Montpelier

The following letter addressed to Samuel Augustus Maverick, the first of the family in Texas, by his father Samuel Maverick (Dec. 30, 1772 - Apr. 30, 1852), dated Montpelier, Pendleton, South Carolina, Dec. 30, 1848, is a very complete account of the family:

"My Dear Son:

"I am seventy-six years old this day. Thanks to God for his continued kindness. Your sister, Lydia Ann Van Wyck left this place on the 7th of May, 1844, for New York, by the Mail Stage, and her book yet remains here with me. And thinking it might not be unexceptable for your children to have a rough sketch of some of my adventures, and some account of the Maverick and Turpin families, my father's and mother's ancestors, I will here therefore send you a copy from her book, etc.:"

"My Dear Daughter Lydia Ann Van Wyck:

"You left this book with me before the 7th of May, I844, when you went to New York, requesting that I should write something in it and sign my name, but from the multiplicity of my business, it has remained in my chest until this 15th day of March, 1846. My age and passing time now admonishes me to my neglect. I was born in Charlestown, now Charleston, South Carolina, on the 30th of December, 1772. I am now in my 74th year; my blessed mother was Lydia Turpin, the daughter of Capt. Joseph Turpin and Mary Turpin; this Joseph Turpin my grandfather, was the son of Joseph Turpin of Providence, R. I., a merchant and ship owner of that place, many years before the American Revolution, and owned a considerable part of that place and it was said gave the burial ground to Providence, and was buried in it. Your sister, Mary Elizabeth, and you, were with me there, and we found the old grave stone with Joseph Turpin marked on it. My grandmother was the daughter of Isaack and Easter Brown, and sister of Thomas Brown of the brick farm in Rheobath, five or six miles below Providence, on the west side of Providence River and opposite two little islands and the town of Potucket. She, my blessed grandmother, was born on the 20th of February, 1731, and died in Charleston, S. C., Oct. 20, 1796. She had three children: Joseph, Lydia (my mother) and William Turpin. Joseph was the father of Capt. William Turpin, now of Greenville, S. C., and father of Catherine, who married Edward Weyman, and father of Mary Turpin, who married Mr. Footman; the said Catherine Weyman was the mother of Joseph Turpin Weyman who married your sister, Mary Elizabeth Maverick. My father and mother were married in Charlestown, S. C., (now Charleston); she, my mother, had six children: myself, the oldest and five others: viz., Joseph, born in Charlestown, June 5, 1774; Mary Easter, Dec. 22, 1775; a daughter still born, Apr. 26, 1777; Isaack Jacob, Apr. 9, 1779; and Lydia, born in Providence, R. I., June 10, 1780, and all died without issue. My mother married the second time, General Robert Anderson of Pendleton District, S. C. And my mother died Jan. 19, 1803 . . . and General Robert Anderson died on Dec. 25, 1812, aged 70 years, and they were both buried in his burial ground on his plantation on Seneca River, Pendleton Dist., S. C. My grandmother's son, William Turpin (my uncle) was a merchant of Charleston, and with whom I lived as a shop boy, and I was afterwards concerned with them in mercantile business, under the firm of Wadsworth, Turpin and Maverick. My said uncle, William Turpin, married the widow, Mary Savage, and they had no children, and after her death my uncle William Turpin moved to New York, and he died there Jan. 21, 1835, and was buried in the Quaker meeting burial Ground, in the eighty-first year of his age. I was married in Pendleton Dist., S. C., to your mother, Eilzabeth Anderson, the youngest daughter of General Robert Anderson, on the fifth day of October, 1802. Your brother, Samuel Augustus Maverick was born July 23, 1803. Your sister Ann Caroline Maverick was born Mar. 23, 1805, and died of yellow fever in Boundary Street House in Charleston, Sept 2, 1809, aged four years and five months ten days. Your brother Robert, Sept. 15, 1806, and died that night, your mother having been thrown out of a carriage several days before, and while I was gone trading to New York. Your sister Mary Elizabeth Maverick, was born Dec. 23, 1807, in Charleston, S. C., and was first married to Joseph Turpin Weyman, Mar. 21, 1825 in Charleston, and he, Joseph Turpin Weyman, died at my Montpelier Plantation, Pendleton, S. C., May 20, 1834, and she, your sister Mary Elizabeth Weyman was the mother of Elizabeth Anderson Weyman, Augustus Maverick Weyman and Joseph Bossier Weyman. And your said sister, Mary Elizabeth, afterwards married Joseph Thompson of Lauderdale County, Alabama, on the 14th of October, 1836, and by whom she had two children; viz., a daughter, Josephine Thompson, on Aug. 30, 1837 and a son, Samuel Maverick Thompson, on Nov. 27, 1840, and your said sister Mary Elizabeth Thompson died in Lauderdale County, Ala. on June 30, 1842, aged 34 yrs., 5 mos. and 7 days. Your brother Samuel Augustus Maverick was married to Mary Adams of Tuskaloosa, Ala., on Aug. 4, 1836 and they have five children; viz., Samuel Maverick who was born at Montpelier, S. C., May 14, 1837, Lewis Antonio Maverick, born at San Antonio, Texas, March 23, 1839, Agatha Maverick born at San Antonio, Apr. 12, 1841, Augusta born at La Crange, Fayette Co., Texas, on Mar. 30, 1843, and George Maverick was born at Matagorda, Texas, on Sept. 7, 1845. And you, Lydia Ann Maverick were born at Montpelier, S. C., June 28, 1814, and were married to William Van Wyck in the Pendleton Episcopal Church, Oct. 23, 1833, and your children were: Samuel Maverick Van Wyck, born in New York Apr. 14. 1836, [m. Margaret C. Broyles; Samuel Maverick, m. Nina Harrison: 7 ch.] Abraham Van Wyck, born in Blount Co., Ala. on Apr. 23, 1838, and died in Blount Co., Ala. in 1838, aged five months. William Van Wyck, born in Lauderdale Co., Ala., Apr. 17, 1840. Zaruah Van Wyck, born at Reek Mills, Anderson Dist., S. C. April 1, 1343. And Augustus Van Wyck, in New York, Oct. 14, 1845. Your mother died at Montpelier, Pendleton, now Anderson Dist. S. C., Sept. 27, 1818, aged 35 yrs. and one month, and was buried in my burial ground at Montpelier, Pendleton Dist, S. C.

"My father, Samuel Maverick, was born in Charlestown, now Charleston, S. C., and was the son of Samuel Maverick, and his father Samuel was the son of John Maverick or Samuel Maverick, as these two brothers came to South Carolina, supposedly about the year 1670, by way of Barbadoes; they were here before the present City of Charlestown, now Charleston, was laid off or built on. John Maverick was elected by the Free Holders a member of the New Parliament, and it is the first popular election on record in South Carolina on the 9th of April, 1672, and he owned lot No. 43, one of the first sixty-two lots, laid off in Charlestown, now the City of Charleston, S. C., having surrendered his lots in the first Charlestown, several miles to the west, and over the salt water from Oyster point, the present City of Charleston. I have a copy of two letters in Benjamin Maverick old account book about 10 years ago, which were directed to his cousins, Capt. Jonathan Burchall and Edward Jones, Esq., in Bermuda complaining of his relatives not writing from Philadelphia and Bermuda, so that the Maverick family had been here a considerable time and were seafaring people and ship builders in the first settlement of the country. I presume that Samuel Maverick who was found comfortably settled on Noddle's Island, now East Boston, in the year Sixteen Hundred and Thirty was either my great grandfather or his brother, the said John Maverick mentioned before. My father as I said was married to my mother Lydia Turpin in Charlestown on Mar. 5, 1772, and I was born on Dec. 30, 1772, and I have five brothers and sisters who all died without issued [sic]; viz., Joseph, born Dec. 30, 7174 [sic], Mary Easter, Dec. 22, 1775. Still born, Apr. 1777, lsaack Jacob, Apr. 9, 1779, all in Charlestown, and my sister Lydia was born in Providence, R. I., June 1, 1780. My father had been previously married to Miss Rivers, and by her had five children: John was the name of his first son, whose picture is now hanging in my house at Montpelier, these children all died in infancy. And then his wife died. My grandfather, my father's father, Samuel Maverick, was born in Charlestown, and was a ship carpenter as well as his brother Benjamin Maverick, on James Island and had a ship yard on that island which we lost by possession; he, my grandfather, married my grandmother, my father's mother, in Charlestown; her maiden name was Catherine Coyer; she came to Charlestown, S. C., when a child (or Catherine Coier) and she was born in London in 1720 and died in Charlestown, Oct. 3, 1799, aged 79 years. She, my father's mother had two children: viz., my father, Samuel, and his sister, Frances Maverick, who married Mr. Jackson in 1773 in Charlestown, and they had one child: Judath Jackson. And he, said Jackson, was lost in the American army in the American Revolution, and was never heard of by any of the family; and she, Frances Jackson, died in Charlestown about the year 1801. And their daughter Judath Jackson married Mr. Spillers and they had three children: Eliza, Harriet, and Russell Spillers. Eliza Spillers married Park Strawhan, and they had several children: the first, a son, Samuel Spillers. My father died with the dropsey in the town of Province, R. I. Jan. 3, 1784, reduced by the war of the Revolution and by the depreciation of continental money to the greatest poverty, aged 42 years, he had been taken a prisoner and lay on board the Old Jersey Prison ship eleven months, in hand cuffs and was at last excahnged [sic] and turned ashore, without hat or shoes, and walked on foot from New York to Charleston, S. C., in the year 1778. He then sold out for continental money and removed by land with my mother and myself and one negro woman, Rose, in company with the Turpin family, viz., Capt. Joseph Turpin and my grandmother Mary Turpin, and their son, my uncle William Turpin, Joseph Turpin, Jun. His brother came afterwards, but did not remove his family from South Carolina.

"My blessed mother was Lydia Turpin as I have said. She married my father in Charleston. S. C.; she was the daughter of Mary and Joseph Turpin, my said blessed grandmother was born in Rehobath, R. I., and my grandfather Joseph Turpin was of Providence, R. I., my said grandfather died in Charleston, July 4, 1784, aged 56 years and 5 months, and my said grandmother died in Charleston, Oct. 20, 1796, and they were both buried in the Quaker Meeting Yard, on the east side of King Street, and their son Joseph Turpin, my uncle died the same year that his father died in 1784, both with the Stranger's (or Yellow) fever. My father's mother, Catherine (Coyer) Maverick died in Charleston, Oct. 3. 1799, aged 79 years and was buried in the old Episcopal Church yard in Church Street, Charleston. The old Maverick family were strict members of that Church, my father's mother was born in London in 1720 as I have said before.

"Montpelier farm, Anderson Dist., S. C.

"May 28, 1848.

"(Signed) SAM MAVERICK."

"Finished this Copy 9th March 1849

"Adoration to the most high God.

"(Signed) SAML. MAVERICK."

The note book in which this letter was copied was given to Mary Brown Maverick by her father, September, 1868, according to a note on the fly leaf.

Samuel Maverick, the father, and author of this document, was once a prominent merchant of Charleston, S. C., where he had raised himself from the almost abject poverty to which the war of the Revolution had reduced his family, to a position of great affluence.

Samuel Maverick wrote to his son Samuel Augustus, Letter No. 47, 1842, Transcript, Maverick Papers, the University of Texas, "My father was a patriot in the American Revolution and lost every dollar of a considerable estate and his life from confinement aboard the Old Jersey. . . . My grandfather, Joseph Turpin, had twenty-two square rigged vessels, brigs and schooners, which were all lost, every cent. I was the only grandchild living except my uncle, Joseph Turpin, Jr., three children, and the family could not spare the means to send us to school to learn English grammar. . . ."

It is said of him that he sent ventures to the Celestial Empire, and that he shipped the first bale of cotton from America to Europe. Some mercantile miscarriage caused him subsequently to withdraw from, and close out his business, and he retired to Pendleton District in the northwest corner of South Carolina, at the foot of the mountains. Here he spent the balance of his days and invested and speculated largely in lands in South Carolina, Georgia and Alabama. He displayed a coat of arms, and spoke of an ancestor, Margaret Coyer, who was a Huguenot, banished from France, and from whom he inherited the privilege. He called his place in Pendleton, Montpelier, for her ancestral home in Southern France. Samuel Maverick's early training in the commercial world was under the care of his great-grandmother, the widow of Joseph Turpin, and mother of Joseph Turpin, his grandfather. In his youth he resided with her in Providence, R. I. One day he remembered he went to a Jews Table standing on the bridge covered with a vast appointment of articles for sale: knives, scizzers, Jews' Harps, sleeve buttons, Garters, etc., and the Jew told him, that he would let him have a great bargain of a pair of sleeve buttons set with beautiful red cut glass for 6¼ cents; young Samuel at once paid him down the cash and ran home with the buttons, and showed them to his mother and told her of the great purchase he had made. She heartily laughed at him, and cried out "pewter links" and "pewter cups", but Samuel insisted they were silver. However, he related, that he soon discovered that his mother was right for he had worn them but a few days, before one of the beautiful glasses fell out and was lost. But what he had lost in money, he doubly gained in experience, for it induced him to look better in the future to his bargains.

Samuel Maverick m. Oct. 5, 1802, Elizabeth, 7th and youngest child of Gen. Robert Anderson (his step-father) by his 1st, wife, Ann Thompson; he m. 2nd, after 1790, the wid. of Samuel Maverick of Charleston; and m. 3rd, Jane Harris, wid. of Rev. Mr. Reese, distinguished pastor of the Presbyterian Church. Gen. Robert Anderson was the 2nd son of 5 ch. of John Anderson and his wife Jean, Scotch-Irish pioneers, who arrived in Philadelphia in 1735. Samuel Maverick and Elizabeth Anderson had:

1. Samuel Augustus, b. July 22, 1803, at Pendleton. S. C. . . .

2. Ann Carolina, d. y., of yellow fever.

3. Robert, d. y.

4. Mary Elizabeth. . . .

5. Lydia Ann, b. June 28, 1814; m. William Van Wyck, of New York, by whom: Samuel Maverick, b. 1835; William, Zeruah L., Augustus, Robert Anderson, Lydia, and Benjamin S. . . .

Mary Elizabeth (4), b. Dec. 23, 1807; m. Joseph Turpin Weyman; and after his d., m. 2nd, Joseph Thompson; by the 1st, m., she had: (i) Elizabeth Anderson Maverick, b. Dec. 17. 1826; m. Apr. 4, 1844, Dr. Gray Jones Houston, of whom Sam wrote to Samuel Augustus, on April 4, 1844, Letter No. 59, "Dr. Houston is the son of the Houston you sold your farm to, in Colbat's reserve. . . . The match was made up in Alabama; he appears to be a decent smart man, and I hope all will be for the best." On the same day of the marriage they set out for Florence, Ala., accompanied by her brother, Augustus M. Weyman. Mary Elizabeth and Dr. Houston had: (a) A. W. (Gus), state senator; m. Sally Moore, of La., parents of Augustus W. (of New York), and Elizabeth (of San Antonio); (b) Reagan, m. Mattie Green, dau. of Judge Nathan Green (Lebanon, Tenn.); parents of 9 ch., of whom: Reagan, Jr.; (c) Joe W., whose dau. Grizelle, m. Harold Lamb (Salt Lake City), and whose son Bryan, lived in Pasadena, Cal.; (d) Bryan; (e) Josephine, m. Thomas C. Frost; and (f) Routez, m. R. B. Minor, judge: P. Dr. and Mrs. Houston and Routez, arrived In San Antonio from Alabama, Nov. 31, 1851. "Dr. Houston took his family to their new home on the Cibolo, Saturday, the 3rd of January 1852," says Mrs. Maverick in her Notebook.

Frederick C. Chabot, With the Makers of San Antonio, pp. 278-282