Descendants of Clement Maxfield
of Dorchester, Massachusetts
First Generation


CLEMENT1 MAXFIELD was in America before 1655. We don't know how much before. Clement's mother-in-law, who was in America by 1636, mentioned Clement's wife in her will of 1639, but that does not prove that they were in America. If Clement Maxfield was married by 1639, when his wife was 19 years old, it is likely that she came to America at age 16 or under with her mother, that Clement had come to America by 1639, and they were married here. But that is all speculation, and is based on the age of Clement's widow at her death, not always a reliable record.

We do know that Clement Maxfield received a grant of land at Taunton, Plymouth Colony, on 18 December, 1655 (GR 54:90). He evidently built a home there, but did not stay long. John Dean of Taunton, in his will of 25 April, 1660, referred to the "house and lot I bought of Clement Maxfield (MD 17:158).

Clement Maxfield married MARY DENMAN. We know this from the probate records of her mother, Judith (Stoughton) (Denman) Smead. Judith Smead joined the Church in Dorchester, Massachusetts, in 1636. She died in 1639, and administration of her estate was granted on 22 May 1639 to her brother Israel Stoughton. She left bequests to two children by a previous marriage, Mary Denman, wife of Clement Maxfield, and John Denman, and to her child by her second marriage, William Smead. The estate was not settled until 1657, when Mary Denman was still listed as the wife of Clement Maxfield. (TAG 4:30-31)

Clement Maxfield's name was signed to a petition of Dorchester residents, dated 19 October, 1664. This petition, formed shortly after the end of the Puritan Commonwealth, at the time of the Restoration of Monarchy in England, recognized royal authority, but appealed for the freedom of the colony to pursue its own religious practices (GR 5:395). Clement Maxfield was also among the Dorchester men who fought in King Philip's War. He was at Punckapauge on 24 April, 1676, and at Medfield on 24 June (GR 43:266,268).

Clement Maxfield died at Dorchester, 3 February, 1691/2. His widow died there 31 May, 1707, age 86 (GR 5:402). If that age is correct, she was born about 1620/1, and was a teenager when she married Clement, by 1639.

Probable child of Clement Maxfield and his wife Mary Denman:


REFERENCES

Sources abbreviated above include:

GR
New England Historical and Genealogical Register
MD
Mayflower Descendant. Boston: Massachusetts Society of Mayflower Descendants.
TAG
The American Genealogist.

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