"What  sought  they  thus  afar? —
Bright  jewels  of  the  mine?
The  wealth  of  seas,  the  spoils  of  war? —
They  sought  a  Faith's  pure  shrine!"


72  ROBERT  COE,  PURITAN

In  the  spring  of  1634,  Robert  Coe  took  his  family  to  Ipswich,  the  port
of  Suffolk  county,  and  about  fifteen  miles  east  of  Boxford,  and  there  on
Apr.  30,  1634,  they  were  among  the  eighty-three  passengers  who
embarked  for  New  England  in  the  ship  Francis,  commanded  by  Capt.
John  Cutting.  At  the  Record  Office  in  London  is  still  preserved  the
roll  of  the  ship's  passengers  taken  at  the  Custom  House  in  Ipswich,  on
which  appears  Robert  Cooe  aged  38,  Anna  Cooe  his  wife  aged  43,  and
children  John  Cooe  aged  8,  Robert  Cooe  aged  7,  and  Benjamin  Cooe
aged  5.  (See  Hotten's  "Original  Lists"  of  early  emigrants  to  America,
pp.  278-80.)

In  those  days  a  voyage  to  New  England  took  about  ten  weeks,  so
Robert  Coe  probably  arrived  in  Boston  in  July  1634,  and  he  immediately
went  to  Watertown,  Massachusetts,  a  suburb  of  Boston,  where  he  found
located  many  settlers  who  came  with  Gov.  Winthrop  in  1630  from  the
vicinity  of  Boxford  in  England.  The  first  mention  of  his  name  in  New  Eng-
land is  his  admission  as  a  freeman  of  the  Massachusetts  Bay  Colony  on
Sept.  3,  1634,  showing  previous  admission  to  the  church  which  was  a  re-
quisite to  be  freeman,  i.  e.,  a  citizen  entitled  to  vote  and  hold  public  office.
