as a Massachusetts Bay assistant (magistrate) on 18 March 1629/30 while still in England, and he sailed to New England the following month with the Winthrop Fleet. His first wife died during their first winter in Massachusetts, and he returned to England aboard the Lion in 1631, remaining there for two years. During this visit to England, he married Mary Moseley in Terling, Essex, and she went to New England with him in 1633. She was admitted to the Boston church that summer.
Coddington was a leading merchant in Boston, and he built the first brick house there. He was elected an assistant every year from his arrival in New England until 1637. He was the colony's treasurer from 1634 to 1636, and a deputy for Boston in 1637. He was also a Boston selectman in 1634, and was on several committees overseeing land transactions in 1636 and 1637.
Antinomian Controversy
As a member of the Boston Church, Coddington was pleased when John Cotton arrived in the colony in 1633, as he was one of the most noted Puritan ministers of the time. The two men had been friends in England, and Cotton had arranged in a 1630 letter for a hogshead of meal to be sent to Coddington, who was at Naumkeg (Salem) at the time. Cotton became a minister of the Boston Church, joining minister John Wilson. In time, the Boston parishioners could sense a theological difference between Wilson and Cotton. Anne Hutchinson was a theologically astute midwife who had the ear of many of the colony's women, and she became outspoken in support of Cotton and condemned the theology of Wilson and most of the other ministers in the colony.
Differing religious opinions within the colony eventually became public debates. The resulting religious tension erupted into what has traditionally been called the Antinomian Controversy, but has more recently been labelled the Free Grace Controversy. Many members of Boston's church disagreed with Wilson's emphasis on morality and his doctrine of "evidencing justification by sanctification", meaning that one demonstrates salvation by living a more holy life. Some of Wilson's opponents labeled his views as a covenant of works, while Hutchinson told her followers that Wilson lacked "the seal of the Spirit". Wilson's theological views were in accord with those of the other ministers in the colony except for Cotton, who stressed "the inevitability of God's will" (which he termed a covenant of grace) as opposed to preparation (works). All but about five of the Boston parishioners supported Hutchinson's views, and they had become accustomed to Cotton's doctrines. Some of them began disrupting Wilson's sermons, even finding excuses to leave when he got up to preach or pray.
In May 1636, the Bostonians received a new ally when the Reverend John Wheelwright arrived from England and immediately aligned himself with Cotton, Hutchinson, and other so-called free grace advocates. Yet another boost came for those advocating the free grace theology during the same month when young aristocrat Henry Vane was elected governor of the colony. Vane was a strong supporter of Hutchinson, but he also had his own ideas about theology that were considered not only unorthodox, but even radical.
Fast Day Sermon Coddington was a magistrate as the events of the controversy unfolded, elected by the freemen of the colony. Like many members of the Boston church, he sided squarely with the free grace advocates. By late 1636, the theological schism had become great enough that the General Court called for a day of fasting to help ease the colony's difficulties. During the appointed fast-day on Thursday, 19 January 1637, Wheelwright preached at the Boston church in the afternoon. To the Puritan clergy, his sermon was "censurable and incited mischief". The colony's ministers were offended by the sermon, while the free grace advocates were encouraged, and they became more vociferous in their opposition to the "legal" ministers. Governor Vane began challenging the doctrines of the colony's divines, and supporters of Hutchinson refused to serve during the Pequot War of 1637 because Wilson was the chaplain of the expedition. Ministers worried that the bold stand of Hutchinson and her supporters began to threaten the "Puritan's holy experiment".
As early as March 1637, the political tide began to turn against the free grace advocates. Wheelwright was tried for contempt and sedition that month for his fast-day sermon, and he was convicted in a close vote but not yet sentenced. During the election of May 1637, Henry Vane was replaced as governor by John Winthrop. In addition, Coddington and all the other Boston magistrates who supported Hutchinson and Wheelwright were voted out of office by the colony's freemen, though Coddington was then immediately elected by the town of Boston as a deputy. By the summer of 1637, Vane sailed back to England, never to return. With his departure, the time was ripe for the orthodox party to deal with the remainder of their free grace rivals.
The aggressive challenges of the free grace advocates left the colony in a state of dissension. Winthrop realized that "two so opposite parties could not contain in the same body, without apparent hazard of ruin to the whole"; he opted for a stern approach to the difficulties, supported by a majority of the colonists. The elections of October 1637 brought about even more change, with a large turnover of the Deputies to the General Court. In contrast to the remainder of the colony, Boston continued to be represented with strong free grace advocates, and Coddington continued as one of its three deputies.
Trial The autumn court in 1637 convened on 2 November, and Wheelwright was sentenced to banishment and ordered to leave the colony within fourteen days. Several of Hutchinson and Wheelwright's other supporters were tried and given varied sentences. Following these preliminaries, it was Anne Hutchinson's turn to be tried. She was brought to trial on 7 November 1637, presided over by Governor Winthrop, on the charge of "traducing [slandering] the ministers", among other charges. One of the Boston deputies had been dismissed, so the town was only represented at the trial by Coddington and one other deputy. The trial lasted for two days, and Coddington likely coached Hutchinson on legal matters at the end of the first day. The first day went well for her, but she made the work much easier for her accusers during the second day. She addressed the court with her own judgment, claiming divine revelations as her source of inspiration, and she threatened the court with a curse, as well.
The stunned reaction of the court turned into an immediate call for Hutchinson's conviction. Cotton attempted to come to her defense but was hounded by the magistrates until Winthrop called off the questioning. A vote was taken on a sentence of banishment; only Coddington and the other remaining deputy from Boston dissented. Winthrop then read the order: "Mrs. Hutchinson, the sentence of the court you hear is that you are banished from out of our jurisdiction as being a woman not fit for our society, and are to be imprisoned till the court shall send you away".
Aftermath