A Brief Sketch of Cottrell Family History
|
Page 12
THE SEVENTH-DAY SABBATH
Among those who observed the Seventh-day Sabbath during the so-called "Dark Ages" were the Albigenses, or at least a portion of them, (See "Seventh-Day Baptists in Europe and America." Vol. l, page 15.)
Whether "John Cottrell the Norman; who escaped from his homeland in southeastern France and found a refuge in England was a Sabbath keeper or not, is not known. However, when Nicholas Cottrell arrived from England to locate in Rhode Island, he was one of a company who purchased land in Westerly and vicinity. The records reveal that his descendants settled in Westerly and that this settlement became the principal center of the Seventh-Day Baptist Church in New England.
Along the intervening years several prominent members of the Cottrell family have become Seventh-Day Baptist preachers. Also, when Calvert B. Cottrell established the huge printing press manufacturing plant in Westerly which bore his name, it was never operated on Saturdays until more recent years, when the management passed into the hands of Sunday observers. From all of these records it is evident: that the branch of the Cottlrell family living in Westerly, Rhode Island, have been observers of the Seventh-day Sabbath for more than three centuries.
|