Robert Coe (colonist)

Robert Coe (1596 – bef. 1690) was an early English settler, public official, and a founder of the New Haven Colony and 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 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.