Massachusetts Bay Company and Samuel Coley

As I work on figuring out a time line of  where my ancestor, Samuel Cooley lived I found that I know almost nothing about the northern part of our country when it comes to research.  So I start this blog post with some information about the early years in the northern part of our shores.  The book that I am looking at via Ancestry:  Families of Early Milford Connecticut says Samuel Coley was of the Mass Bay Colony in 1631, and in 1639 a free planter in Milford.  So perhaps one of the things that I want to do while I am at NEGHS is find out about his stay in the Mass Bay Colony.

The Massachusetts Bay Colony (more formally The Colony of Massachusetts Bay, 1628–1691) was an English settlement on the east coast of America in the 17th century around the Massachusetts Bay, the northernmost of the several colonies later reorganized as the Province of Massachusetts Bay. The lands of the settlement were located in southern New England, with initial settlements situated on two natural harbors and surrounding land about 15.4 miles (24.8 km) apart—the areas around Salemand Boston.

Ann's will names the children of this couple that I have not included at this point.  What is of interest to me is the term free planter.

In the Massachusetts Bay Colony, a man had to be a member of the Church to be a freeman; 

A "free planter" (as opposed to a "freeman") was any land holder who possessed land outright that was usually given to him by the colony after he had finished his probationary period,

Initially, a male was not formally considered free when first entering into a colony, or just recently having become a member of one of the local churches; he was considered common. Such persons were never forced to work for another individual, per se, but their movements were carefully observed, and if they veered from the Puritan ideal, they were asked to leave the colony. There was an unstated probationary period, usually one to two years, that the prospective "freeman" needed to go through, and he was allowed his freedom if he did pass this probationary period of time. A Freeman was said to be free of all debt, owing nothing to anyone except God Himself.