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The Cobbs are another of my very early immigrant lines, in this case Henry Cobb arriving at Plymouth, Massachusetts in 1632, a mere twelve years after the Mayflower Pilgrims.  In fact, in a nice little historical coincidence, we may speculate that Henry met and may have dealt at length with some or all of my Mayflower ancestors, Edward Doty, John Howland, and Elizabeth (Tilley) Howland, all of whom probably lived in Plymouth for many years beyond Henry's arrival.  (Elizabeth's parents both died that first winter in Plymouth.)  This possibility tickles the imagination even more because Henry's 4x great grandson Joshua Whitney Cobb eventually married Edward Doty's 3x great granddaughter Susannah Doty, the two of them being my 3x great grandparents.

Here are members of the Cobb line:  Henry Cobb (1605-1679), James Cobb (1634-1695), James Cobb II (1673-1757), Judah Cobb (b. 1712), Elijah William Cobb, Sr. (1734-1809), Elijah William Cobb, Jr. (1765-1816), Joshua Whitney Cobb (1786-1851), and Sarah Jane Cobb (1831-1905), who married Job Durfee Sickels, the two of them being Hannah Amanda (Sickels) Bates's parents.

Our first Cobb on American soil, Henry Cobb, is sometimes called "Henry of Barnstable" or simply "Elder Henry Cobb."  He was located in Barnstable by 1639.  Accounts differ as to his origin within the British Isles, or even whether his parentage is known.  I had originally entered his parents as Henry Cobb (1561-1617) and Pleasance Reddwood (1561-1610), but a source authoritatively states, "A claim widely circulating on the Internet and elsewhere has Henry Cobb and Pleasance Redwood as the parents of Henry of Barnstable. This Henry is known to be related to the Virginia Cobbs. Despite the fact that this pedigree has been questioned for decades, and soundly disproved by the DNA evidence cited above, it continues to widely circulate."  See also this web page, which discusses the controversy at length, and then finally the homepage for the "Cobb Surname DNA Project."

Henry married Patience Hurst, who arrived in Plymouth the year before Henry.  Of interest is that Patience was grand niece to Joan Hurst, who married John Tilley in 1596 and was one of the original Mayflower Pilgrims and also my ancestor via her daughter Elizabeth, meaning that she preceded her grand niece Patience to Plymouth by eleven years.  Patience came to Plymouth with her parents, James and Catherine, and one must wonder if somehow the fact that Joan had preceded them had inspired the James Hursts' later arrival.  (Since I'm descended from Joan Hurst through the Keys line, and from Patience Hurst through the Cobb-Sickels-Bates line, that means that my mother, Emily (Bates) Haynes, was the twelve-generations-later recombining of the ancestral lines that began with William Hurst (1530-69) in England.  It was not the first recombining, which actually occurred with the children of James Cobb II and Elizabeth Hallett, who married in 1695, but Emily's joining of the two lines is so much less likely, nearly four centuries later.)

Henry's name is among "The names of the Freemen of the Incorporation of Plymoth in New England, An: 1633."

Following arrival in Plymouth, Henry moved first to Scituate, Massachusetts, in 1633, and then to Barnstable in 1639.  He followed a prominent preacher of his times, Rev. Joseph Lothrop, and an account reads:

Henry was a follower of Rev. John Lothrop, who split from the Church of England to become part of an independent movement. Lothrop and 24 of his followers were jailed in London for refusing to take the oath of fidelity to the Church of England. They believed the word of God flows not through the king but through the Bible. Sturgis Library in Barnstable owns Lothrop’s 1605 Bible.

Lothrop’s followers stayed together in Scituate and then split and only some followed Lothrop to Barnstable. Henry continued to follow Lothrop and was one of the first settlers of Barnstable, where he became an Elder in the church and an important person in the community.

We learn that while in Scituate "Decemb. 15, 1635, our Brother Cobb was invested into the Office of a Deacon."

The following additional fact snippets are found here (including reference links, which I have omitted):

• On 2 Jan 1632/3 and on 2 Jan 1633/4 the General Court asked the colonists to pay taxes, in grain or the equivalent.  Henry was assessed relatively low taxes in both years.
   

• Henry was assigned a houselot on Kent Street in Scituate in 1633. He had one of the first houses in Scituate, before Sep 1634; it was small and plain.
   

• Goodman Cobb and his wife were among the original members of the first church in Scituate, joining on 8 Jan 1634.  Henry was appointed a deacon on 15 Dec 1635.
   

• Henry is on a 1640 list of inhabitants of Barnstable.  He is in the Barnstable section of the 1643 list of those between 16 and 60 able to bear arms in Plymouth Colony.

From The History of Scituate, Massachusetts:  From Its First Settlement to 1831, by Samuel Deane (1831):
 

The book includes an extended discussion of John Lothrop's church, which includes mentions of Henry Cobb:
And, finally, a paragraph devoted to Henry alone:

And this:  After moving to Barnstable, in 1670 he was ordained the church's ruling elder.

Here is a map of the three towns along the Massachusetts Atlantic coastline south of Boston where Henry lived, first in Plymouth, then north to Scituate, and finally south to Barnstable, where four generations of my line of Cobbs lived all or part of their lives:

Extracts from his Will, dated 4 April 1678 and proved 3 June 1679:

"Henry Cobb" of Barnstable, though "weak in body," bequeathed to "my son James Cobb" my great lot in Barnstable; to "my sons John, James, Gershom and Eliezer" half my lands at Suconeesett equally divided between them "and 40s. being in the hand of my sone James for my son Eliezer's part"; to A"Sarah my dear and loving wife during her natural life" my new dwelling house and all the rest of my lands; at Sarah's decease, to "my son Samuel" my dwelling house and two acres of upland, and an acre and a half of my marsh which I bought with his stock in partnership with my son James; to "my sons John, Gershom and Eliezer" one shilling each; to my "daughters Mary, Hannah and Patience" one shilling each; to "my daughter Sarah" my second best bed and furniture; residue to Sarah "my loving wife and sole executrix." Codicil dated 22 February 1678/9: "my son Samuel, Jonathan and Henry", Henry to have my house after my wife's decease and his part of the land to lie most convenient to the house, only my lands at the Island equally divided between my three sons, A "my son James to dry thatch on half an acre of the Island when the English corn is taken off..."

The inventory of the estate of "Elder Henery Cobb Late of Barnstable" was undated and untotalled and included "a house land and meadow" valued at £80. He also owned part of a "thachboate".

Henry's and Patience's monuments in Barnstable, Massachusetts' Lothrop Hill Cemetery:
 

The most recent scholarship regarding Henry and his descendants is Susan Roser's Henry Cobb in the "Friends of the Pilgrims Series."  I have not read it.

James Cobb was Henry's second child and second son.  By comparison to his father, there's very little on the Web to be found.  One source says without further citation:

Sergeant James Cobb, the second son and child of Henry and Patience, was born in Plymouth, Mass. on Jan. 14, 1634. Like his father before him, he was active in community affairs. His name appears on court records, as he appears to have been a member [member of what?  a freeman?]. Unlike his father, he was as a young man part of the active defense force of the town [from which came the title "Sergeant"?]. He inherited his father's farm land, cultivated it and raised eleven children on it. He was married to Sarah Lewis, the girl next door. She was the daughter of George and Sarah (Jenkins) Lewis, immigrants from England. James died in 1695 and Sarah remarried on Nov. 23, 1698 to Capt. Jonathan Sparrow. When Capt. Sparrow died, Sarah returned to the Cobb farm and remained with the family of her son, James Jr., till her death in 1734 at age 93.

About James Cobb II, James Sr.'s fifth child (but first son), we know nothing other than the name of his wife (Elizabeth Hallett) and his ten children.  He lived in Barnstable his entire life, and there is no record of military service.  His third son was my ancestor, Judah Cobb, born in 1712.  Judah had a relatively brief life, only thirty-one years, had four children, of whom my 5th great grandfather Elijah William Cobb, Sr. was first.

Elijah is recorded in the 1790 census as having five members in his household in addition to himself:  one male under 16, two males 16 or over, and three females.  His son, Elijah William Cobb, Jr. was about twenty-five at the time and about four years married; Elijah Sr. had only two sons, and both would have been over 16 at the time of the census, which suggests Jr. was living at home while married.  Elijah Jr. married Sally Whitney, who links into another prolific and important New England colonial family -- Sally's 3x great grandfather was John Whitney, who arrived in Massachusetts in 1635.  (I am thus related to Eli Whitney, inventor of the cotton gin, and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City is named for the family.)

Elijah and Sally's first child was Joshua Whitney Cobb, who married Susannah Doty, whose 3x great grandfather was the Mayflower Pilgrim.  Elijah and Sally were also parents of Lyman Cobb, famed for authoring a number of early 19th century secondary school spellers and readers:

Joshua and Susannah's youngest girl was Sarah Jane Cobb.  Sarah Jane's younger brother, and Joshua's youngest son, was John Teachout Job, who died in the Civil War.  (See his letter below.)  Sarah Jane, of course, married Job Durfee Sickels, the two of them parents to Hannah Amanda (Sickels) Bates, my great grandmother.

Two historical items of slight family value but reflecting the times in early Elsie, Michigan:

• A news clipping of a Cobb family reunion on 9-16-1873.
   

• A news report of the family gathering for the 60th birthday of Susan (Hicks) Cobb, in Elsie, on 11-28-1891.

And a number of letters:

• Sarah Jane (Cobb) Sickels writing regarding her mother's (Susannah (Doty) Cobb's) experiences during the War of 1812.
   

• Henry Parsons Cobb writing family from Northville, Michigan, on 3-10-1839, describing his efforts at obtaining schooling (he was 19 at the time), his circumstances, and work he was able to find.  The letter is found in 19th Century Sickels-Cobb Letters.
   

• Henry Parsons Cobb writing family from Louisiana on 12-2-1842, describing his circumstances and his travels.  The letter is also found in 19th Century Sickels-Cobb Letters.
   

• Sarah Jane (Cobb) Sickels, writing from Elsie, between 1849 and 1870, with brief comments about their farming.
   

• From Joshua and Susannah we have a letter to at least some of their children, written in Duplain (Clinton County, Michigan), on January 23, 1847, describing their circumstances, some illnesses, and concerns over not hearing from son Henry Parsons Cobb.
   

• Sarah Jane (Cobb) Sickels writing her siblings from Elsie, Michigan, with brief description of their lives there and family notes.  The letter is also found in 19th Century Sickels-Cobb Letters.
   

• From Lyman Cobb in Elsie to siblings in Youngstown, NY, on February 20, probably around the year 1860, briefly, with general health news.
   

• From Civil War Union soldier John Teachout Cobb to his siblings, from Louisville, KY, on 10-10-1862, only two months before he died of dysentery, with comments about his patriotism and wartime conditions.
   

• Sarah Jane (Cobb) Sickels, ca. 1862, with observations upon the arrival of John's body.

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