M. 7 Jun 1612 in Great Bowden, Leicestershire, England1
Husband: Ryse Cole
D. after 20 Dec 1661 in Charlestown, Massachusetts2
It’s rare to find personal letters written by Puritan men in 17th-century New England, and it’s even rarer to find them from females. But a woman named Arrold Dunnington wrote two letters which have survived at least into the mid-20th century.
Arrold (also spelled Harrald and many other variations) was from Great Bowden in Leicestershire, England. She was baptized there on September 21, 1587 before her parents Edward Dunnington and Margaret Cox,1 and she was one of their five known children, all girls. Great Bowden is said to be one of the oldest villages in the area, dating back to the Anglo-Saxons; perhaps this is what accounts for Arrold’s unusual first name. Her father died when she was a baby, and her mother remarried.1
On June 7, 1612, Arrold got married to Ryse Cole,1 and over the next dozen or so years, she had five children. Arrold and Ryse were followers of Puritanism, so much so that in 1630, when John Winthrop sailed with 700 people to found the colony of Massachusetts, the Coles were among the passengers.2,3 Although we don’t know which ship they were on, they were in a group who landed at the site of Charlestown.2 Most of the settlers moved across the river to establish the town of Boston, but Arrold’s family stayed put. Both were listed as members of the Boston church until being “dismissed” in the fall of 1632 so they could join the new congregation at Charlestown.
The Winthrop Fleet in Boston Harbor in 1630.
It wasn’t long after arriving at Charlestown that Ryse and Arrold made a decision to “send out” two of their children. This was a Puritan practice where parents gave up their children to the household of another so that they could learn skills and information that they wouldn’t receive at home.4 It has to be assumed that as their mother, Arrold supported the arrangement even if it were her husband’s idea. So youngsters Elizabeth and John were sent to live with Samuel Fuller of Plymouth, who was a doctor and former Mayflower passenger. It wasn’t until 1633 that they came home.2
After writing a will dated May 1646, Ryse passed away;2 his instructions were that Arrold would maintain their house and farm until she died, then he specified which of their children got what. For this reason, probate on the estate wasn’t done immediately. Arrold didn’t remarry, so in her widowhood, she managed the family’s holdings. By the mid-1650s, her youngest son James had moved back to England, and in about 1655, he got married. Back in Charlestown, Arrold took a pen and paper to send a congratulations to her son and new daughter-in-law, Ruth. In her letter, she wrote that her siblings and their spouses “remember their loves unto you and your wife, though unknown.”5 That last bit was a reference to the fact the family never met Ruth, who presumably had never been to America.
Then in 1661, Arrold wrote a second letter just to Ruth because it seemed that James had died and Ruth had remarried. Perhaps this was another congratulations for getting married; she referred to the young widow as “loving daughter Ruth Mood.”5 Did Arrold ever meet Ruth? This isn’t evident in the excerpts found in a book written by a researcher who saw the two letters. Unfortunately, the original letters aren’t readily accessible; we just know that they were in a file somewhere in the Middlesex County court records.
On December 20, 1661, Arrold wrote a will of her own.2 Her orders to each child or grandchild were quite specific: “my daughter [Elizabeth] is to have the bed on which I lie, and my grandchild John [Cole] an iron pot and his father is not to dispose of it from him [and] I give to my grandchild John Lowden a pair of sheets & to my grandchild Mary Lowden one box and one scarf & to my grandchild James Lowden a pint pot & more to my grandchild Mary Cole a brass kettle.” She also asked that her husband 1646 will be honored, and all of these things were done after she passed away within the week (the exact death date is unknown, but it was before December 26th). Arrold left many descendants, including Franklin Pierce, George W. Bush, Barbara Bush, Jeb Bush and James Spader.6
Children:
1. Robert Cole — B. about 1616, (probably) Great Bowden, Leicestershire, England;2 D. before 23 Nov 1655;2 M. Phillip ______2
2. Elizabeth Cole — B. about 1619, (probably) Great Bowden, Leicestershire, England;2 D. 5 Mar 1688, Woburn, Massachusetts;7 M. Thomas Peirce (~1608-1681), before 1639, Charlestown, Massachusetts2
3. Mary Cole — B. about 1621, (probably) Great Bowden, Leicestershire, England;2 D. 7 Oct 1683, Charlestown, Massachusetts;8 M. Richard Lowden (~1612-1700), about 1640, Charlestown, Massachusetts2
4. John Cole — B. about 1623, (probably) Great Bowden, Leicestershire, England;2 M. Ursula ______, before 28 Aug 16555
5. James Cole — B. about 1625, (probably) Great Bowden, Leicestershire, England;2 D. before 1661, (probably) England;2 M. Ruth _______, before 28 Aug 1655, England5
Sources:
1 “Colonists from Great Bowden, Leicestershire — Rice Cole of Charlestown, Massachusetts,” Leslie Mahler, The American Genealogist, Vol. 78, July 2003
2 Great Migration Begins: Immigrants to New England, 1620-1633, Vols. I-III, Robert Charles Anderson
3 John Winthrop (Wikipedia article)
4 Albion’s Seed, David Hackett Fischer, 1988
5 The New England Ancestry of Dana Converse Backus, Mary Elizabeth Neilson Backus, 1949
6 FamousKin.com listing for Rice Cole
7 Find-a-Grave listing for Elizabeth (Cole) Pierce
8 Find-a-Grave listing for Mary Lowden
