USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Chelsea > Documentary history of Chelsea : including the Boston precincts of Winnisimmet, Rumney Marsh, and Pullen Point, 1624-1824, vol 1 > Part 5
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5 [See the appendix to this chapter.]
" He may have come by way of Piscataqua. Under Sagadahock, Pop- ham's settlement of 1607, he says: "I found Rootes and Garden hearbs and some old walles there, when I went first over which shewed it to be the place where they had been." Briefe Discription of New Eng., cited above, 232. He knew David Thompson of Piscataqua before the latter settled his island in Boston Bay; for in 1625, Thompson assisted him in building his house at Winnisimmet. Antipas Maverick once lived at Kit- tery, near Piscataqua, as did Mary Hooke, Maverick's daughter. Sumner, East Boston, 168. "There were very friendly relations between Vane and Samuel Maverick, an Episcopalian, a sympathizer with the Gorgeses, an owner of land at Agamenticus . . . Maverick's son married a daughter of John Wheelwright. Anthony Checkley, Maverick's friend, married an- other. Edward Lyde, one of the first wardens of the Episcopal church in Boston, married a third daughter. Edward Rishworth, son of one of the principal opponents of the Colony, married a fourth." Pub. of the Col. Soc. of Mass., i. 284. [See the appendix to this chapter.]
1 Briefe Discription of New Eng., cited above, 246.
8 Their eldest son was of age not later than 1650, and their marriage probably not later than 1628. See Sumner, East Boston, 107, 161; for a fuller account of the Maverick family, ibid., pp. 161-177. Mary, daughter of Samuel Maverick, married first John Palsgrave, February 8, 1655/6; and second, Francis Hooke, September 20, 1660. Samuel, son of Samucl Maverick, married Rebecca, daughter of the Rev. Jolin Wheelwright, in 1660, and died in Boston, March 10, 1663/4. See N. E. Gen. Reg., xii. 155; xvi. 333.
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THE PLANTERS AT WINNISIMMET
CHAP. II]
Samuel Maverick's absence in Virginia; ? and, as already said, an Antipas Maverick at Kittery, Maine, where lived Mary Hooke, Samuel Maverick's daughter.1º Elias, Moses, and Antipas may have been brothers or relatives of Samuel Maverick.
Among the earliest grants by the Great Council for New England was that to Robert Gorges, youngest son of Sir Fer- dinando, December 30, 1622, described as "all that Part of the Main Land in New-England . .. situate, lying and being upon the North-East side of the Bay, called or knowne by the Name of Massachuset, . . . together with all the Shoars and Coasts along the Sea, for ten English Miles, in a streight Line towards the North-East, accounting one thou- sand, seven hundred and sixty yards to the Mile, and thirty English Miles (after the same rate) unto the Main Land through all the Breadth aforesaid, together with all the Islets and Islands, lying within three Miles of any Part of the said Lands. . 11 "י . These bounds, from the Charles on the south ten miles north towards Salem and thirty miles into the country, included Charlestown (and the modern towns set off from her), Chelsea, Revere, Winthrop, and East Bos- ton, but not necessarily Boston.
A government was formed for this territory, and in 1623 Robert Gorges came over as lieutenant-general and governor, with a suite of officers, to set up his court. But Winnisimmet, the most eligible place within his grant, was not its chosen seat. On the other side of the bay, at Wessagusset, now Weymouth, Thomas Weston's deserted plantation, outside the limits of his grant, Gorges made his settlement, September, 1623. It did not prosper, and the next year Gorges, disap- pointed and in failing health, returned to England with a part of his company, leaving his affairs with an agent.
It has been said that some of those whom Gorges left
" Sumner, East Boston, 80. [See also infra, chap. iii., Appendix 1.] 10 Ibid., 108.
11 Ebenezer Hazard, Hist. Coll., i. 153. The southerly bound of Robert Gorges' patent presents this difficulty that it does not include Weymouth, the seat of his plantation, nor, necessarily, Boston, which Thomas C. Amory assumes to have been within his patent, and by him conveyed to William Blaxton. Collections of the Bostonian Society, i. 6, 12.
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at Wessagusset made settlements in the bay, as Blackstone's at Boston, Walford's at Charlestown, and Samuel Maverick's at Winnisimmet. Frothingham 12 thinks it not improbable that the planters at Winnisimmet, of whom Hutchinson speaks, were of the Gorges' colony; and Lewis 13 writes that Gorges, who " came over in 1623, took possession of his lands, and probably commenced a settlement at Winnisimnet, which was also included in his grant." Thornton also says that " Gorges had attempted to establish a colony within the bounds of his patent, which he had taken possession of in person, but was not successful." 14 These statements, though not improbable, rest on no disclosed authority.
Robert Gorges' lands, it is said, descended to his brother John, who, in January, 1628/9, conveyed to Sir William Brereton " all the land in breadth lying from the east side of Charles river to the casterly part of the cape called Nahant, and all the lands lying in length twenty miles [Gorges' grant ran ten miles to the northeast and thirty miles inland] north- east into the main land, from the mouth of the said Charles river, lying also in length twenty miles into the main land from the said Cape Nahant. Also two islands lying next unto the shore between Nahant and Charles river, the bigger called ' Brereton,' and the lesser 'Susanna ' " 15 - later known as Noddle's Island and Hog Island. John Gorges, probably in 1628, leased a portion of this territory to John Oldham (murdered by the Connecticut Pequots in 1636) and John Dorrell. But the title of John Gorges was disregarded in the Massachusetts Bay Charter from the King of Marel 4, 1628/9.16
12 Hist. of Charlestown, 9.
13 Hist. of Lynn, 43.
14 Landing at Cape Ann, 64. [See infra, the appendix to this chapter.]
15 Lewis, Lynn, 43, 44.
16 Gorges' heirs and Sir William Brereton urged its recognition, but the Company pronounced it invalid February 10, 1629/30 (Mass. Col. Rec., i. 68). A document cited in Lewis' Lynn gives Gorges' title, the conveyance to Sir William Brereton, and its succession in his line. His grant and the Oldham lease conflict. Young, Chronicles of Mass., 169; Sumner, East Boston, 47 et seq .; Mass. Col. Rec., i. 389. Sir William is said to have sent over several families, who, with their servants, im- proved his purchase; but all evidence of this has disappeared. [The facts of the case secm as follows: Captain Robert Gorges, also David
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CHAP. II]
THE PLANTERS AT WINNISIMMET
Both the deed and lease of John Gorges included old Chelsea, and the Company recognized some equitable interest, if not a legal title, in the settlers near Gorges' tract. There is no known deed of Winnisimmet to Samuel Maverick and John Blackleach,17 . yet their possession of it was not dis- turbed and their deed to Richard Bellingham in 1635 was recognized as valid by Boston in 1640.18
Thompson, died before 1628. The Council of New England, regarding the grant to Captain Gorges as having lapsed, conveyed the territory to Sir Henry Rosewell and his associates, March 19, 1627/8. But Jolin Gorges, elder brother of Captain Robert Gorges, came forward as his heir, claimed the land, and deeded part of it in January, 1628/9, to Sir William Brereton, who was prepared to send over families to take possession. The Massachusetts Bay Company secured in the following March a Charter from the King, confirming their grant of March 19, 1627/8, and were then in a position to refuse to recognize this grant to Brereton, and did so February 10, 1629/30.]
17 John Blackleach, owner with Samuel Maverick of Winnisimmet, joined in the deed of it to Richard Bellingham in 1635; but it does not appear that he lived there. He was a merchant at Salem in 1634, free- man May 6, 1635, and, with his wife Elizabeth, was admitted to the church there. In 1636 he was a deputy to the General Court; in 1637, Salem gave him three hundred acres, and in 1638/9, as he had " not suffi- cient ground to mayntaine a plough, the towne for the furthering of his endeavours in plowing, and for his incouradgement therein," made an additional grant. March 12, 1637/8, "There is dewe from Mr Black- leach to the countrey, for wine bought & sould by him, four pounds, three shillings & 4d." (Mass. Col. Rec., i. 224.) May 29, 1644, " Mr Blackleach his petition about the Mores was consented to, to be comitted to the eldrs to enforme us of the mind of God herein, & then further to consider it." (Ibid., ii. 67.) The " Mores " were doubtless Moors; and what the General Court wished to learn the "mind of God " about was the African slave trade. [In 1649 he is described as of Boston, and his wife Elizabeth is stated to be "the daughter of Mr Robert Bacon mariner deceased, who sometime lived in Wapping & afterward near Crec Church in London." (Boston Rec. Com. Rep., xxxii. 223).] The record of Connecticut, in 1669, mentions his efforts to convert the Indians. He died at Wethers- field, August 23, 1683. For his will and other facts, see N. E. Gen. Reg., April, 1882, 190; and for letters from him, 4 Mass. Hist. Coll. vii. Index.
18 [ See appendix to this chapter. Even if Maverick could claim no title to the land from Gorges, he was entitled to consideration as an "Old Planter." When Endicott came to Salem, September 6, 1628, he found there, as elsewhere on the coast, Englishmen in possession of lands which they claimed by occupation. April 17, 1629, the Company in England instructed him to permit them to "enjoy not only those lands which formerly they have manured, but suchi a further proportion as by the advice and judgment of yourself, and the rest of the Council, shall be thought fit for them, or any of them." And in directing him to send
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HISTORY OF CHELSEA
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colonists to take possession of Massachusetts Bay, the Company added this "caution . .. that for such of our countrymen as you find there planted, so as they be willing to live under our government, you endeavour to give them all fitting and due accommodation as to any of ourselves; yea if you see cause for it, though it be with more than ordinary privi- leges in point of trade." Young, Chronicles of Mass., 145, 150. See ibid., 74-76 for the regulations of the Company as to the allotment of lands to its own people; also Mass. Col. Rec., i. 363, 399, 405.]
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APPENDIX
CHAP. II]
APPENDIX
[ALL that is known of Samuel Maverick leads to the inference that he had some connection with the Gorges settlement. A young man of about twenty-two, of ability and education, given the title of " Mr." in the early records and grants, and possessed in 1630, at least, of some property, Samuel Maverick seems to have be- longed to the Gorges group. About the time Rev. Mr. Morell returned to England, and Blackstone removed to Boston, he for- tified a house at " Winnisime," which lay within the limits of the grant to Captain Robert Gorges, and, according to Johnson's Wonder Working Providence,1 he was assisted in so doing by David Thompson, who had been chosen by the Council for New England as their agent or attorney to take possession of the land in the name of the Council and deliver possession to Cap- tain Robert Gorges.2 Possibly Captain Gorges, who came over in September, 1623, and spent the first winter at Weston's de- serted plantation, outside his grant, finding there some huts already standing, on his return to England, in 1624, left dircc- tions with David Thompson, as his agent, to confirm the posses- sion of the land by effecting a settlement within his grant, and that Winnisimmet was chosen for the purpose as good farming land with a southern aspect; it was also easily defensible, being . surrounded by river, sea, and marshes, and possessing a valuable spring of fresh water not far from the shore on the southern slope of the hill. Also it " overlooked the anchorage ground of the inner harbor," and the outlet of the Mystic River, - as Blackstone's house did the outlet of the Charles, - and thus might prove a coign of vantage from which to control the trade of the bay.
That David Thompson dwelt with his family on Thompson's Island cannot be positively asserted. According to the Court record, the son claimed, in 1648, that his father, in 1626, “ did
1 Edition of W. F. Poole, 37.
2 E. Hazard, Hist. Coll. (ed. of 1792), i. 154; Gorges' Description (Prince Soc. ed.), chap. xxiii.
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HISTORY OF CHELSEA
[CHAP. IL
erect the forme of a habitat" there; if so, it was unsubstantial and, apparently, had disappeared before the coming of Winthrop in 1630. It was forgotten by William Blackstone in 1650, though he remembered the island well, mentioning that it alone of the islands in the bay possessed a natural harbor, and that the settlers about the bay kept their hogs there, - doubtless during the planting season. Thompson possessed, according to Maverick, " a Strong and Large House " enclosed "with a large and high Palizado and mounted Gunns " at the mouth of the Piscataqua.3 A statement made by Hubbard is of interest in this connection, for Samuel Maverick, who married Thompson's widow, did obtain in Noddle's Island (East Boston) and the Chelsea peninsula 4 land which tallies with that which Hubbard mentions, and as- suming that Thompson, accompanied by Maverick, came to the Bay under the directions of Captain Robert Gorges or the Council for New England, the statement is in accord with all existing knowledge of the matter and would tend to place Thompson with Maverick at Winnisimmet. As Hubbard (H.C. 1642) had sources of information not open to investigators of the present day, his statements are worthy of careful consideration though he was not a "critical historian " of the modern type. He wrote that David Thompson removed to Massachusetts Bay a ycar (?) after his settlement at Piscataqua. "There he possessed himself of a fruitful island, and a very desirable neck of land, since con- firmed to him or his heirs by the Court of the Massachusetts, upon the surrender of all his other interest in New England, to which yet he could pretend no other title, than a promise, or a gift to be conferred on him, in a letter by Sir Ferdinando Gorges, or some other member of the Council of Plymouth."5 Probably if Captain Robert Gorges or the Council for New England wished to induce David Thompson to leave his house at Piscataqua and six thousand acres of land with the "power of Government " therein, it would have been necessary to offer some greater induce- ments than Thompson's Island. As a trading station it was doubt- less valuable, but as a place of residence during the many months of a New England winter, unattractive. The discovery recently made that Samuel Maverick married Thompson's widow and lience, on the arrival of the Massachusetts Bay colonists in 1630, controlled his claims, affords a clue to the explanation of what
8 2 Proc. Mass. Hist. Soc., i. 234.
4 See Wood's Map of Massachusetts, 1633, for the peninsula form of Winnisimmet, in Young, Chronicles of Mass., 389.
5 Hubbard, Hist. of New Eng., 105.
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APPENDIX
CHAP. II]
has previously seemed mysterious, - his extraordinarily large pos- sessions and influential position. Noddlc's Island alone contained twenty times as many acres as werc allotted to Blackstone. Thomas Walford, at Charlestown, does not seem to have been treated with consideration.
In connection with Hubbard's statement, with its suggestion as to the liberality of Massachusetts, it is of interest to note that Noddle's Island was granted to Maverick at the time when Sir Christopher Gardiner was intriguing against the Massachusetts Bay Company in England. Sir Christopher appeared in Bristol August 15, 1632, and immediately began to make trouble for the colonists, as appears in letters from Thomas Wiggin to " Master Downinge " and Sir John Cooke, dated August 31 and Novem- ber 19.6 Sir Ferdinando Gorges and Captain Mason took the opportunity presented by these complaints, and those of Thomas Morton and Philip Ratcliffe, to petition the King against the Massachusetts Bay Government. The matter was considered by the Privy Council January 19, 1632/3, when the authority of the Government at Boston was confirmed. The result of the case before the Council was known in Massachusetts in May, 1633. In the meantime the Governor and Assistants, who met April 3, had granted to Maverick Noddle's Island, and to Blackstone fifty acres of land in Boston; and in July "the governour and as- sistants sent an answer to the petition of Sir Christopher Gardi- ner, and withal a certificate from the old planters concerning the carriage of affairs, etc." The following year, in April, 1634, when grants of land were made by the General Court to the leading men of the colony, John Oldham received five hundred acres. The grant to Maverick in April, 1633, was a perpetual lease at a nominal rent. The General Court, at the July session of 1631, had given the Governor and Assistants power to lease the islands in the bay; hence, apparently, the form of the grant."
Almost the whole of modern Chelsea, about one thousand acres, traces its title back to three men, - Samuel Maverick, Elias Maverick, and John Blackleach. There was a difference of but two years in the ages of Samuel and Elias Maverick, and Elias was in Massachusetts as early as the summer of 1630, the time of
6 3 Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., viii. 320-324.
" Bradford, Hist. of Plymouth Plantation, ed. of Charles Deane, pp. 296-298; Savage, Winthrop, i. 100, 102, 103, 106. In the latter part of February, 1632/3, in Winthrop's diary, is a record which seems to show that he heard then of the failure of an attack upon Massachusetts by Gardiner; but see the entry in May. (See Hutchinson, Hist. of Mass .; ed. 1795, i. 37.)
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[CHAP. II
the coming of Winthrop, and the keeping of written records. Yet he owned at Winnisimmet only one hundred acres. William Blackstone, a bachelor, received but fifty. According to the gen- eral regulations of the Company, a settler could claim fifty acres for each member of his household.8 The inost probable explana- tion for the exceptionally large holdings of Samuel Maverick in Chelsea and East Boston is that through his marriage with Mrs. Thompson there beeame united under his control the claims of a settlement which followed in the wake of Captain Robert Gorges' visit to New England. Winnisimmet was evidently pros- perous before it was sold by Samuel Maverick and John Black- leach in February, 1634/5. The vote of May, 1634, directing Winnisimmet to join itself either to Charlestown or to Boston mentions "howses " there. The first ferry across the harbor was kept by a resident there, - Thomas Williams alias Harris, who was recognized by the General Court as ferryman at the May session of 1631. The tax assessed on Winnisimmet in July, 1631, two years after the settlement of Charlestown and one year after the coming of Winthrop, was one-sixth that paid by Charlestown; in February, 1631/2, over one-seventh that of Charlestown and Medford combined; in October, 1633, two-thirds that of Medford and one-sixth that of Charlestown, Boston, or Roxbury. The first two levies were to meet the expenses in- eurred in fortifying Newtown; the last, the general expenses of the colony. Further evidence on this point is given by the "Winthrop Map," about 1633.ª There Winnisimmet, Wesaguseus (Weymouth), and Agawam (Ipswich) are represented by three houses ; Salem, Saugus, Charlestown, New town (Cambridge), Dorchester by four houses; Watertown by five houses; Boston by a fort, a windmill, and five houses; Roxbury by eight houses. Single houses are also represented, - Ten Hills, Mr. Cradoek's at Medford, and Mr. Humphrey's at Saugus. No house is pie- tured on Noddle's Island, which is there represented as a well wooded isle, - a reminder of the fact that during Maverick's ownership the inhabitants of Boston were permitted to cut wood ihere.
The grant of Agamentieus, in December, 1631, seems further evidence of a connection between Gorges and Maverick. At the instigation of Lieutenant-Colonel Walter Norton, and with the as- sistance of Sir Ferdinando Gorges, a grant of land was made
8 Records of the Company, under date of May 21, 1629. Mass. Col. Rec., i. 364, 399, 405.
º Justin Winsor, Nar. and Crit. Hist. of Amer., iii. 380.
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December 2, 1631, to " Ferdinando Gorges, sonn and heire of John Gorges of London " (elder brother and heir to the lands and claims of Captain Robert Gorges) ; to several men by the name of Norton in England; to Robert Rainsford, the younger, of London; and to eight men of New England, among whom was Samuel Maverick Esq.10 Wm Jeffryes gent and John Busley gent, both almost beyond a doubt members of Robert Gorges' Company, were among the eight New Englanders. Lieutenant- Colonel Walter Norton is found, as Mr. Walter Norton, among " Those who wish to be freemen," in October, 1630, and was admitted, the following May, as Captain Walter Norton; he settled at Agamenticus before 1634.11 Ralphe Glover Mercht, dwelling here in 1630, the owner of a shallop, and found with it in the company of Elias Maverick, also applicd for admission in October, 1630, but died before July, 1633, without having taken the freeman's oath.12 The other grantees in New England were Thomas Graves, engineer, Tho. Coppyn Esq and Joell Woolsey gent. Of the latter two nothing is known; their names were omitted at the confirmation of the grant, March 2, 1631/2. It is not improbable that a number of the old planters, in the main a remnant of the Gorges settlement, united to secure this grant, and that it was made in 1631 by the Council for New England to the heir of Captain Robert Gorges, and to them as a compensation for the injury to his and their interests caused by the grant to the Massachusetts Bay Company. John Gorges, it is known, had laid claim to the territory. He had ignored the grant to Sir Henry Rosewell and his associates of March 19, 1627/8, and signed a deed to Sir William Brereton in January, 1628/9, a deed de- clared by the Massachusetts Bay Company invalid, February 10, 1629/30. Although Maverick's name is in the list of those who wished to be freemen in October, 1630, he did not take the oath until October, 1632, after the grant of Agamenticus. Note also the visit of the bark Warwick, presumably the bark of that name fitted out by Gorges, to Winnisimmet, March 19 to April 9, 1632.13
In this connection, considering the question of a possible re- lationship between Samuel Maverick and Rev. John Maverick, it may be worthy of note that the latter with his followers chose for their settlement Dorchester, which lay incontestably beyond the
10 Proc. Amer. Antiq. Soc., April, 1867, 101.
11 Belknap, Hist. of N. H., Appendix vii .; Gorges' Description, chap. xxv.
12 Mass. Col. Rec., i. 78, 82, 106.
13 Savage, Winthrop, i. 71, 72; also 7, 39. VOL. I .- 2
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limits of the grant to Captain Robert Gorges. If the southern bound of his patent was a line due west from the end of Pullen Point, the Boston peninsula lay north of this, Dorchester did not. When Sir Ferdinando Gorges was intriguing against the Colony in England in 1634, the Dorchester people and the con- gregation of Rev. Thomas Hooker, which settled first at Mount Wollaston but was ordered by the General Court to remove to New town, began to agitate a removal to Connecticut. The Endi- cott and Winthrop colonists were anxious to establish settlements within the grant to Captain Gorges, in order to hold the territory against him.
Possibly, Maverick came to America with Captain Christopher Levett, who arrived at David Thompson's house at Piscataqua in the winter or early spring of 1623/4. Captain Levett found there Captain Robert Gorges, - who had arrived twenty days before in a little ship of Weston's that he had seized at Plymouth, - and learned that he had been appointed a member of Captain Gorges' Council. Levett staid at David Thompson's a month, complain- ing that the snow interfered with his surveys, and then, in two open boats, coasted with his men along the Maine shore in snow and fog as far as Sagadahock, seeking a place to establish a settle- ment. If Maverick was of this party, it would explain his entry under the heading Sagadahock quoted above.14 Levett, it is to be observed, bestowed especial praise upon Agamenticus, of which place Maverick was one of the grantees. Captain Levett left some of his men in New England, intending to return, but was unable to do so. Compare with Maverick's Briefe Discription, Captain Levett's A Voyage into New England.15
J. P. Baxter, in his volume on Christopher Levett, printed by the Gorges Society,16 states, on the authority of Frank W. Hackett, that Maverick married the widow of David Thompson, and that her father was William Cole of Plymouth, England. The fol- lowing facts confirm this statement. Among the notarial records of William Aspinwall are copies of an indenture, dated April 1, 1615, between " Wm Cole of Plymouth in the County of Devon Shipwright " and "David Thompson of Plymouth aforesaid Apothecary & Ems his now wife " and " daughter of the said WVm "; also of a receipt, dated January 3, 1625/6, for money paid
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