Captain John Coolidge and Family

In 1758, John Coolidge (1714 - 1795) of English heritage, received a commission to serve as Captain of the Natick Company in the Middlesex County Militia. Coolidge assumed the role at the age of 44 in the midst of the Seven Years, or French and Indian War. The Commission is signed by Thomas Pownall, Royal Governor of “His Majesty’s Province of the Massachusetts Bay in New England.” Additional notations in the margin attest that Coolidge had taken an oath of loyalty to Great Britain.  The original commission is in the collections of the Natick Historical Society.

By 1776, Captain John Coolidge had renounced his loyalty to Great Britain and served on the committee that drafted Natick’s Resolve for Independence.

Coolidge’s sons, Isaac and Thomas Coolidge, responded to the alarm of April 19, 1775.  His son, John, enlisted later in April 1775 and also served, with his brother, Samuel, in Rhode Island in 1780.

The Coolidge family home is marked on the 1750 Livermore Map.