| John Mayo migrated to New England during the Puritan Great Migration (1621-1640). (See The Directory, by R. C. Anderson, p. 224) Join: Puritan Great Migration Project Discuss: pgm |
Disambiguation: CAUTION: There were two men named John Mayo who were early immigrants to New England (PGM):
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In a 1941 article about the Rev. John Mayo in The New England Historical and Genealogical Register (NEHGR), Philip Tillinghast Nickerson (cited below) mentioned the will of John Mayo of Thorpe Mandeville (previously of three-miles-distant Farthinghoe), dated 18 January and proved 20 March 1629/30, in which he left "to my sonne Mr. John Mayo . . . a coffer of ash standing over the Kichin." It is uncertain whether this was a box containing ash (perhaps retrieved from the cooking hearth)—on Ash Wednesday a clergyman could use it to draw a cross on each worshipper’s forehead—or a strongbox made of ash wood and perhaps containing the family’s valuables. In any case, the will's use of the title Mr. in referring to the testator's only son implies that the latter was ordained and performing ministerial duties. Cotton Mather's Magnalia Christi Americana (1702) ranked Mayo in the "first classis" of ministers who were "in the exercise of their ministry when they left England." Records of the University of Oxford show that 17-year-old John Mayo, the son of a commoner of Northamptonshire, was a student at Magdalen Hall (later Magdalen College) in 1615. While Nickerson stopped short of declaring John Mayo the father of Rev. John Mayo, Jean Mayo-Rodwick's Rev. John Mayo and His Descendants[1] is said to provide documentation of the father–son relationship by way of Rev. Charles Chauncy's Last Living. Chauncy, who eventually came to Plymouth Colony, was vicar of nearby Marston St. Lawrence and, says the author, a friend of Rev. John Mayo's father. Regrettably, however, Rodwick–Mayo got it wrong: Chauncy published no such title as Last Living. Nickerson's NEHGR article had pointed out that Chauncy's "last living" in England—that is, his last, paid church position there—was in Marston St. Lawrence, next to Thorpe Mandeville, where the elder John Mayo died.[2] Chauncy wrote nothing documenting a father-son relationship between the two John Mayos (though facts presented earlier in this paragraph do support it), nor did Chauncy or Nickerson ever indicate that a friendship existed between Chauncy and Rev. Mayo's father; those were pronouncements gratuitously added by Mayo–Rodwick. Any Chauncy–Mayo friendship that might have existed is likely to have involved Rev. Mayo himself: he was only about four years younger than Chauncy, and both were Puritan clerics.
Philip Nickerson, biographer of Rev. John Mayo for the NEHGR in 1941, describes England at the time of John’s birth: “John Mayo, born in England when Elizabeth was queen, was a boy during the reign of James I. He grew into manhood as Charles I brought distress to the country, incubating unrest in both Church and State. Roughly, the population was five million. The county of Northamptonshire was fifth in density, although a quarter of the babies under two years died. Everywhere Nonconformists of all sorts were handled severely; the county was a hotbed of dissent.” [3]
He was, however, baptized there as "John Maio, 16 Oct 1597.[4][5] In 1615, at age seventeen, he was attending Magdalen Hall, Oxford. Like many noted individuals of this period it appears he did not attain a degree but this did not impede his progress.
James Savage states that the Mayo family came to New England in 1638[6] and were in Barnstable by 1639, where John was ordained a teaching elder as a colleague of Rev. John Lothrop; the date of his ordination is given as April 15, 1640. He was admitted as a freeman by the court at Plymouth and sworn 3 March, in the 13th year of his Majesty's Reign (1640). He and sons Samuel and Nathaniel are listed as able to bear arms in Barnstable 1643.[7] While it might be worth noting that in the summer of 1638, at least twenty ships carrying an estimated 3,000 colonists arrived at Massachusetts Bay, the earliest record of Rev. Mayo in Massachusetts puts him in Barnstable in late 1639.
In 1646 John removed to Nausett (Eastham) and was pastor of its church until 1654 or 1655. On 9 November 1655 he was installed as first pastor of Old North Church (Second Church) in Boston. The original Old North Church was destroyed for use as firewood by British soldiers in the Revolution and is not the present Old North Church. In Boston, he lived in a house on Middle Street (now Hanover Street).
A church record in the handwriting of Rev. Increase Mather, successor to Rev. Mayo at Old North Church, reads, “In the beginning of the year 1670 [recte 1673], Mr. Mayo, the pastor, grew very infirm. On the 15th of April he removed his person, and his goods also from Boston to reside with his daughter in Barnstable [recte Yarmouth], where since he hath lived a private life not being able, through infirmities of age, to do the works of the ministry.” Upon his retirement from the ministry in 1673, Mayo removed to Yarmouth, where his daughter Elizabeth (Mrs. Joseph) Howes lived; he died intestate there on the __ day of the third month [May] 1676.
"Rev. John Mayo died of Yarmouth, Mass. in May, 1676, without having made a will, and his estate was settled during the following month, the agreement of the heirs being dated 15 June 1676.[8] The records here printed are found in the Plymouth Colony Records of Wills and Inventories and in the Court Orders, the proper reference being stated in each case."[9]
Estate Inventory and Court Records
His inventory was taken on 1 June 1676. Mistris Tamasin Mayo made oath to the truth of the inventory which excluded the goods and estate which she had before their marriage.[10]
His heirs settled his estate on 15 June 1676 by an agreement signed by Tamison Mayo (her mark), widow (receiving widow's thirds and retaining the "Goods and estate" she had brought to the marriage (see Wife or Wives? below); John Mayo, son; Joseph Howes, son-in-law; and by Thomas Huckins, in behalf of Hannah Bacon, daughter. John Mayo and Joseph Howes were made administrators. There were three grandchildren mentioned: Samuel Mayo, Hannah Mayo, and Bathsheba Mayo, children of Rev. Mayo's son Nathaniel Mayo, deceased. The sum total of the estate was small but equal to the average in that colonial period.[7] The inventory's total value was £111 4s., of which £35 was in silver, £10 in plate (items of gold and silver), £4 10s. in pewter, and £10 in books (no real estate).[11]
Note: Searches for the baptismal records of these children in Leiden and England have been unsuccessful. Probable birth dates and birth order are extrapolated from numerous sources. See the Mayo-Rodwick book cited in Sources and See Other for details.
In a later period, a written discourse on the Rev. John Mayo cast him as unintelligent and worse. Many historians who have reviewed these writings and their authors have come to the conclusion that these must be read in a political light. Even the Rev. Increase Mather, who succeeded Rev. Mayo at Old North Church, is viewed by many today as a political creature. Philip Nickerson's NEHGR article on John Mayo provides a thoughtful summary of the Rev. John Mayo.
“He had striven, aspired, worked, and prayed; though physically weak he was morally strong. Returning to Cape Cod he lived near his children and many grandchildren, in Barnstable, Yarmouth, and Eastham. They honored his gray hairs. Thus with the sound of the sea coming over the lea John Mayo, a sincere 17th century religionist, went down to Life's ultimate shore....
“Actually Mr. John Mayo was a resourceful man whose mentality was above the average; rather than a weak, plain, dull, negligible character. In two colonies he helped found two towns and three churches. He was unelated by professional success, unembittered by personal bereavements, unaspersed in a censorious age. He was in all respects an exponent of Christianity and peace.”
Whether Rev. John Mayo had one or two wives remains a subject of debate among researchers. The 1941 NEHGR article cited in this profile simply avoids the subject. A 1618 marriage record (see Research Notes) in Leiden, Netherlands, at the Dutch Reformed Church is believed by some to be that of John Mayo and Tamasin/Tamison (variants of Thomasine) Brike, who they also claim was the mother of his children. However, no baptismal records exist, as those of the Rev. Goodyear of the English church in Leiden have not survived. (The implication here seems to be that if Goodyear's records were extant, the baptisms of Rev. Mayo's children would be found entered therein. But in that the couple, recorded as Jan Meyer and Timmosijn Breyck, married in the Dutch Reformed Church, the assumption that their children were baptized in the English Reformed Church seems ill-founded.) The significance given to the 1618 Leiden marriage record seems to have grown out of previous knowledge that Rev. Mayo’s probate records, dated in 1676, identify his widow as Tamasin.
What leads some researchers to believe John had two wives is inferred from his estate inventory, taken 1 June 1676, to which is appended this statement: “Mistris Tamasin Mayo the Relict of Mr. John Mayo above mensioned made oath to the truth of this Inventory soe farr as she knowes; excepting onely the Goods and estate which shee had before theire Intermarriage, which hee had not Claimed Right nor power to dispose of but onely to use while they lived together as, as [sic] shee affeirmeth and to bring in what further shee may know [dated] the 2cond of June 1676" [emphasis added].[11]
That Mayo's widow, Tamasin, had brought to her marriage to him “Goods and estate” that remained hers "while they lived together" strongly implies that she was not Rev. Mayo’s first wife and likely was not the mother of his children. And it further casts doubt upon the already questionable claim that Mayo’s first marriage had been in Leiden, to a woman of the same unusual forename as that of his second wife. There is, moreover, no independent evidence that Mayo had ever been in Leiden. It seems more likely (though not proven) that Rev. Mayo's first marriage was in Swalcliffe, Oxfordshire, 7 June 1619, to Margaret Soden.[13] Swalcliffe was/is twelve miles from Farthinghoe (Rev. Mayo's birthplace) and also from Thorpe Mandeville (his home by age six), both in Northamptonshire. Five miles from Swalcliffe was/is North Newington, Oxfordshire, where Mayo lived while chaplain to William Fiennes, First Viscount Saye and Sele of Broughton Castle, also in North Newington.[14]
William Lumpkin died in Yarmouth, Mass., not long before 29 January 1670/1 (date of estate inventory), leaving his entire estate "During her Naturall life" to his widow, Tamasin, already his wife when they arrived in Yarmouth in 1638.[15] Certain respectable sources present Tamasin (______) Lumpkin as having thereafter married Rev. John Mayo.[16] Others have dismissed this as representing confusion with William and Tamasin Lumpkin's daughter Tamasin, whose first husband was Rev. Mayo's son Samuel (see Children, below; also Wikitree, Thomasine (UNKNOWN) Lumpkin-100091, Disputed Origins, Marriages). But if an assumption of confusion is the only basis for rejecting William Lumpkin's widow as Rev. Mayo's second wife, it is an obstacle easily overcome. In full recognition that a Lumpkin daughter (her mother's namesake) married a Mayo son, we also recognize that the name Tamasin/Thomasine/etc. is sparely distributed, that an occasional widower did marry his son's widowed mother-in-law, and that widow Tamasin Lumpkin would bring to any subsequent marriage "goods and Estate" that, by her late husband William's will, were hers for life. Also noteworthy is that upon retiring from his Boston pastorate, Rev. Mayo returned to Barnstable County in April 1673 and went to live in Yarmouth, the home of a married daughter—and since 1638 the home of Tamasin Lumpkin. The proposition that Rev. John Mayo married the widow Tamasin Lumpkin as his second wife—after 1670/1 and by 1676, the year of Mayo's death—is thus alive and well.
Rev. Mayo's widow, Tamasin, is recorded as "Mis[tress] Mayho" in Yarmouth vital records and as having died 26 February 1682[/3].[17] Rev. Mayo's previous wife was living in Boston on 8 August 1670, the date of a letter to him from his ministerial colleague Increase Mather ending with "respects to Mrs. Mayo."[18] She died probably in Boston by 12 March 1672/3, when Rev. Mayo sold his house and a parcel of land there to Abraham Gording for £210. Missing from the deed is the signature of Mayo's wife, relinquishing her dower rights.[19]
Claimed baptism:John is sometimes said to have been born 2 April 1597 in Farthinghoe, Northamptonshire, England, but no such record exists. The correct baptism was found in the parish register as 16 October 1597. The record has also been misread to be 10 October 1597, but 16 October is genreally considered to be the correct interpretation.
Much of the information below has been left here as it is frequently seen yet it has been disproved.
SEE the Cape Cod History website, here.
John Mayo: [Note: some information below is undocumented and in some cases discredited.]
"He was possibly the son of John Mayo, rector of Cattistock, Co. Dorset. His first wife's identity is not known. She was the mother of all of his children. See comments below. [Note: that he was from County Dorset has been disproved.]
From Cape Cod History website (note undocumented!), Rev John Mayo family:
Taken from email to Stu Wilson, 3 Oct. 2002, from Jean Mayo Lakatos, alias Jean (May) Mayo-Rodwick, author of Rev. John Mayo and His Descendants, 6th ed. (Fruita, Colo., 2010):
I searched all over Northamptonshire, Oxfordshire, Warwickshire, and even in Dorset and Cornwall. I especially searched in the areas connected to Rev. John, his family, and his friends. I could not find a marriage record anywhere for him and Tamisen, nor baptism records for their children. So I gave up until one day, Harry Mayo suggested that I look in Leiden, Holland. Rev. John was great friends with Elder Brewster, who went to Leiden before coming to America. I decided to check just to rule it out and so that I could truthfully tell myself that I had done all that I could. I heard back from the city records office that they believed that they possibly found the marriage record.
That Mayo and Brewster were "great friends," as stated above, is virtually impossible: Brewster left Scrooby, Nottinghamshire, England, for Holland in 1608, when Mayo, living in Thorpe Mandeville, Northamptonshire, well over a hundred miles away, was no more than 11 years old. Brewster, moreover, was at least thirty years older than Mayo.
This is what the record says: Jan Meyer( John Mayo) of England, baizeworker, accompanied by Thomas Smeth( Smith), his acquaintance, betrothed March 21, 1618, to Timmosijn Breyck( Tamisen Brike) of England, accompanied by Susanna Breyck (Brike), her mother, and Marytgen (Mary) Duijck, her sister (N.H., vol.H., fo. 216). The clerk in charge there told me that the names were in "Dutch- speak" and he gave me the English versions of the names. He said this was often done back then. A baize- worker works with wool fabric and I have since learned that many of the Puritans did that in Leiden because it was in great demand.
The clerk also wrote that "The register of baptisms of Rev. Goodyear of the English Church in Leiden is lost so the dates of baptism of any children John and Tamisen may have had are unknown. I checked a few other churches in the Leiden area and came up empty. After a lengthy search, I was unable to learn more about all of the people mentioned in the marriage record in Leiden and surrounding towns. They told me that Breyck or Brike is an English name and not Dutch. I searched all of the same areas as I did for Rev. John and could not come up with any of the people in that marriage record. They said that Duijck is a Dutch name so her sister married a Dutch man. I could not learn anything further about them either. That marriage record could possibly be the marriage record of Rev. John and Tamisen but we may never be absolutely sure. I know it fits the time frame. I contacted Oxford University in England and they verified that a John Mayo of Northamptonshire matriculated (i.e., entered the university) from Magdalen Hall on April 28, 1615, aged 17. He is described as a son of a "plebeian" (roughly translated as commoner). So that would put his birth year as ca. 1598 roughly. And we know that he left without taking a degree which I have heard was quite common back then. So he could very well have possibly been in Leiden, Holland, with the other Puritans to marry Tamisen in March of 1618. He would have been around 20 years of age at the time of the marriage. Plus his good friend, Elder Brewster, lived in Leiden for a time before coming to America. If Rev. John did marry in Holland, he probably returned to England for a time before coming to America. According to the Banks Manuscripts, John Mayo left North Newington, Oxfordshire, and came to America in 1638 (some sources say the spring of that year).
Quoting from the previous paragraph: "So he could very well have possibly been in Leiden, Holland, with the other Puritans to marry Tamisen in March of 1618. . . . Plus his good friend, Elder Brewster, lived in Leiden for a time before coming to America." What "other Puritans"? Brewster, whose so-called friendship with Mayo almost certainly didn't exist (see above), was a Separatist, as were his fellow congregants in Leiden, whereas Mayo and those with whom he associated in England were Puritans—big difference. Rev. Mayo's 1643 letter to his "much honored friend" George Wyllys, then governor of Connecticut Colony, “in remembrance of my respective service to you, and unfained thankes for all yo[u]r many and great favours to me and mine” (all of which would have occurred in England), asks that Wyllys convey his "best respects" to celebrated Puritan ministers Thomas Hooker, Samuel Stone, and Ephraim Huitt, and their wives, with all of whom he was evidently well acquainted.[23] There is no evidence of Mayo's having associated with Separatists—a contingent of whom, as Mayflower Pilgrims, established the Plymouth settlement—before or after emigrating.
See Also:
This week's featured connections are Redheads: John is 14 degrees from Catherine of Aragón, 15 degrees from Clara Bow, 23 degrees from Julia Gillard, 13 degrees from Nancy Hart, 10 degrees from Rutherford Hayes, 12 degrees from Rita Hayworth, 15 degrees from Leonard Kelly, 19 degrees from Rose Leslie, 14 degrees from Damian Lewis, 14 degrees from Maureen O'Hara, 21 degrees from Jopie Schaft and 31 degrees from Eirik Thorvaldsson on our single family tree. Login to see how you relate to 33 million family members.
I remain interested in having Thomasine (Brike) Mayo, now listed in the vital-event section as Rev. Mayo's only wife, unlinked and having the identity of his first wife appear as "Unknown." Also, a new link, to Thomasine (UNKNOWN) Lumpkin, needs to be created to identify her as Rev. Mayo's second wife. A thorough reading of the text above should be sufficient to justify these measures. I would be grateful to anyone who "choose[s] to accept this mission," which my limited skills prevent me from undertaking.
edited by Gene Zubrinsky FASG
I am sorry this has fallen through the cracks. I have asked our PGM team to help with your suggested changes. S Willson
Google maps & Wikipedia can't find Cattistock, Greater Middleton, Northamptonshire, England. They can only find Cattistock, Devon, England. Is there a problem with his birthplace? Thank you for looking into it. Darlene