1635 where he received a home lot in town and 300 acres of farmland south of Felton Hill "in the place where his cattle are by Brooksby." The scarlet letter In 1631, Coles was fined five marks (about £3 then and US$850 in 2022) for drunkenness aboard the Friendship and at Winnissimet, now Chelsea. The Friendship was carrying two hogsheads (more than 120 gallons) of flavored mead called metheglin. Coles's fellow carousers—who were not pious Puritans—included Edward Gibbons, a former polytheist "who chose rather to Dance about a May pole...than to hear a good Sermon" and Samuel Maverick, a wealthy Anglican "very ready to entertain strangers." In 1632, Coles was again fined for drunkenness, this time in Charlestown. In addition to his fine of £1 he was required to appear before the General Court and the Court of Assistants to publicly confess. Coles was charged a third time for drunkenness in 1633, along with fellow settler John Shatswell, at Agawam. Shatswell was fined £2, but Coles was fined £10 (about US$2900 in 2022) for multiple offenses: drunkenness, encouraging Shatswell's wife to drink, and "intiseing her to incontinency and other misdemeanor." Coles was also sentenced "to stand with a whte sheete of pap on his back wherein a drunkard shalbe written in great letters, & stand therewith soe longe as the Court thinks meete...." He was charged a fourth time in 1634, this time in Roxbury, and the court responded with more severe penalties: he was forced to wear a red letter "D" (for drunkenness) for a year and was disenfranchised (deprived of voting rights). The court orders that Coles, for drunkenness by him committed at Roxbury shall be disfranchized, weare about his necke & soe to hange upon his outward garment a D made of redd clothe & sett upon white, to contynue this for a yeare & not to leave it off at any tyme when hee comes amongst company.... Coles was re-enfranchised just two months later and was never again charged with drunkenness. However, his wife, Mary, was accused of intemperance in the Roxbury church records, where it was noted that "after her husband's excommunication and falls, she did too much favor his ways...." The sanctions against Coles are referenced in historical fiction. His red-letter punishment is mentioned in Anya Seton's 1958 bestselling historical novel, The Winthrop Woman, about the governor's daughter-in-law, Elizabeth Fones. He appears as a