Robert Coe (1596 – bef. 1690) was an early English settler, public official, and a founder of five towns in Connecticut and New York: Wethersfield, Stamford, Hempstead, Elmhurst, and Jamaica. Coe took passage from England to the Americas in 1634 during the Puritan migration to New England. He is considered the founder of the Coe family in America and was the primary progenitor in New England of Coes. He has many notable descendants, including the 43rd President of the United States, George W. Bush, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, the screenwriter of Gone with the Wind, Sidney Howard, and the namesake of the largest state park in Northern California, Henry W. Coe State Park.

In England, Coe began his career as a public official with an election to the overseer of cloth. In the New Netherland settlements, he held appointed positions as a magistrate and a deputy of the General Court. Under the governance of the New England Colonies, he was appointed as commissioner of Jamaica, and the judge and high sheriff of Yorkshire, New York.

The Coe family, originally recorded as "le Queu" and then "Coo", were Normans considered gentry and acquired their wealth through the cloth trade. The name was derived from Old Norse "ka" meaning jackdaw, which is also the meaning of Coe in Old English. The English heraldry of the Coe family uses the martlet, a small black bird like the jackdaw. The birds on his supplementary seals had legs, unlike the mythical martlet, more closely resembling the jackdaw. The first Coe was probably known as "the Jackdaw".

In the 14th century, John Coo, the earliest known historical direct ancestor of Coe, served with John Hawkwood in the White Company. He was awarded the title of knight by Edward III of England for the Battle of San Gallo in 1364. He established the Hawkwood Chantries in Hedingham Castle in honor of Hawkwood. He is referred to as "Cocco" by Italian historians. Many of Coo's descendants resided at Hedingham, were educated at the Inner Temple, practiced law, held offices in England, and were extensive landowners. One Coo was listed as a justice of the peace in Essex, others became lords. Many were yeomen, gentlemen, and esquires. 17th century lord of the manor John Coo owned many lands, including at Hedingham.

Coe was born to Henry and Mary Coe (née Vincent) at Thorpe Morieux, Suffolk, England, and baptized there on October 26, 1596. He was described as a "fine example" of a Puritan and a "great force of character" by J. Gardner Bartlett, the American genealogist. His father, Henry, had been a yeoman, probably a clothmaker, and for several years was churchwarden. In Boxford, Suffolk in April 1625, Coe was elected as the overseer of cloth and in 1629 as the questman of the church. His first wife and mother of his four children died in Boxford in 1628. He remarried shortly after. His only daughter, a twin to his middle son, died before 1634.

Historical records refer to him as "The Founder of the Coe Family in America". He and his family left for America on April 10, 1634 in search of religious liberty from Ipswich aboard the Francis, commanded by John Cutting. Coe settled for a brief time in Watertown, a Boston suburb in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, with several other Puritan families from Boxford who arrived with John Winthrop. He was made a Freeman, but soon left the area due to overcrowding with permission of the General Court.

Coe was a founder of two towns in the Connecticut Colony. In June 1635, Coe joined Andrew Warde and a few others in starting a new plantation at Wethersfield, Connecticut (originally Pyquag), in the fertile Connecticut River Valley, where he lived for five years. A division within the church caused Coe, Warde, and eighteen others to form the Rippowam Company, with the intent of acquiring Rippowam lands from the New Haven Colony. The land had been previously purchased from the Siwanoy peoples. In 1640, Coe and Warde were designated by the general court as representatives in colonial government matters; they secured the land and founded a new plantation called Toquams, later renamed Stamford. Stamford was included in the creation of the United Colonies of New England. On April 5, 1643, Coe was appointed as Stamford's magistrate, the equivalent of a mayor. The following year, another dispute caused Coe and the town reverend, Richard Denton, to leave the British colonies in favor of the New Netherland settlements.

They crossed the Long Island Sound to what is now Long Island and founded Hempstead, where Coe was appointed the magistrate and the church elder. During his eight years leading Hempstead, he became an extensive landowner. In 1652, Coe and Edward Jessup became the majority landowners of a settlement west of Long Island in what is now Elmhurst. The town was originally called Middleburgh, then Hastings, and finally Newtown. Coe was made the town's magistrate and served for four years as a deputy of the general court, the same "representative" government style as in the British colonies. As the deputy, Coe traveled in 1653 to Boston and New Amsterdam to ask for protection against a threatened Native attack.