RICHARD MAXSON FACT AND LEGEND

By Jane H. Maxson
               
   Since I, as former secretary of the Maxson Family Association, have been the recipient of family genealogies of those Maxsons who have joined the association, I have found many versions of the life and times of the original American Maxson, Richard. I decided it was time to write those facts which have been researched and are known from actual records, to be true.

These are facts which can be proven about Richard Maxson/ Magson/ Maggsen:
   *His name is first found in the membership records of the First Church Boston where he is listed on ³The 2d of eight month (October) 1634² as Richard Magson servant to our brother James Everill. (Therefore we know he landed in Boston some time before that date, probably as an indentured servant.)
   *The next mention of Richard¹s name is in Portsmouth, 7 February 1638, where complaints for oppression of trade are made against Richard Maxon, naming his trade as a blacksmith. (So we know that he moved to Portsmouth before this date, possibly March 1638: ³the first month.²)
   *In 1639, Richard Maggsen, with other men from Portsmouth, signed an oath of loyalty to King Charles.
   *Richard Maxon is listed as an inhabitant of the Island of Aquidneck (RI) in 1640.
   *The next record we have of Richard is at the time of his sale of property, 25 June 1642. In the land records of Portsmouth, on the Island of Aquidneck we find that Richard Magson sold to William Baulston (Ballston/Balston) one house and five and three quarters acres of land. The final payment to be made in November, 1643.
   Since Goodwife (Rebecca) Magson received payment from William Baulston on 20 May 1644, we can assume that Richard died some time before that date.

We have not been able to find:
   *The date or place of Richard¹s birth. He may have come from Lincolnshire because a group from there, including Anne Hutchinson, her husband and family, arrived in Boston and joined the church around the time that Richard is recorded as joining.
We have found no records to verify this.
   *The name of the ship Richard and Rebecca sailed on to the New World. No one has found a complete list of passengers on the Griffin, which is the ship the Hutchinsons arrived on.
   *Rebecca¹s maiden name.
   *Whether the family tradition of Richard¹s death at the hands of Indians in Throggs Neck is true. The only possibility is an account in a history of New Amsterdam of a group of settlers who escaped from the Indians in a shallop and the subsequent death of some members of the party when they returned to retrieve their possessions the next day.
   *We don¹t even know if Richard and Rebecca had a son named Richard, who was killed with his father by the Indians at Throgs Neck.    
   *We have been told that another family who settled in Portsmouth at the same time as Richard and Rebecca claims the honor of having the first white child born on the island. We¹ll stick to family tradition and continue to make our claim for John.
   And after reading all this information, I hope you realize that John was not born after the death of his father. If John was born in 1638, we know from the island records that Richard was alive after that. Sorry, it made a good story.
NOTE:
   Much of the research for this article was done by Ray and Helen Morin Maxson. Others have tried to find further data in England with no luck. Some information was found in the Colonial Records of Rhode Island 1636 to 1793 and an early history of New York.
   We hope that others will share their discoveries about Richard and Rebecca with us.    One further note:
    The book Descendants of Hugh Mosher and Rebecca Maxson Through Seven Generations, by Chamberlain and Clarenbach, revised 1990, states: ³Lydia Maxson as Nicholas Mosher¹s* wife fits into Rhode Island¹s records perfectly. Hugh¹s mother was known to be living in 1677, and in 1680 Lydia and Rebecca Mosher were members of his church in Tiverton. He was not known to have had a daughter named Lydia and his first daughter-in-law Lydia was then about fourteen years in the future. In early colonial days it was common for first cousins to marry, and if Lydia Maxson was a sister of Richard Maxson of Portsmouth whose widow married John Harndell of Newport, here were two marriages of first cousins: Lydia¹s daughter, Mary and son Hugh to Richard¹s son John and daughter Rebecca.²
   *  This book names Nicholas Mosher as husband of Lydia Maxson and father to Hugh and Mary.                                            jhm