USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > East Boston > History of East Boston; with biographical sketches of its early proprietors, and an appendix > Part 14
USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > East Boston > History of East Boston : with biographical sketches of its early proprietors, and an appendix. > Part 14
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1 Col. Hist. N. Y. Vol. III. p. 116.
* Hutchinson's Hist. Vol. I. p. 250.
152
HISTORY.
[1669.
sels that go to and from Virginia take good quantities. That vessel is to go from New found Land to get fishermen, lines, hooks, and other necessaries for fishing: I doubt not but this Coast will afford fish in abundance.
" On the East end of Long Island there were 12 or 13 whales taken before the end of March, and what since we hear not; here are daily some seen in the very harbor, sometimes within Nutt Island. Out of the Pinnace the other week they struck two, but lost both, the iron broke in one, the other broke the warp. The Governor hath encouraged some to follow this design. Two shallops made for it, but as yet we do not hear of any they have gotten.
" The Governour with some partners is building a ship of 120 tuns by Thomas Hall's house; she is well onward, and may be finished in August; another of 60 or 70 tuns is building at Gravesend. .
. . The Old House is pulling down which proves so exceedingly defective above what could be imagined, that I think it must down to the bottom, and will prove a tedious and chargeable piece of work."]
Again, on the 5th of July, 1669, he writes : -
" By Letters lately received from Boston I am informed how exceedingly they boast of the gracious letters they have received from His Majesty and of his kind acceptance of the Masts they sent him, as also of the provisions they sent to the Fleet at Barbados. I am sure you know that the masts and provision were paid for by a rate made and levied on all the inhabitants, of which eight parts in ten are His Majesty's loyal subjects, and would voluntarily have done twice as much had those which were sent for been gone for England. That loyal party, which groans under the burthen of the Massachusetts govern- ment, now despair of relief, as by frequent letters from all parts I am informed.
" Those in the Province of Mayne since they seized on their records and taken them again under their government, are in exceeding bondage, and most earnestly desire you to endeavor to purchase their freedom.
" How they have lately acted in the King's Province you
1 Colonial Hist. N. Y. Vol. III. p. 182.
153
MAVERICK TO NICHOLS.
1669.]
will see by a letter I lately received from Mr. Gorton which I send herein enclosed.
" It grieves me exceedingly to see His Majesty's loyal sub- jects and my ancient friends enslaved, as now they are; my whole aim was (in expending so much time and money) only to have procured for them some freedom; but now they are left in a far worse condition than we found them. I doubt not but they have by way of Boston, petitioned to His Majesty and craved your assistance, and I in their behalf humbly beg it of you."
In the same letter he further writes : " I hope in the midst of multiplicity of business you will not forget what I have desired you to do for me. I assure you since I came over in this employ I never received or got, directly or indirectly to the value of sixpence, one horse excepted, which Mr. Winthrop pre- sented me with amongst the rest. And what I had by his Majesty's order, I have spent as much since I came over, and four hundred pounds besides in England in prosecution of this design. I leave it to you, not doubting of your care for me. If any course be taken for reducement of the Massachusetts, I hope you will not leave me out, as one (though unworthy) that may be employed in that design."1 This last clause shows that Maverick longed for another opportunity to gratify his feelings of revenge by exercising authority over his former oppressors.
On the 15th of October (1669) following, he again writes to Nichols : " May it please you to take notice that yours of the 12th July I received, for which I humbly thank you, as also for the favor you have been pleased to show me in procuring for me from His Royal Highness the gift of the house in the Broadway. I beseech you when you see a fit opportunity pre- sent my most humble service to His Royal Highness with many thanks for that his favor towards me, and I assure you it will be a great rejoicing to me if (yet before I die) I may be any ways serviceable to His Majesty or His Royal Highness in these parts, or anywhere else.
" You were pleased to inform me that you have made some progress tending to the relief of our poor friends in N. England
1 Col. HIist. N. Y. Vol. III. p. 183.
154
HISTORY.
[1667.
but cannot yet bring it to issue so much desired by yourself and them. In their behalf I humbly beseech you to proceed in it, and am very sorry that Col. Cartwrite cannot be with you to assist in it. I have sent copies of some part of your letter to keep up what may be their drooping spirits for the present, the sad complaints which frequently come from them to me I shall not trouble you with repeating now. You know well in what bondage they live, and it grieves me to the heart to consider that they should be now in a far worse condition than we found them in." 1
This is the last we hear of Maverick ; and the preceding extracts from his letters show pretty clearly what were his feelings towards the government of Massachusetts. Morton says of him : " About that time [1667] it was thought, by such as were judicious, that through the instigation of the said Maverick (whose spirit was full of malignity against the coun- try), our both civil and religious liberties were much, endan- gered; and the rather for that, probably, there would have been a concurrence of divers ill-affected in the land, had not the Lord prevented."
Investigation has failed to ascertain when, or at what time, Maverick died; but in the absence of any positive information, the most natural supposition is, that, after the recall of the com- mission, he took up his residence in the city of New York in the house presented to him by the Duke of York for his fidelity to the king, and there died. This gift of a house, and the fact that his numerous letters, from which extracts have been taken, are dated in New York, render it altogether probable that he made that city his home. The location of the house cannot now be ascertained. Maverick, in the letter above quoted, speaks of it as situated " in the Broadway ;" a thorough investi- gation fails to fix the spot with any greater definiteness. Under the early laws of New York, deeds were not recorded in the county in which the land lay, and many deeds were left with the secretary of state at Albany. A careful examination of the existing records in that city has resulted in finding one
1 Col. Hist. N. Y. Vol. III. p. 185.
155
HOUSE IN THE BROADWAY.
1676.]
deed, which is valuable as proving the assertion, that a house was presented to Maverick; and it also shows that the gift was made through the chief executive of the State.
This deed 1 is dated on the 15th May, 1676, and is from John Laurence, of the city of New York, merchant, and Matthias Nicolls, of the same place, reciting that " Samuel Maverick, one of his Majesty's commissioners of New England, by virtue of a patent from Colonel Samuel Lovelace, then Governor, stood pos- sessed of a certain house and lott of ground on the Broadway of this city, which came to their (the grantors) hands by the trust reposed in them by the last will of Samuel Maverick, deceased, for the use of Mary his daughter, the wife of Francis Hook in the colony of the Massachusetts which house and lott by her approbation was exposed to public vendue and bought by the Deacons of this city, who sold it to William Vander Shusen of this city, to whom the trustees (Laurence and Nicholls) convey the said lot in the Broadway without any other description."
It seems surprising that writers and editors of our New Eng- land history should have fallen into the error of supposing that Samuel Maverick the son, who died in 1664, was the royal commissioner sent over that same year; and this notwithstand- ing Hutchinson had said, " Maverick seems to have been ap- pointed only to increase the number and to be subservient to the others. He had lived in the colony from its beginning. He was always in opposition to the authority. Upon the restora- tion, he went home to complain to the king, was two or three years in soliciting that commissioners might be appointed ; at length, the measures against the Dutch at New York being agreed upon, the conduct of that affair, and this extraordinary power were committed to the same persons. He was in the colony again in 1667, with a message from Colonel Nichols, which is the last account given of him." 2
Hutchinson certainly has underrated his importance, as the whole history of Maverick shows.
1 Book of Deeds (at Albany), Vol. I. p. 133.
Hutchinson's Hist. Mass. Vol. I. p. 250.
156
HISTORY.
[1667
With all due deference to that excellent historian, who is generally so accurate in his statements and sound in his conclu- sions, he appears to have wholly misapprehended Maverick's position on this commission, and to have singularly underrated his influence and importance. The history of the whole matter most conclusively shows, that among the commissioners Mave- rick was second to none save Nicolls ; it was by his persever- ing efforts that the commission was originally appointed, and on the very day he landed he commenced his correspondence, and from that time he was foremost in carrying out the plans of the government, travelling from place to place, even in ad- vance of some of his fellow-officers, writing numerous letters to Lord Chancellor Clarendon, Secretary Arlington, and his brother commissioners, all of them evincing the influence and energy he carried into his office, and, indeed, it is easy to see his spirit pervading many a public document and private letter. The documentary evidence contained in the State Papers of New York (Colonial Hist. Vol. III.), the Massachusetts Records, the Danforth Papers, and various histories of that time, from which copious extracts have been made, show that Maverick had his full share of power, and exercised it; and he certainly occupies much space in the published correspondence, and his letters compare well with the other state papers in the same volumes. Nicolls himself, although the head of the commission, sought the advice of Maverick; in a letter to Governor Win- throp he says: " Y'rs of the sixt of May 1667 in answer to a letter from Sir R. Carr, Mr. S. Mavericke and myselfe baring date the 20th of 9ber 1666 hath remained in my hands in hopes that I might have heard from Mr. Maverick whose advice I have sought in the matter but not yet attained."1 The uneasiness of the colony in regard to the commission, and the striking cir- cumstance, that, in their address to the king, Maverick should be singled out from the rest and spoken of as an " enemy," conclu- sively show that his position was by no means an unimportant one. It is most probable, that the colony had more real cause of anxiety from Maverick than from any of the other gentle-
1 Colonial Hist. N. Y. Vol. III. p. 158.
1664.]
MAVERICK AND THE COMMISSION. 157
men, and the recollection of the treatment he had received from their hands augmented their fears, and doubtless increased his animosity.
The year before his appointment as commissioner, on repre- sentations made by one Captain Scott to "His Majesty's Council for Foreign Plantations," of the practices of the Dutch, it was " ordered, that the said Capt. Scott, and Mr. Maverick, and Mr. Baxter do draw up a brief narration of and touching these particulars following : (viz) 1st of the title of his Majesty to the premises ; 2dly of the Dutch Intrusion ; 3dly of their deportment since and management of that possession, and of their strength trade and government there, and 4thly and lastly, of the means to make them acknowledge and submit to his Majesty's government, or by force to compel them thereunto or expulse them. And to bring in such their draught on paper to this Council, on this day seavenight, that this Council may humbly make report to his Majesty touching the whole matter as they shall see cause, and in the interim, the members thereof to be summoned."1 This shows what the council for planta- tions thought of Maverick's capacity; and that there is no probability of his having been appointed a commissioner the following year " only to increase the number and to be subser- vient to the others." No; he could have been no mere make- weight in the commission. The " Council for Foreign Planta- tions " would not have intrusted so important a matter as this concerning the Dutch, with instructions to report within one week to incapable persons. We have seen that he was the first cause of the commission appointed in 1664, that it was appointed in answer to his solicitations; and, so far from being subservient to the others, he was evidently foremost, on his arrival, in interfering with the doings of the colonial govern- ment. In truth, although nothing in particular is known of him before the coming of Winthrop and his company, he must have been a man of superior intellect and force, since, despite all opposition, he finally rose to so high a place of distinction and confidence under the crown.
1 Col. IIist. N. Y. Vol. III. p. 46 ; Brodhead's History of New York.
14
158
4
HISTORY.
[1647.
By the quotations before made from Hutchinson, it would seem to be indicated clearly enough that the elder Maverick was meant. But there has been a question as to the identity of the commissioner with the elder Samuel Maverick, the grantee of Noddle's Island.
By a note in the second edition of Winthrop's Journal, given on page 70, it would appear that the learned editor supposed Samuel, the royal commissioner, to be a son of Samuel of Noddle's Island. The petition of Mary Hooke, which has been given in full on page 107, and which had not been pub- lished at the time the note referred to was written, enables us to settle the question beyond dispute; to assert with certainty that Samuel Maverick of Noddle's Island was the royal commis- sioner. The circumstances which called out this petition were these. The notorious Edmund Andros (called humane (!) by the candid author of the Puritan Commonwealth, p. 357), who was appointed governor in 1686, declared that the colonists had forfeited their charter, and thus had forfeited their possessions under it, and that the landholders were tenants at will. His object was to grant new titles, for which he could receive such fees as he chose to demand. In sending out his famous writs of intrusion to swindle the landholders out of all he could wrest from them, he disturbed the owners of Noddle's Island. Upon this, Mary, wife of Francis Hooke, Esq., of Kittery, Maine, appealed to Governor Andros, stating that her father, Samuel Maverick, was owner of Noddle's Island in 1648, and that when a commissioner with Nichols, Carr, and Cartwright, he was inter- rupted with sound of trumpet, etc. It is an old proverb, “ It is a wise child that knows its own father ;" but Mary Hooke's tes- timony that her father, Samuel Maverick, owner of Noddle's Island, was also the royal commissioner, will not be ques- tioned; for she asserted what she personally knew, and she would have been " strangely confounded" if her statement had been doubted. In her petition she says : " That your Peticoners said Father the said Samuell Maverick was in the yeare of our Lord God in 1648 an inhabitant and Owner of a place called Noddles Island in New England, now in the possession of Corro- nell Shrimpton, at which tyme ye Prs sd father with some others drew up a Peticon wth an intent to Prsent it to the late Majty King
159
MAVERICK THE COMMISSIONER.
1664-5.]
Charles the first," etc .; and again, " yo" Peticon's Father being one of the Kings Comiss's sent wth Collon" Niccolls Gen" Sir Robt Carr & Collon" Cartwright," etc. This petition shows conclusively that the petitioner's father, Samuel Maverick, the original grantee of Noddle's Island, was the royal commis- sioner. But on this point the evidence is cumulative. The extract from the deed from Lawrence and Nicolls, given on page 155, also proves that Mary Hooke was the daughter of Maverick the commissioner, and that, under her father's will, she owned the house presented to him for his faithful services to the king. And still further, Samuel Maverick the son, who has so often been mistaken for the commissioner, died on the 10th March, 1664, and, therefore, during the years when the com- missioners were fulfilling their duties, was in no position to hold any earthly office, although he was the occupant of an earthly position. The date of his death has been mistaken as being the time of his father's decease; and thus, ex necessi- tate rei, the son was called the commissioner. That it was the son who died in 1664 is evident from various sources. For instance, in the Massachusetts Records (Vol. IV. Part 2, p. 145) is the appointment of "meete persons" to examine con- cerning " ye estate of the late Samuel Maverick Junior." This is under date of the 3d of May, 1665.1
1 The error of confounding father and son, of mistaking the death of the son for that of the father, and supposing that the commissioner was the son of the original grantee of Noddle's Island, is repeated in several historical works. Among the books which have come under my observation in which these mis- takes are made are Eliot's Biographical Dictionary, p. 317, note; Farmer's Register of First Settlers in New England, p. 192; Hutchinson's Hist. Mass. in a note by the Editor; Williamson's Hist. Maine, Vol. I. p. 491, note; (the note referred to says that Maverick the commissioner married the daughter of the Rev. John Wheelwright; but as Samuel the son married this lady, the mis- take of the historian is evident) ; Savage's Ed. Winthrop's Journal, Vol. I. p. 32, note; Washburn's Judicial Hist. Mass. p. 36 ; Folsom's Hist. of Saco and Bid- deford, p. 139 ; Greenough's Hist. King's Chapel, p. 10; Mass. Hist. Coll. Vol. IV. 3d Series, p. 194, note; Oliver's Puritan Commonwealth, p. 436 ; Dear- born's Boston Notions, p. 55; and, it is probable, in many other works which have not come under the writer's notice, and in nearly all of the above instances, the date of the death of the son is given as that of the father.
But the petition of Mary Hooke, and the death of Samuel Maverick, Jr., in 1664, settle the question beyond dispute.
160
HISTORY.
[1665.
As commissioner, Maverick appears to have been ready and in haste to exercise all the extra authority and power over the government and colonists of Massachusetts given in the instructions. Nor was this altogether unnatural. From the settlement of the colony to the time of his return to England, he had been often in conflict with its government, in part, at least, through persecution and the civil disabilities he was made to suffer. Deprived for a time of rights as a citizen, because of his religious opinions ; perhaps never enjoying office, though evidently capable, on the same account; and smarting under the memory of fines and imprisonment when living in the colony as a subject, it is not strange that he should have shown himself disposed to be somewhat arbitrary and tyrannical, when invested with such power, over the same government by which he had been so despoiled and oppressed. And yet he was by no means, in his nature, a hard and unfeeling man. As we have seen, Johnson, while he speaks of him as "an enemy to the reformation in hand, being strong for the lordly prelatical power," at the same time says, " he was a man of a very loving and courteous behavior, very ready to entertain strangers." Hubbard gives him credit for "much civility in his behavior" towards such as had " free converse with him." And Josselyn said, in 1638, that he was " the only hospitable man in all the country, giving entertainment to all comers gratis."
During the early years of his residence in the colony, upon Noddle's Island, he was distinguished for his hospitality, public spirit, and hearty cooperation in efforts for the welfare of the province; and if, in subsequent years, he manifested feelings different from these, they can only be considered as the natural result of the harsh treatment he had received. Like all men, he had his faults ; but they were so small in comparison with his traits of character as a man, citizen, and public officer, that, in spite of all opposition, he rose to stations of high impor- tance, enjoyed the confidence of his sovereign, and identified himself with the efforts to establish religious freedom in the colony.
CHAPTER VII.
THE MAVERICK FAMILY.
Bur little is known of the descendants of the Mavericks. With the destruction of the town records at the burning of Charlestown on the 17th of June, 1775, were lost the only means of making a full genealogical account.1 The most com- plete narrative which the writer has been able to make, from every accessible source, is as follows : -
Samuel Maverick had a wife named Amias when he made a conveyance of "the messuage called Winesemet," in 1634; he must have been married several years before, as his son Nathaniel, in 1650, joined with him in the sale of Noddle's Island. Their children were Nathaniel, Mary, and Samuel.
Mary, daughter of Samuel Maverick, married John Pals- grave, 8th February, 1655 (Gov. John Endicott officiating), and afterward, 20th September, 1660, Francis Hooke, a prominent citizen of Kittery, Maine. She is the Mary Hooke who pre- sented the petition given on page 107.
Samuel, son of Samuel Maverick, married Rebecca, daughter of the Rev. John Wheelwright, in 1660, and died at Boston, on the 10th March, 1664. Very many writers have erroneously given this date as that of his father's death, and thus were com- pelled to call the son the royal commissioner. The children of
1 From Judge N. B. Mountfort, of New York City, the author learns that his mother, who was a lineal descendant of the Mavericks, saw the spire of Christ Church in Boston lighted up as if on fire, and supposed such to be the case until it proved to be the reflection of the fire in Charlestown kindled by the British to cover their assault upon the redoubt; in that fire the records of the family were destroyed.
14*
162
HISTORY.
[1604-1681.
Samuel and Rebecca were Mary, born on the 2d October, 1661; Hannah, born 23d October, 1663. The widow of Samuel Maverick, Jr., married William Bradbury, on the 12th March, 1671-2.
It is noticeable that there were three Samuel Mavericks liv- ing at the same time; namely, Samuel, grantee of Noddle's Island and commissioner, Samuel his son, and Samuel the son of Moses of Marblehead.
The following information has been collected relative to others of the name : -
Elias Maverick, of whom something has already been said, was probably a brother of Samuel. He was born in 1604, came to this country at an early age, and was one of the first members of the church in Charlestown, being admitted on the 9th of February, 1632-3, and made a freeman in 1633. The records show that he was an active member, taking a promi- nent part in the various church proceedings. The date of his immigration is not known, but it is not improbable that he and Samuel, Moses and Antipas, came at, or near, the same time. Elias was a member of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company in 1654 ; and the last half of his life, if not the very first years of his residence in this country, he lived at Winni- simet.
His will, containing many names and dates, is full of valu- able matter to the antiquarian and genealogist, and hence may with propriety be given in full. It is as follows : -
" Elias Maverick senior of Winnasimmett within the Town- ship of Boston, aged, do make this my last will. I give unto my wife Anna all my Estate both in Land houses and mov- ables during her life, if she remain a widow, otherwise one third during life, prvided she freely consent to those terms I shall hereafter express.
" I give to my son Elias 5 acres of Land as an addition to the Land & house that I formerly gave him, as also that out- house that I built not far to the westward of his house, to him his wife and children forever, prvided there be at all times } an acre of land left in common about the spring that is above his
163
ELIAS MAVERICK'S WILL.
1681.]
house wth a convenient high way thereunto for watering of cattle.
" I give to my son Peter &5 starling after my wives decease.
" I give to my son Paul Mavericke 25 acres of Land next unto my son Elias wch I give him in present possession by deed of Gift to him his wife and Children prvided that his Father in law Lievt John Smith, (whose daughter Jemimah he married) will give as a portion to his said son-in-law wth his daughter one halfe of that some of money that the sd Land shal be prized at by indifferent men chosen on either side, wch if he refuses to doe, then he shall injoy it after his mothers decease.
" I give to my grandson Jotham Maverick son of my son John 15 acres of Land adjoyning on the west side of my son Pauls Land, after his grandmothers decease to him and his heires forever, with this prviso that he shall have liberty to sell or alienate the same if he see good unto any one or more of his Uncles before mentioned but to no other man or men.
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