He served decades on the Virginia Governor's Council and briefly as the Colony's Secretary of State.
[1] Probably the son of Frances who emigrated from England aboard the Susan in 1616 and William Cole who immigrated two years later and represented Nutmugg Quarter (a predecessor of Warwick County in the House of Burgesses in 1629.
[4][1] Another man who was added to the Council in 1674 was Nathaniel Bacon, then known as Lady Berkeley's distant relative.
When Bacon's Rebellion started, Cole was one of the men who fled with Berkeley to Virginia's Eastern Shore.
[1] Boldrup plantation was no longer owned by descendants by the time of the American Revolutionary War, but an archeological excavation of the site was conducted in the 1980s when the area was developed within the city of Newport News, and the gravestones of this man, his final two wives and some family members were found.