Esther Cottle

he eldest son of Edward Cottle of Salisbury, named for his father, was born in that town Sept. 28, 1666, and followed his father in his various wanderings until he came to the Vineyard. He bought land in this town on the west side of the Lagoon, in 1695, of Ponit the Sachem of Homes Hole, and thereafter added to this until he owned a considerable tract adjoining the Presbury and West lands.[Dukes Deeds, II, 65. His house was in the Edgartown limits.] There he lived with his half-breed wife, Esther Daggett (22) of the 'Bow and Arrow' family, daughter of Joseph and Alice (Sissetom) Daggett. He had wedded her between 1690 and 1698, and one child was born to them, a daughter named Esther, about 1700, who married first a Harding (after 1718), and second (about 1725) Manasseh Kempton. This half-breed wife died before 1702 certainly, and probably sometime earlier.[Descent from the'Vineyard Pocahontas' may be traced through the Hardings.] He remained a widower until about 1701, when he took as a second wife Abigail, daughter of Joseph and Sarah (Holley) Allen of Dartmouth, Mass.[For proof of this see Bristol Deeds, XIII, 41 and Sup. Jud. Court Mss. No. 29518. Nathaniel Pease testified that he was present at the wedding.] By this union another daughter was born, June 6, 1702, and she was called Abigail. This girl married three times, (I) John Presbury, (2) Benjamin Luce, and (3) Samuel Lambert. Besides these matrimonial ventures his career was an uneventful one. He appears in court but once as a plaintiff (1736) and in 1733 he was a juror, and this constitutes his sole record. [He was an illiterate man evidently, as all documents bearing his name as grantor or deponent are signed with 'his mark.'] He made his will Nov. 2, 1748, 'being grown old & stricken in years,' and it was probated Nov. 2, 1751, the proximate time of his decease, when he was about eighty-five years old. [Dukes Probate, III, 274.] He bequeaths all his property to his daughter Abigail and her second husband. His wife, who was born April 1, 1663, had predeceased him Dec. 25, 1733, aged seventy years. [Holmes' Diary.]