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Hawkes - Cogswell article

from "Hawkes Talks", vol 1, No. 1, January 1969
Genealogical Bulletin of Adam Hawkes Family Assoc.

by M. Scher

( Adam Hawkes' daughter Susanna married William Cogswell in 1649.)

If you are wondering how Susanna Hawkes and William Cogswell got together, across the practically trackless area between Saugus and Ipswich, remember that the Quarterly Courts were held alternately in Lynn and Ipswich and they were occasions of general social activity.

William was the first son of John (Cogswell), born 1592 in Westbury Leigh, Wiltshire, Old England, and Elizabeth (Thompson) daughter of the Reverend William Thompson, Vicar of the Parish of All Saints in Westbury from 1603 to 1623. John and Elizabeth Cogswell came to this country with all but one of their nine children on the Angel Gabriel, which wa shipwrecked on Pemaquid Point, Maine, in the great storm of 15 Aug 1635. An excellent account of all this and more is given in E. O. Jameson's "The Cogswells in America', published in 1884.

A surprisingly large proportion of Hawkes descendants come also from Ipswich John Cogswell because not only did Susanna Hawkes marry William Cogswell in 1649, but two sons of John Hawkes, Moses and Ebenezer, married in 1697 and 1701, respectively, Margaret and Elizabeth Cogswell, sister and daughters of John Cogswell (grandson of John above), son of John Cogswell (son of John above).

Ipswich John Cogswell had a grant of two lots of land in Ipswich town in 1635 and in 1636 he received "The Cogswell Grant" of 300 acres in Chebacco Parish of Ipswich, five or six miles east of the town and the church. This grant comprised the whole point of land northeast of the present causeway between South Essex and Essex proper. He is known to have built a primitive home at first on the northwest corner of his land--nearest to the church in Ipswich to which they all walked ever Sunday, at times under armed guard.

William Cogswell and his sons and nephews built homes on the Grant, William's being on the site where his son Jonathan, around 1740-50 built a house which has now been restored and refurnished. A big old fireplace from Williams's 1690 house and some beams in the cellar remain. The road from Ipswich to Gloucester until 1698 crossed the Cogswell Grant and William was allowed to charge tuppence each for ferrying passenger across Chebacco River to Billy's Point. (By the way, Chebacco Parish of Ipswich became the town of Essex only in 1819).

William's grandson, William and his wife, Mary (Cogswell), his cousin (their fathers, John and Jonathan, were sons of William) built a house on the "new" (present) Ipswich to Gloucester Road, up the hill from the old Burying Ground. An etching of this house appears in "The Cogswells of America". The house fell into disrepair and in 1908 had to be demolished but some beautiful pine panelling was rescued and installed in "Cogswell Hall" in Beauport, East Gloucester, "The Most Fascinating House in America." Beauport has many beautifully decorated rooms various styles and periods, some even from the seventeenth century. It is well worth a visit some fine summer day. There is a beautiful book about Beauport by Paul Hollister with fine photographs, some in color, by Samuel Chamberlain. All those of Cogswell descent will be particularly interested in seeing it.