Samuel Cole (settler)

He was an innkeeper and confectioner, and in 1634 established the first house of entertainment in the colony, called Cole's Inn and referenced by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in his play John Endicott as the Three Mariners.

He opened the first tavern in the area on 4 March 1634 in what later became downtown Boston, but in 1645 relocated his business to the future Merchants Row between State Street and Faneuil Hall.

Cole's establishment was a center of social and political life in Boston, and Governor Henry Vane had brought the Narragansett Indian sachem Miantonomoh, with his retinue, for a meal there.

While during the early days of the colony Cole was considered well off, and contributed to various causes, by 1661 he was suffering financial losses and in June of that year was granted 300 acres of land for being a respected and useful member of the community.

Samuel Cole, born by about 1597, arrived in Boston in the Massachusetts Bay Colony with the Winthrop Fleet in 1630, being accompanied by his wife Ann, and likely all four of his known children.

[4][5] Boston magistrate John Winthrop wrote in his journal on the date of 4 March 1634 that "Samuel Cole set up the first house for common entertainment," this being the first tavern or inn in the colony.

Drake, wondering how the guests were seated since the natives were not accustomed to chairs, surmised that they all sat on the floor in a circle, with the pot of meat placed in the middle.

[12] As with most members of the Boston church, Cole became caught up in the events of the Antinomian Controversy in 1636 and 1637, and signed a petition on behalf of the Reverend John Wheelwright who was later banished from the colony.

On 20 November 1637 Cole was disarmed for this participation, and rather than give up his weapons, he, two days later, was the first to sign an acknowledgment that "it was ill done, and unwarrantably, as transgressing therein the rule of due honor to authority, and of modesty, and submission in private persons, and therefore I desire my name may be put out of it.

[15] Cole is featured during a scene in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's play entitled John Endicott, about the Bay colony's sometimes fiery governor.