Winthrop's Journal || The Maverick Family | Two Voyages to New England
After the death of David Thomson, Amias married Samuel Maverick. This page will be the jumping off point for information relating to the Maverick Family.
Descendants of Samuel and Amias (the Barbados branch) eventually settled in Texas. There, because they refused to brand their cattle, they caused the term "maverick" to come into the language. According to the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, a maverick is:
1. An unbranded or orphaned range calf or colt, tradionally considered the property of the first person who brands it. 2. A horse or steer that has escaped from the herd. 3.a. One who refuses to abide by the dictates of his group; a dissenter. b. One who resists adherence to or affiliation with any single organized group or faction; an independent. [After Samuel A. Maverick (1803-1870), Texas cattleman who did not brand his calves.]
Seems the Maverick "personality"
survived intact...all the way from Boston to Texas.
Contributed by Nancy Thomson nancy@funnybusiness.com
In Winthrop's Journal is the following :
"1633 Dec 5; John Sagamore died of small pox and almost all his people (above thirty) buried by Mr Maverick of Winnisimet in one day "and when their own people foresook them, the English came daily and ministered to them, and yet few, only two families took the infection by it. Among other Mr Maverick of Winnisimet is worthy of a perpetual rememberance, Himself, his wife and servants went daily to them, ministered to thier necessities and buried their dead, and TOOK HOME many of their childern"
Contributed by: Alice Palladini alicep@verizon.net
The Maverick Family
NEHGR 48:207; ‘The Maverick Family" by Isaac John Greenwood, A.M., of New York City. (1894)
… Samuel, the eldest son of the Rev. John Maverick, born about 1602, had settled in New England as early as 1624, near the confluence of Charles and Mystic Rivers, where with the help of his neighbor David Tomson, he had built a small fort. He was an Episcopalian and loyalist, and frequently embroiled with the colonial government; finally, after one of his several voyages to the old country, he was, in April 1664, appointed on of the four Royal Commissioners to visit the colonies and inquire into grievances. For his services he received from the Duke of York, through a grant from Gov. Lovelace, a certain house and lot in New York City, on the Broadway. This gift he acknowledges in a letter of Oct. 15, 1669, to Col. Rich. Nicolls, his associate in the Commission, and we hear not of him again till a deed of Mar. 15, 1676 (recorded Albany, L.1, p.133), his trustees, John Laurence and Matthias Nicolls, of New York, confirm to William Vander Scheuren this same property on Broadway, which the latter had bought from the Deacons of the City, by whom it had been purchased at a public sale made for the benefit of Maverick’s daughter, Mary, wife of Rev. Francis Hooke of Kittery. Neither the time nor place of Maverick’s death, nor the depository of his will have, as yet, ascertained. No records of so early a date ate preserved by the Dutch Church, who evidently held the lot for a short period, but , after a careful examination of conveyances in the City Register’s office, the writer has satisfactorily located the position of the Maverick Lot. May 30, 1667, Gov. Nicolls granted a lot on Broadway to Adam Onckelbach, which is described in later deeds as bounded south by house and lot of William Vander Scheuren, and which finally in October 1784, when known as No. 52 Broadway, was sold to John Jay, Esq., the future governor, who here erected a fine stone mansion. At this time the lot adjoining to the south was in the tenure and occupation of John Sliddell, save some 64 feet on the easterly of New Street end, which had been sold in 1683 by Vander Scheuren to William Post (L. 13, p.8; L.35,p.170). Slidell’s sons in 1819 sold the greater portion of the lot, facing on Broadway, with a frontage of 21 1/3 feet, and a depth of 110 feet, to Robert Lenox; while the remaining few inches, with a lot adjoining to the south, known as No. 48, was sold by them on the same date to David Gelston. From the foregoing facts we gather that the original Maverick Lot was 261/4 feet wide, located on the easterly side of Broadway, running through to New Street, and beginning 125 feet south from the Church Street (afterwards Garden Street, and now Exchange Place); and that it corresponded with the present No. 50 Broadway.
Though extinct in the New England States, the Maverick family has existed for the past one hundred and fifty years in New York City, where Andrew Maverick, a young painter, 24 years of age, was admitted freeman 17 July 1753; his name occurring on the Poll List of Feb., 1761. He was baptized at the New Brick Church, Boston, Feb. 9, 1728-9; one of the numerous family of John Maverick (Paul, Elias, Rev. John), an importer of hard woods on Middle Street (now Hanover St.), at the sign of the "Cabinet and Chest of Drawers," John’s grandson Samuel (son of Samuel deceased), an apprentice of Mr. Isaac Greenwood, ivory turner &c., was mortally wounded, March 5, 1770, in the Boston Massacre. Andrew, who came to New York, married about 1754 Sarah, dau. of Peter and Bethia Ruston of Rushton, and Mr. Rushton, in a will of 1765, proved Aug. 14, 1767 (L.25,p.534), leaves his entire estate, after the death of his wife Bethia, to his grandson Peter Rushton Maverick. The Latter, born in the city April 11, 1755, a silver-smith, etcher and engraver, was in Aug 1775 an Ensign in Capt. M. Minthorn’s Co., of Col. John Jay’s 2d Reg’t of N.Y. Militia, and on July 23, 1788, represented the Engravers in the N.Y. Federal Procession; he died in Dec. 1811, and was succeeded by his three talented sons, Samuel, Andrew and Peter…
Above contributed by Don Bryant
Two Voyages to New-England (p. 12):
I was reading a book by John Josselyn, called "Two Voyages to New-England" (In an edition called 'John Josselyn, Colonial Traveler', edited by Paul Lindholdt, University Press of New England, 1988), and came across several mentions of Samuel Maverick that may be of interest.
"The Tenth day, I went a shore upon Noddles Island to Mr. Samuel Maverick (for my passage) the only hospitable man in all the Countrey, giving entertainment to all Comers gratis."
(A footnote mentions that Samuel Maverick was described by Edward Johnson in 'Wonder-Working Providence' as "a man of very loving and curteous behaviour, very ready to entertaine strangers, yet an enemy to the Reformation in hand".)
Two Voyages to New-England (p. 24):
The Second of October [1638], about 9 of the clock in the morning, Mr. Mavericks Negro woman came to my chamber window, and in her own Countrey language and tune sang very loud and shril, going out to her, she used a great deal of respect toward me, and willingly would have expressed her grief in English; but I apprehended it by her countenance and deportment, whereupon I repaired to my host, to learn of him the cause, and resolved to intreat him in her behalf, for that I understood before, that she had been a Queen in her own Countrey, and observed a very humble and dutiful garb used towards her by another Negro who was her maid. Mr. Maverick was desirous to have a breed of Negroes, and therefore seeing she would not yield by perswasions to company with a Negro young man he had in his house; he commanded him will'd she nill'd she to go to bed to her, which was no sooner done but she kickt him out again, this she took in high disdain beyond her slavery, and this was the cause of her grief."
William Prescott Greenlaw has written that Samuel Maverick "was one of the earliest slaveholders in Massachusetts".
The only other significant mention of Samuel Maverick in the book is the passage (p. 175) where the author mentions that "Samuel Maverich" (one of his Majesties Commissioners) was son of John Maverick.
Contributed by Dennis J. Cunniff dcunniff@bellatlantic.net
The documents are direct quotes and should not be taken and used as one's own work without identifying the source.
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