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and the Maget Family in Surry County, Virginia Second Edition, Revised on June 20, 2008 [email protected] My research into the founders of the Maget Family in Surry County, Virginia, began in Iowa. In southern Iowa records, I discovered that Elizabeth Evans, my great-great grandmother, had the maiden name of Maget and that she was from Tennessee. Her father was William Maget, just a name, no more information. One of the western paths of migration and settlement began in Virginia, went through eastern Tennessee, and then came north into the edge of southern Iowa, which the early settlers might have thought to be a part of Missouri because the Iowa-Missouri border was not adequately surveyed until 1850. Many pioneer Magets, who were closely related to my Elizabeth, went west from Tennessee into Platte County, Missouri. Elizabeth Maget Evans settled much farther north with her husband's enormous clan of Evans relatives. At first, I was happy to discover the Maget name because I assumed that such an unusual name would be easy to research. Paradoxically, the name is easy to research, but the research often leads to further confusion. The early Magets left their names on many business documents, but arranging their names into plausible family groups sooner or later ends up in basing one speculation on another. Family records about births and marriages are surprisingly scarce, but death dates are more available. Furthermore, in generation after generation, the family reused the names of its founders: Samuel and Nicholas. Often more than one Samuel Maget and more than one Nicholas Maget were simultaneously alive and living close to each other. Finally, the spelling of this surname was always wildly inconsistent, even in the same generation. Mistranscriptions of the name hide family history from correct indexing. A few distant cousins who had researched the Maget family ran into many of the obstacles that have impeded me. Perhaps the publication of this article will prompt more knowledgeable readers to help us overcome some research problems. I am aware that I have probably made some errors in this article, and I welcome advice and correction. William Gerow's "Gerow Family Database" is probably the most comprehensive of Maget genealogy available (at http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~statler/gerow/index.html His work will allow many modern people to connect with their ancestors in the Maget family. I used Gerow's work extensively in my beginning study of the Magets. I have a special interest in the people who founded families in colonial America, so I resolved to look closely at the record of the first Maget family in colonial Surry County. The Magets in Surry became very active in the economy of colonial Virginia. Some branches of the family grew extremely wealthy and helped to settle the west. In early Virginia, the Magets were part of a small gene pool that grew exponentially as it overflowed into North Carolina, Tennessee and the Deep South. The Magets seemed to produce more daughters than sons; so as Maget women married into other families, Maget blood lines were often continued but under other surnames. Maget descendants must now be very numerous. Some mixed-race Americans use this name, and undoubtedly some mixed-race families--with or without the surname--continue the Maget bloodline. Although the number of Maget descendants must be large, the number of people who use the Maget name has always remained small, and the name exists in so many spelling variations that making connections to the first Magets in America is very hard. During the 1880 census of the United States, only forty-one native-born, whites used the Maget surname, and they all appeared to be related; 98 blacks used this name as did ten mulattoes. There were two white Magetts, one white Magitt, and five white Majets. Among non-whites, twenty-nine mulattoes and 217 blacks used some variation of the Maget surname. In the 1880 census, the variation of Madget/Madgett came up twenty-seven times with birthplaces given as Ohio, Indiana and states in New England; and eight Madget/Madgetts had been born in Ireland, which is probably a significant clue about the origins of this name. There were seven white Maggots, two of them from Ireland; one mulatto Maggot and eleven blacks Maggots. (As reported in the LDS 1880 on-line census on December 1, 2007.) Fifty years later, the 1930 census at Rootsweb reported that only fifty Americans used the Maget surname, and some of them were from Russia and Poland; sixteen used Madget; 129 used Madgett; eight used Majet, all in Totaro, Brunswick, Virginia; forty-two used Magett; 191 used Magette; 151 used Majette. The contemporary poet Naomi Long married a Madgett; she was born in Norfolk, Virginia, but I have no information about her husband. One Maget researcher related a joke about this name that if you saw it in print, you could not pronounce it; and if you heard it, you could not spell it. Modern transcribers often fail to recognize the name and misfire in their attempts to copy it. The number of ways this name is spelled is amazing, so using search engines in Maget research is tedious, frustrating and not always productive. Sometimes I search documents with "mag", "mad", and "maj" to catch spelling variations, but this method often pulls up useless words like magazine and imagine. A few difficulties about the origins of the Maget/Madgett name should be examined and evaluated. First, the theory that Madgett is a Huguenot name is suspect because every odd surname in English seems to be ascribed to the Huguenots. More to the point, the final consonant of Maget/Madget is pronounced in all variations, and this name does not rhyme with French words like fillet, chalet or Chevrolet. Some versions of the name stress the final t sound with the spelling Magette; and of course, it could be argued that the ette suffix is part of the original French name. . . . The British, however, have many old, odd place names and surnames that evolved during their long and rich linguistic history. It is not always necessary to look abroad to explain the origins of a British name. Second, the Maget name, as used among some few French, Germans and European Jews, is apparently a phonetic coincidence with the English name of Madgett/Maget and indicates no blood relationship to the British Madgetts. Likewise the Poles have a name like Magott, and it too must be a phonetic coincidence and is sometimes anglicized to Maget. I received a very polite e-mail from a European rabbi named Maget, explaining that he knew of no family connections to colonial Virginia. Lastly, a connection between Mudgett and Maget looks possible because a seventeenth century scribe might have been careless about closing the tops of his a's and a later transcriber could easily convert Madgett into Mudgett. However, I have never found any direct link between Maget/Madgett and Mudgett. "Tho. Mudgett" was mentioned in Surry legal records between 1664 and 1675 (Surry County Records, Book I, p. 51, and Book II, p. 95 at Rootsweb). Mudgett, however, was mentioned only once in a context with other names that had a connection to the Magets. Thomas Mudget of Surry MIGHT have been Thomas Madget/Maget, but I doubt it. I have seen occasionally the Maget name or a variation in New England records, but it is very rare and probably of later appearance than the Maget name in Virginia. The handful of Maget descendants with whom I have communicated in the United States have no family record or tradition of the national origin of the Maget name. My mother is a great-granddaughter of Elizabeth Maget; and when I asked mother whether she knew any nationality for her family, she said that she had heard mother's ancestry was Scotch-Irish, but she was unsure what that meant. (Her Evans ancestors were definitely Scot-Irish and her memory of "Scot-Irish" could attach strictly to them.) For the most part, three centuries of life in America have erased any memory of another homeland; but the name might have been English in its beginning and is currently spelled Madgett in England. According to the 1881 British census, Madgett was most common in the eastern counties of Norfolk and Suffolk and in London (National Trust Names: Map a name at <http://www.nationaltrustnames.org.uk/Map.aspx?name=MADGETT& year=1881&altyear=1998&country=GB&type=name>). Maget did not come up at all in this search site. The 1841 census showed two male Magets, one born in Norfolk and one in Ireland, and 9 Madgets, all born or resident in Norfolk or Suffolk; but in this census the Magettes and Maggettes were literally all over the map. Still, it seems to be a reasonable assumption that the Madgett name evolved in eastern England. In 2002, I was fortunate to correspond with Paul Madgett of England who had researched his surname very thoroughly. He commented that the spelling of this name over time in England was erratic: "I've found many variants, historically--but all MADGETTs currently resident in the United Kingdom seem to have this as the modern spelling; I didn't find any MAGET or other variants in the UK telephone directories some years ago, when I trawled through all of them. However, the UK Census returns of the 19th century and Parish Records have MADGETT, MADGET, MAGET, MAGGET, MACHET, MATCHET, MATCHETT. . . ." "Pronunciation (among all I have met) is either 'MAD-JET' or 'MAD-JUT'." About the origins of the Madgett name, Paul wrote: "All the UK Madgetts I have contacted (there are less than forty listed in the phone directories) seem to have links with the Norfolk/Suffolk area of eastern England--the sole Scottish address was of a Mrs. Madgett, apparently a widow . . . . There are no Welsh connections that I know of--except that the name appears in a farm-name in the Forest of Dean, overlooking the Welsh border, though just in England. This farm is reputed to go back to around 1200 A.D. at least, but no one in the area realized that it was also a family name. . . . In Diss, on the Norfolk/Suffolk border, where I was born and raised . . . , the Parish Records are pretty complete back to the mid-1500s. I have a transcription of these, published some years ago by the Norfolk Genealogical Society--the name appears as Maget as far back as 1676." And our American Magets appeared in Virginia during the last half of the 1600s. Paul Madgett discarded any Scots or Welsh antecedents for his family, but did not deal out the Irish: "My grandfather always maintained we were from an Irish root, though he couldn't provide any proof of this--and as you are probably aware, most Irish records were destroyed by fires during 'Home Rule' riots in the early 20th century. . . . Nevertheless, I have come across an Irish connection. . . . . In 1798 there was an uprising against the English, lead by Wolfe-Tone, coming over from revolutionary France. In Paris he had the services of a Nicholas Madgett who was working with/for the French Revolutionary government. Nicholas came from southern Ireland himself. . . ." Paul was working here from the "Wolfe-Tone diaries." The Dictionary of National Biography provides a glimpse of Nicholas Madgett, an Irish revolutionary (p. 744). Madgett worked with the France Directory. Later he informed Delacroix that King George III had 10,000,000 pounds on deposit in the Bank of Venice, and he urged Delacroix to request that Napoleon seize the money. Madgett also was active in a plan to enlist Irish prisoners of war and to use them against English rule in Ireland. Lord Castlereagh spied on him. Supposedly, Nicholas Madgett was born in Kinsale in County Cork, Ireland, about 1739. Curiously, the name of Nicholas Maget was very traditional among Virginia Magets. In the same time period, another "Maget" connection to Ireland was shown by an Irish priest named Maget, who denounced the Revolution after leaving the south of France. The English recruited him as a spy and sent him back into France where he was arrested and presumably executed (Ibid.). Much earlier in the Civil Survey of 1656 in Ireland, another Nicholas Madgett was mentioned as a "papist proprietor", whose patrimony was inside the Barony of Corcaguiny (according to Warren Wilkinson, "Warren Hunter Wilkinson", updated on September 16, 2000, at Rootsweb). Corcaguiny is now the peninsula of Dingle in Kerry. During the early 1700s, "Bishop Nicholas Madgett built a house in Tralee. . . ," a town in County Kerry in Ireland ("History of the Diocese of Kerry" at http://www.dioceseofkerry.ie/pages/heritage/diocesehistory.htm available on December 11, 2007). Bishop Madgett presided over a poor diocese with huts that served as churches, but he is remembered favorably. I cannot document a link between these Irish Madgetts and the English Madgetts, but such a link is historically probable. Some early English settlers went "beyond the pale", settled, married among the Irish, were assimilated and attended Mass. If these Irish Madgetts were related to the English Madgetts, such a religious and cultural crossover probably occurred. My other "Scotch-Irish" ancestors went from Great Britain to Ireland and then to Virginia, and it is tempting to think that the Madgett/Magets followed something of the same route. The urge to survive might have motivated the Maget flight from Ireland. Catholic gentry ruled Ireland from 1642 to 1649. Between 1649 and 1653 Cromwell re-conquered the island and dispossessed the Catholic land owners; a third of Ireland's population was killed or exiled. In 1654 our Samuel Maget was in "Zeland" or Holland, perhaps a son in a refugee family. And by 1669 he was safely established across the Atlantic in Surry, and about 1671 he named his son Nicholas. Possibly, the Magets found it expedient to attend Anglican services in the New World. Bits and pieces of Madgett history fit neatly into greater historical events; but in the end, we have historical possibilities and not documented history. It is tempting to see the papist proprietor Nicholas Madget as father or grandfather to a refugee Samuel Maget. Samuel Maget then fathered Nicholas and Samuel, and both of these children also fathered a Samuel and a Nicholas. A very good researcher named Joel Watson pointed out that
Samuel Maget was from Holland, which is
documented through a deposition that Samuel made in 1690 in Virginia:
Test W Edwards Cl Cur" Certainly Samuel must have been in Holland in 1654 to deposit money, and no doubt that Middleburrough in Zeland was not Middleborough in Ireland because Samuel deposited one hundred pounds in Flemish money. (Also the Z in Zeland is fairly clear in my photocopy.) However, I have other British ancestors who were in and out of Holland but were ultimately immigrants to America. Famously, the Mayflower pilgrims passed through Holland on their way to America. To complicate things further, England and Holland waged war off and on against each other from 1652 to 1674, so a Dutch nationality for a Surry settler during this time would seem unlikely; but Virginia was desperate for settlers, and Watson has remarked that some Virginia surnames appear Dutch such as "Jud(g?)kins". Samuel's son Nicolas Maggett and Nicholas' wife Charity were listed together with Francis Mozell, Anne Trankett and Elleanor Lassells as being transported to Virginia in the 1600s (LAND PATENT BOOK 18, pp. 501-2, in VIRGINIA SOCIETY QUARTERLY, Vol. 25, Number 3, August 1987, pp. 72-73 as supplied to me by "Margaret"). The names of Mozell, Trankett and Lassells have a Dutch ring to them, which could provide a context for the origin of the Maget name. But in 2001 I questioned a Dutch Jew from Amsterdam closely about the Maget sur name, which was totally unfamiliar to her in both Yiddish and Dutch. I cannot attach our Maget name inside the Dutch language or culture.
At this moment in history, it is not possible to untangle all these
problems about the origins of the Maget family. Having examined the problem for about
ten years, my best guess it that the Magets of Ireland had some sort of an exile
in Holland, followed by their settlement in
Virginia.
Perhaps records from the Orphans'
Court in Holland
survived World War II, and some kind translator will find them and make them
available. But it is possible that
the original Magets were Dutch in nationality and that they somehow found
themselves transported to an English colony and settled among Scotch-Irish
colonists in the new world
The first record that I find of any Maget in Surry was of Allen Magett who was part of a jury during an inquest on May 10, 1664 (Surry County Records, Book I, 1652-1672, p. 234). In 1669, the name of Allen Maget was listed by itself under the cryptic note "Rec'd 3rd 9br 1669": "Allen Maget 0 pay to the p[ar]ish." The note was placed after the list of fifteen "Tythables in Hog Island." (MAGAZINE OF VIRGINIA GENEALOGY, Vol. 22, No. 1, p. 20 at Rootsweb) It is impossible to tell whether Allen could not or would not pay taxes to the parish. He left no more records that I know of. How Allen was related to the founder of the Maget family in America is unknown, but there must have been a relationship because the surname was unusual; their lives overlapped, and their residences were close. The first name of Allen, however, had no use among our later Magets.
The origin of the American Maget family in Surry County is one of the few indisputable
pieces of early Maget history. The
patriarch of this family in America was Samuel Maget, and the
first surviving record of him in Surry that I can find was made in 1667. Also in Surry records, there is a death
date of 1692 for a man named Samuel Maget, who must be this one.
So far as I know, there are no records of Samuel's
transportation to Virginia, no record of a
planter paying his way into Virginia to enlarge a land grant, although
such records exist for some of his neighbors and might exist for him hidden
under some misspelling of his name. In the records that I have, Samuel
appeared first in a court investigation of a death in 1667.
Samuel Maget claimed that in 1654 he deposited 100 Flemish pounds in the "bank of the Orphans' Court in Middleburrough in Zeland" "for ye use of my self and children." About 1661 Samuel's daughter Fortune was born. On March 6, 1667, Samuel Magott was mentioned with Wm. Rose, and Samuel Goose in a court finding that Baton Brown had come to his death by drowning at Col Swann's landing. (Surry County Records, Book I, 1652-1672, p. 300 and at http://content.ancestry.com/Browse/BookView.aspx?dbid=49373&pageno=61). On 10 Jun 1668, William Browne listed Samuell Magget as one tythable between Joh: Moring and Wm Batt (2) and Tho: Sowersby (VGSQ, Vol.22, p. 17 as provided by "Margaret" in an e-mail). Curiously, in 1677 the Surry Count apparently took a bond of 500 pounds of tobacco of Daniell Regan after Francis Sowerby filed a complaint against Regan and his wife Eliza, accusing them of verbal and physical abuse and of "turbulence to greatly dethrone god, and high treason to his Majestie." Surry County Records, p. 286 at <http://content.ancestry.com/browse/bookview.aspx?dbid=49373& iid=FLHG_SurryCountyRec-0065&rc=944,2837,1087,2864&pid=107864& ssrc=&fn=&ln=Record+Treason&st=g>. I interpret this odd entry to show the violence in the society of the Virginia Colony and possibly to show some conflict between an Irishman (Regan) and Englishman (Sowerby). It sounds as if the two families disagreed on religion and loyalty to the English Crown. On June 10, 1668, a list of tithables was "subscribed" by William Browne, and on this list Saml. Magget was listed alone as one tithable. (Transcribed by Kathy Merrill,"Census of Tithables in Surry County in the Year 1668," William and Mary Quarterly, Vol. VIII, No. 3 at http://ftp.rootsweb.com/pub/usgenweb/va/surry/census/1668.txt.) On June 6, 1669, Will Browne listed Samuell Maggott as one tythable between "Tho: Sorsby" and "Joh: Moring, Wm Bat & Causie" (MAGAZINE OF VIRGINIA GENEALOGY, Vol. 22, No. 1, p. 19 at Rootsweb) A man named William Browne served as a Burgess from Surry from 1676 through 1679, so perhaps the Burgesses also worked as tax assessors. On June 7, 1670, Sam: Maggett was listed as one tythable between Joh: Moreing and Tho: Sorsby (VGSQ Vol.22, p. 17 as supplied by "Margaret" in an e-mail) About 1671 Samuel's son Nicholas was born. Curiously Nicholas and his wife Charity were listed as transported to Virginia, thus creating for the person who paid their way a right to claim land for increasing the population of Virginia. The land rights were more or less assignable, and there was a certain amount of fraud in the system, but perhaps Nicholas was older than his father represented him in other records and was actually transported to Virginia. In 1673 a man named Maggett was listed as a tythable between Jno: Mooring and William Kite (2) and a Mr. Owen (1) (VGSQ Vol.22, p. 17 as supplied by "Margaret" in an e-mail). In 1676, Bacon's Rebellion broke out and received wide support. Collapse of tobacco prices, poverty, high taxes and hatred of Indians sparked the rebellion. Bacon burned Jamestown, but he died suddenly. Always aware of the need to possess quiet and profitable colonies, King Charles II sent a commission to hear grievances and restore peace. After the rebellion, Col. Thomas Swann in Samuel Maget's parish was denounced as an "old toad" and a rebel, but he negotiated his way through these problems and survived nicely as did many others. In 1677, Swann even provided his residence at Swann's Point as a meeting place for Royal commissioners. Thomas was a Burgess from Surry during 1657 and 1658, and a man (or two men) named Samuel Swann also served as Burgesses off and on between 1677 and 1693. On the May, 17, 1680 Wm: Browne listed Samll: Maggett as one tithable between Wm. Draper and Theo: Fleare. On June 8, 1681, Will Browne listed Samll. Maggott as one tithable between Tho: Sowerby and Tho. Crews. In 1682, Sam. Maggott was mentioned in what looks like a long list of debtors to the estate of Lt. Col. George Jordan who, prior to 1673, had transported thirty-eight settlers into the colony including his near relation "Mr. Wm. Jordan, Mrs. Ann Jordan his wife, [and] Mrs. Fortune Flood." Jordan claimed and was granted 1900 acres of land for moving these white colonists, servants and black slaves to Virginia (THE VALENTINE PAPERS, Vol. II, p.706 at Rootsweb). The last names of Sowerby, Sorsby and Swan appear in his estate list, and these were names from the Maget neighborhood. "Thos. Sowerby" was listed among transported colonists or servants, and the same name was in Jordan's estate list. "Fra. Sowerby" was transported but was not named in the estate list. (The estate list is in Surry County Records, Book II, March 1671 to July 5, 1684, pp, 120-21 at Rootsweb.) George Jordan served as Burgess from Surry off and on from 1658 through 1676. In June 6, 1685, Sam: Swann listed Saml. Maggett and Wm. Wray on the same line as two tithables. ("Sam: Swann" was probably grandson to William Swann, who was buried at the estate called Swann's Point in Samuel Maget's neighborhood. Col. Thomas Swann, who sided with Bacon during the rebellion, was son of William and father of Samuel.) On "ye 9th of June 1688," Robert Randall listed "Saml Magett & son" as two tithables in Surry County. (Virginia Genealogical Society Quarterly, Volume 23, Number 2, p. 67 at <http://content.ancestry.com/iexec/?htx=view&dbid=6131& iid=VGS_1985_01_01_0135&r=an&rc=905,442,1005,475;1055,442,1205,475& fn=samuel&ln=magett&st=d&ssrc=&pid=516457607>). Ed. Bookey and Tho. Sowersby were listed along with the Magetts. On the next page were listed Rob and Charls. Judkins, then Saml Judkins immediately underneath. Samuel Maget's daughter Fortune married Edward Bookey; Samuel's granddaughter Jane married a Sowerby/Sowersby, and another granddaughter named Faith married a man named Judkins. Merill's transcription has a preface which contains an estimate of the population of Surry at four times the number of tithables, hence about 1,736 persons in 1688. I have a suspicion that the number of tithables was under reported but that the Surry population was nevertheless quite small. This source also noted that the number of small planters must have been a considerable part of the population; in fact, much of the population of Surry seemed to be organized into small farm units, many with only one or two slaves, some with no slaves. The Maget family began as a small farm unit and grew in wealth and numbers every generation. This small colonial population in Surry would expand exponentially, and a huge number of modern Americans are descended these early Surry settlers. On June 10, 1690, Samll Swann listed Samll Maget, Ni: Maget and Edwd Bookey together in a list of tithables in Surrey County, Virginia (Virginia Genealogy Society Quarterly, Vol. 23, no 3, p. 60 at <http://content.ancestry.com/Browse/view.aspx?dbid=6131&path=Volume+23.Number+3.60> on November 28, 2006). This list must be of father, son and future son-in-law on the same tobacco farm and probably in the same household.
The following entry at "Virginia Death Records, Jan 1 1690 to Dec 31
1699" must be for the Samuel Maget of this article:
"I Samuel Maget of Surry County planter being very sick and weake in body but in perfect mind and memory thanks be given to God therefore do make this my last Will and Testament in manner and form following. First and principally I give and bequeath my soul into the hands of Almighty God my Creator and to Jesus Christ my Redeemer fully trusting by his merits to receive redemption of all my sins and my body to the Earth to be therein decently interred at the discretion of my hereafter named Exor:s. 2ndly, I give and bequeath unto my son Nicholas Maget my white-backed heifer which is now about three years old, one red and one black barrow which are now three years old and my bed and bolster and other appurtenances. 3rdly, I give and bequeath unto my two children Nicholas Maget and Fortune the wife of Edward Booky all the rest of my estate both here in Virginia and what is due to me from the Orphans Court in Middleburrough in Zeland to be equally divided between them. 4thly I make and ordain my said two children Nicholas Maget and Fortune the wife of Edward Booky my full and sole exor:s.
In Witness whereof I hereunto set my hand and seale the 5th day of May
1692.
Signed and Sealed in ye presence of Will: Browne John Moring Att a Court held for the County of Surry Jan'y 3rd, 1692. The within Will proved in Court by the Oath of Mr Jno Moring. Teste: W. Edwards Cl Cur Att a Court held for the County of Surry May 2nd 1693, the Within Will proved in Court by the oath of William Browne. Teste: W. Edwards, Cl Cur" Samuel's will mentions no wife, so she must have predeceased him. He left barrows, castrated pigs raised for the table and not breeding, to his son. The impression is that Samuel might have been land rich but money poor. He left no slaves. Samuel's life must have been gritty. Wills in his time often bequeathed clothing, pots, pans, and small amounts of real money. Personal possessions that we would dispose of in a garage sale were treasured. Specific cows and pigs were often legacies. Indian and black slaves were bought, sold, and bequeathed, often listed with the livestock. Sambo was a slave name of the time. One has the impression that many small slave owners worked side by side with their slaves in the fields. The medium of exchange was tobacco, seldom coins. Lacking any system to create and dispense credit, colonists borrowed from each other and frequently sued to collect. Land was a preoccupation; buying land, selling land, bequeathing land, being granted land. Violence seemed to be common, and sanitation neglected; the rebel Bacon was supposedly covered with lice and died of diarrhea. The general impression of Samuel's world is one of poverty and oppression, but he survived and left descendants.
I began research into Samuel's family by working from Forrest Davis
King's "THE DESCENDANCY CHART OF SAMUEL MAGGETT OF SURRY COUNTY, VIRGINIA" at http://hometown.aol.com/vafdking/index.htm. I
have tried to add detail to King's chart and to expand it. Much of what I have
discovered fits very well into his framework, and I have not found data to
discredit his chart. Researchers should use my extensions and expansions of his
chart cautiously. The following descendancy chart shows three generations of
Samuel's family.
Fortune Maggett Forrest King reported that Fortune Maggett was born in 1661 in Ireland, but her birthplace is open to question in light of her father's depositing money in a Dutch bank in 1654. She was mentioned as a cousin to John Sheephard [sic] in a probate record, written on April 2, 1686, and proved on May 1, 1688, in the Virginia county named Isle of Wight (Virginia Land, Marriage, and Probate Records, 1639-1850 Record at <http://search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?indiv=1&gsfn=&gsln=magette&gskw=&rank=1&db=varecords_ga&ti=0&ti.si=0&gss=angs-d&fh=0&recid=76769&recoff=1> on May 30, 2006). I cannot find the relationship between the "Sheepard" family and the Maget family.
Apparently Fortune was not married in 1686, but she married Edward
Bookey in 1692 in Surry County,
according to William J. Avery, Sr.'s
Rootsweb site "Avery & Watson Descendants," updated 2004-11-22 at
<http://awtc.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=avery2&id=I21292>
on November 29, 2006. Avery
reported children born to Edward Bookey by his first wife but none by Fortune,
and I have found no record of Fortune's having children. If her father Samuel died at the
beginning of 1692 and if she married in that year to Edward Bookey, who had been
a part of the Maget household and/or tobacco plantation in 1690, the marriage
might have been a practical arrangement to keep their plantation in operation
and not sold. Practicality and
estate planning were active principles in many Virginia marriages.
King reported that Nicholas Maggett, Fortune's brother, was born in Surry in 1671 - and Nicholas was probably born in Surry if his father was in Surry as early as 1669, although other researchers report Ireland as Nicholas' birthplace. (There is a record of Nicholas and his wife Charity's transportation to Virginia, but such transportations generated land grants, and the number of transportations was sometimes over reported.) If Nicholas was born in 1671 in Surry, he was a child during Bacon's Rebellion when life was very rough; and perhaps of Samuel's children, only Fortune and he survived their infancies in such tumultuous times. The death toll among Virginia colonists was very high. On June 10, 1690, Nicholas was listed as a tithable with his father, so his reported birth date of 1671 is plausible. In 1693 Nicho Maget was listed without his father in the Middle precinct of "Southwarke pish [parrish]" in Surrey County, Virginia, his father having died in 1692, and his sister having married Bookey. I suspect that Nicholas married early because he had a number of children. King's "Descendancy Chart" shows two wives to Nicholas: Charity and Ann. Nicholas' will mentions a wife named Ann. I have no birth dates for his children and no last name for either wife; but like King, I assume that first wife Charity was mother to most of his children. On "the 21st day of 9br 1693", Nich:o Maget published in the parishes of "Southwarke" and "Lawnes Creeke" his intention of leaving the colony, "according to Virginia law"; but he apparently did not leave (Surry County VA Deeds/Wills #4 (1687-1694) p. 341, as supplied by "Margaret"). On June 10, 1696, Edwd: Bookey (Nicholas' brother-in-law), Fra Gregory and Walter Tomkins were listed together among tithables in the "midle pcint of Southwarke pish [parish] in Surry County" next to Nichol. Magett and Wm: Cripps. Fra:, Tho:, and John Sowerby were all listed separately in the same document. On "March 3, 1701/02" in Surry County, Nick Maget and Charity Maget witnessed a land transaction in which William Allso [Halso?] sold a 40 acre tract at the head of Hooper's Branch to Joseph Collier (Surry Co VA, Bk 5, pg 246 as cited in "Ancestors of Kimberly Christine Cook" at http://familytreemaker.genealogy.com/users/c/o/o/Carlisle-C-Cook-jr-Ga/GENE1-0017.html> available on December 24, 2007). Generally the land business was done by men, and it is strange to see both Nicholas and his wife witnessing a transaction. The land was originally "part of a patent granted to George Watkins in 1668." This bit of information reveals that Nicholas and Charity were married by 1701/02. Nicholas witnessed too many documents to list them completely below. In some records there is a hint of relationship; others seem to be mere business. On April 10, 1714, William Bynum, Nicholas Magett, and Thomas Cocke were witnesses to deed from Gregory Rawlins and wife Hannah to Charles Hamlin. (Surry County Deed Book 6, pp. 195-6) The Cocke name was connected to the Spratleys somehow. On October 8, 1714, William Binum, Nicholas Magett were witnesses to deed from Allen Warren to Allen Warren the younger (Surry County Deed Book 6, p. 216). On June 3, 1719, Nicho. Maget, Robt. Judkins and Saml. Maget witnessed the will of William Gray in Surry County (THE VALENTINE PAPERS, Vol. I, p. 563 at <http://content.ancestry.com/Browse/BookView.aspx?dbid=12944&iid=dvm_GenMono001979-00288-1&sid=&gskw=maget&cr=1>). Son Samuel seems to be working here with his father. There was some sort of relationship between the Gray and Maget families, but I cannot identify it. Nicholas was executor for a Gray will. Robt. Judkins was probably Nicholas' son-in-law. In 1721, Nicholas was witness or administrator to an agreement about an estate for orphans: "Money due to the orphans of Melchideck Duche: Snipes, Robert: Est. by Henry Harrison, Gent., Admr. 19 Apr 1721, Nich. Maget. Robert Watkins, John Watkins (Surry Co., Virginia Will Book 7, page 331, p. 425.)" Nicholas' daughter Fortuno married a Watkins; and I suspect that Robert was her husband. Nicholas made his will on May 15, 1743, at Surry, Virginia, and it was recorded in 1745 (from a Genforum posting made on March 28, 2003 by Dianne Wages in the "Wages Family Genealogy Forum" at <http://genforum.genealogy.com/wages/messages/725.html>, available on December 16, 2007). Nicholas' children were listed in his will, and at second hand I have a list of their names: "Nicholas left a will naming a wife, Ann. Sons were Nicholas and Samuel. Son-in-laws were Robert Judkins and John Spratley. Daughters were Fortuno Watkins and Jane Sowerby. Mentioned but of unknown and questionable relationship were Benjamin King, Robert Wager, Blanks Moody and his daughter, Charity Pomlum Moody." Some daughters must have predeceased Nicholas, and I think that they were married to Benjamin King, Robert Wager, and Blanks Moody. ("Blanks" was a real name, not a transcriber's error; the name is preserved in other places, e.g., at <http://boards.rootsweb.com/localities.northam.usa.states.kentucky.bios/6574/mb.ashx>.) I have found some Moody history that supports Blanks Moody as son-in-law to Nicholas. Charity, granddaughter to Nicholas, had a given name that was characteristic of the Maget family; and the nickname for Charity might have been Cherry in later Maget family culture and language. (Can the name Pomlum be a misunderstanding of Bynum preserved by a scribe with a bad ear?) Nicholas' Virginia appeared to be a more prosperous place than was his father's Virginia, at least for whites, and Nicholas worked hard in good times, witnessing many wills and land transactions, being executor of wills, and appraising estates. Some of Nicholas' legal work was apparently connected to a great and successful effort to tie land to his Maget bloodline and to protect the interests of his grandchildren and other family members. Many lines of his Maget family were wealthy through the next hundred years. Nicholas was a very successful estate planner. After Nicholas died, the French and Indian War erupted, and General Washington began his military career. Some of Nicholas' children lived to see the Revolutionary War. Many of his grandchildren lived through it, but I see practically no military service among the Magets. The name of Wm. Maget, probably Nicholas' grandson, was on a petition to the Virginia legislature, dated November 27, 1781. The petitioners asked that the warehouse at Cabin Point which had been "Burnt and destroyed by the enemy" not be replaced but that a new warehouse be built in Surry at Low Point, "commonly called Guildford," for the inspection of tobacco." Ten other men signed the petition. It seems that the petitioners were trying to continue business in spite of the War. After the War, some Magets had enough money to resettle in the west and even to become wealthy on slave plantations. So far as I can tell, the Magets who went west after the Revolution multiplied mightily. My outline descent tree for Nicolas is four and a half pages long of small print.
Below is a descendancy chart to show Nicholas' children
and grandchildren; and even in these three generation, which are only partially
reported due to lack of records, it is clear that the Maget family was growing
rapidly. Probably the population of
Surry was increasing at a similar rate. In the chart below, Nicholas had twenty-two
grandchildren, and this number must be undercounted.
Nicholas Maggett, Jr. Of Nicholas, son of Nicholas, King reported only this: "NICHOLAS MAGGETT JR was born at Surry, Virginia." Gerow also reported nothing about Nicholas except a birth year. Because the lives of father Nichols and son Nicholas overlapped, I cannot tell whether the many land transactions by Nicholas Maget were by father or son; doubtless, most of the earlier ones were by the father and the later ones by the son. And Nicholas, son of Nicholas, rather predictably named one of his sons Nicholas. The names of his children below are assumed from his will--in which he spelled his surname as Maget. Nicholas Maggett, Jr. raised a family in Southampton County. Possibly he did not move to Southampton but the county border was changed. On its northeast edge, Southampton borders Surry. In 1777 a man named Nicholas Maget resigned as Justice of the Peace in Southampton. "Margaret," an excellent researcher is exploring the idea that Nicholas married Rebecca Blow, daughter of Richard Blow. At first I thought this Nicholas was the father of John, James, Samuel, William, Nicholas and Elizabeth, but Nicholas and Jane Maney Maget are the parents of these children. In 1831, Nat Turner rebelled in Southampton against the system that the Maget family and others had so carefully tended for over a hundred years, no Magets appear in any casualty list. During the 1810 census of Southampton, James Majett/Magett was the only Maget whom I could find in the county. There were four males in his household, one female and seventeen slaves. During the 1830 census, more Magets were visible in Southampton: Mnna Maggett, Saml Maggett, Wm T Mgget, James Mggot, Mary Mggot, and Henry T Mgot, according the the Rootsweb transcribers and indexers. (Obviously Maget history and genealogy would be easier if transcribers and indexers could recognize this name.)
James Magget, age sixty-six and born in Virginia was counted in the 1850 census of St. Lukes Parish in Southampton, with wife Penelope A., also sixty-six but born in North
Carolina.
Their two oldest children, William J.? , twenty-five, and James W., twenty-three, had been
born in North Carolina; but the youngest five
children had been born in Virginia: Sarah A., eighteen; Walter, also eighteen;
Mariah? A., sixteen; Cornelia, ten; and Roswell or Boswell?, eight. The census showed that James owned about twenty-seven slaves, including one at age 100.
Samuel, son of Nicholas, married Bramley Unkown, according to King. An Internet correspondent named Sherry, who seemed to have very good information, wrote that Thomas was probably Bramley's surname, that Samuel had a granddaughter named Bramley Partridge and that Samuel was guardian of one of his wife's nephews named Thomas. Samuel's line was prolific. (I have seen Bramble interchanged with Bramley.) My connection to the Surry Magets is through Samuel. Samuel was the father of Macajah Maget, married to Sussanna; and Macajah was the father to William B. Maget, who married Martha Taylor. (Researchers assume that the William Maget whose name I discovered in Iowa was William B. Maget, but no one can explain the record of his marriages.) Without dispute, a couple named William and Martha Maget were parents of Elizabeth Maget, who married Joseph Harvey Evans and then went with the Evans family to the southern edge of Iowa. William and Martha were also the parents of John Davis Maget and Rufus Morgan Maget, both of whom settled in Platte County, Missouri, where there are many descendants to this day. (Martha might be buried in Strawberry Plains, Tennessee.) Samuel was also the father of Nicholas who married Jane Maney. They had sons: Samuel, born August 24, 1754, who married Priscilla Drew; and Nicholas, born August 20, 1754. Recently the Surry County, Virginia, Historical Society and Museums, Inc. published Maget family data preserved in the Bible of Samuel (born 1754) and his son John Drew Maget, born in Virginia in 1793 (Available at https://sites.rootsweb.com/~vaschsm/Bible1.html). According to information that accompanied this publication, John Drew Maget moved west through Northampton County in North Carolina, through Fayette County, Tennessee, finally settling in what became Cross County, Arkansas. In addition to Maget family information, someone also recorded in the family Bible the names of thirty-one slaves, which could be interpreted as humane except that three slave names have "SOLD" written after them.
Samuel as father to Mary Maget started as a research conjecture from scattered leads,
but Joel Watson's "The Moody Family of Surry County, Virginia" shows clearly the Maget-Moody relationship and seems to be well researched from wills and in-family sources.
In the 1810 census, the only Maget I could find in Surry County was Priscilla "Magat" in a household of three males, three females and 17 slaves. The Rootsweb index to the 1810 census listed her in County and Surry Township, but judging from the notes on the census image, she lived in Surry County (search done on December 26, 2007). Priscilla is probably the widow of William Magett, son of Samuel, Sr. In the index to the 1820 census, Pricilla is correctly placed in Surry County, still the head of a large household. Priscilla Mggatt/Maggett was still alive during the 1830 census and living in Surry.
In 1793, a man named Samuel Maget, along with twelve others, was recommended "to the
Executive" as a Justice of the Peace in Southampton County, which borders Surry County
(<http://www.genealogymagazine.com/socojuofpe1.html> available on October
26, 2007). Possibly Samuel, son of Samuel and grandson of Nicholas, followed his grandfather Nicholas in becoming a Justice of the Peace in Southampton.
Nicholas' daughter Fortuno married a Watkins, and it is surprising that so little has surfaced about this couple. The following entry from 1721 refers to Nicholas Maget and two Watkins men. I suspect that Robert or John was Fortuno's husband: "Money due to the orphans of Melchideck Duche: Snipes, Robert: Est. by Henry Harrison, Gent., Admr. 19 Apr 1721, Nich. Maget. Robert Watkins, John Watkins" (Surry Co., Virginia Will Book 7, page 331, p. 425.) Except for this mention of Nicholas Maget and two Watkins men, I have found nothing else to report, except that a family named Watkins became very, very wealthy in Surry. Like Fortuno, Nicholas' daughter Jane married a man who is known only by his surname,
which was Sowerby. The Sowerby name often appears near the Maget name in early Surry County, so the two families must have been neighbors. Francis Sowersby is
mentioned as early as 1666 in Surry, probably too early for Francis to be Jane's
husband. On December 1, 1666, in the Parish of Southwarke in Surry County, 200 acres was somehow set aside or appropriated for a glebe, near or next to the land of "John Watkins, Mr. Thomas
Woodhouse & Francis Sowerby." (ABSTRACTS OF LAND PATENTS--Surry County, p.
112 at Rootsweb on November 25, 2007)
On June 10, 1696, Edwd: Bookey, Fra Gregory and Walter Tomkins were
listed together among tithables in the "midle pcint of Southwarke pish [parish]
in Surry County" next to Nichol. Magett and Wm: Cripps. Fra:, Tho:,
and John Sowerby were all listed separately in the same tax survey. Perhaps Jane's husband was Fra:, Tho:, or John Sowerby.
Faith Maget married a Judkins man. Very probably, Faith married into the Judkins family mentioned in the 1688 list of Surry tithables: "Rob and Charls. Judkins" and "Saml Judkins" or one of their sons. But very impressive researchers have come to different conclusions or to no conclusion about which Judkins she married. Forrest Davis King reported that Robert Judkins, Jr. married Faith Unknown: "ROBERT JUDKINS JR married FAITH (--?--) at Surry, Virginia." King's question mark looks like an oversight of a marriage between Robert Judkins and Faith Maget, but it probably shows research caution. In Surry,
Nichols' daughter could not have been the only woman named Faith. Below is King's record of this Judkins family:
Carolyn Anderson, a thorough and helpful researcher, wrote that ". . . Robert Judkins . . . married Faith . . . . Faith was the daughter of Nicholas Maget (Maggett)" (Genforum for the Judkins family, #415). In her research, Anderson cites some in-family information to support Robert as husband to Faith Maget, but it is hard to see agreement between Anderson and King in contextual details. Nevertheless, I think Anderson is right.
Regrettably, Faith left a tiny footprint in time.
Perhaps she died young, and her husband remarried, but some branch or
branches of the huge Judkins family probably pass on the Maget bloodline from Surry.
About Nicholas' daughter whose first name is lost... According to Nicholas' will, a man named Spratley is a probable son-in-law; and a copy of John Spratley's will is available in the Surry County Genforum, posted by Susan Perrault in 2000. As executors of his estate, Spratley named his wife Phyllis and Nicolas Maget. Grandchildren mentioned in the will were William, Elizabeth and John;
John was a young heir to be set up in time as a Surry planter. Somehow the Magets must figure into
Spratley family history, but more documents must surface before this
relationship can be identified and proved. (Phyllis does not sound like a Maget
name; she might have been a second wife.) John Spratley, who wrote the will, was
father to his dead son John Spratley, and grandfather to young John Spratley,
who was to be set up in Surry by Grandmother Spratley under the watchful eye of
Nicholas Maget. Nicholas' nameless
daughter probably had been married to the deceased John Spratley. I assume that Nicholas was named in the will to watch over the interests of his grandson.
As a daughter of Samuel Maget, Mary Maget is somewhat conjectural; but in 1791 Mary Murray of Southampton made a will, leaving the use of her estate to her daughter Elizabeth Smith, and then to the heirs of Elizabeth's son William Alexander Smith. Should William fail to produce an heir, the estate would go to the nearest in blood to his mother. William Maget was named to work as an executor. Sarah Maget and Mary Hasswood received cattle. It looks as if Mary Maget married a Smith and had a daughter named Elizabeth; left a widow, Mrs. Smith then married a Murray. Her will has a firmly independent style, so perhaps she was widowed again by the time she wrote it. I cannot explain why Elizabeth Smith and her son share the same surname. William Maget, probably Mary's brother, was to watch over his great-nephew's estate.
The following Smiths were listed in 1782 Heads of Households, Names Only
- Surry Co. Virginia at
http://ftp.rootsweb.com/pub/usgenweb/va/surry/census/1782cens.txt. Apparently Mary's husband was dead by 1782; perhaps the
name of son William Smith ends this list.
Mary's brother William Maget was also listed with four members in his household and thirteen slaves; he was the only Maget listed in Surry. The number of surnames in the 1782 tax list that were also prominent in the tithable lists of the late 1600s is very surprising. The Magets, however, had been moving out. Later in Surry history there was a man named Maget Smith, but I cannot connect him to our Magets, although he surely was connected.
Nicholas had a son named Nicholas about whom I have discovered little
that is reliable and I confused him at first with another Nicholas Maget. Rebecca Blow Maggett was a possible wife Nicholas' son Nicholas. In 1762,
Richard Blow (1687-9 -- 1762) made a will in Sussex County, and died the next year. In his will, Richard mentioned his daughter Rebecca Maget. Richard Blow's dates, if reliable, make him about fifteen
years younger than Nicholas Maget, married to Charity Unknown; so one of
Richard's daughters might have married a son of Nicholas or an early
grandson. I suspect that they left a line of descendancy.
Nicholas married again after his first wife Charity died. Like Charity, his second wife is also known only by her first name, which was Ann. She was mentioned in Nicholas' will. According to Melissa Cryer in "Tuttle and Cryer families," updated 2006-07-18, and available at http://awt.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=:3252248&id=I12924&printer_friendly, Ann had a daughter by Nicholas, and the daughter's name was Ann. Ann married George Cryer, and this source reported three abstracted legal records which included the names of Cryer children with traditional Maget first names of Samuel and Nicholas. Furthermore, the Watkins surname also appeared in these abstracted comments, so it seems that the Maget bloodline was again continued in another family through the female side of the Maget family. Although a great many notes about the Maget family remain in my files, I am reluctant to continue the family history through any more generations because of the difficulty of attaching records to the right Magets. I am not able to arrange the data about Tennessee Magets into a defensible set of family trees, although I descend from this line; and I think that I know my ancestral path back to the first Samuel Maget in America. The North Carolina Magets were very numerous, and I have not yet attempted to arrange them in family groups. It is my impression that the North Carolinians spread throughout the Deep South and were often wealthy. Perhaps some feedback and more data from readers will enable me -or someone else- to continue Maget history through the later generations. During the Civil War, Magets usually sided with the Confederacy; and the Emancipation Proclamation must have fallen like lightning among them. The names of Magets who served on both sides are available from the National Parks Service, "Soldiers and Sailors System" at http://www.civilwar.nps.gov/cwss/soldiers.cfm. Researchers must use a variety of spelling variations, one at a time, to gather all the Maget/Madgett/Magett/Magette/etc. data. Perhaps more Maget data could be gleaned from soldiers' pension files. A few last comments about the use of the Maget name by non-whites. For some reason, the Maget name or a variation is sometimes mentioned with an Indian connection as in the following posting by Mario Ross in 2002 in the Rootsweb forum for Majette: "I'm a descendant of the Magitt or Magett (same family) family. My gg grandfather was Ed Magitt. He was a Choctaw Indian. My grandmother tells me he was chief of his reservation in Oklahoma. I don't know his wife's name but they had 21 boys and 2 girls. One son was John Magitt. Another was Edward Magitt. He was my g grandfather. He was born in 1883, I believe, in Merridean, Mississippi. His wife was Lela Brown. Her mother was Rosie Smallwoods. She was Blackfoot Indian. . . . I was thinking about the Majette and Majette name. I'm told the Magett name was spelled many different ways, but all could be the same family. If there is any information, please write. Thank you, Mario" I have not seen any indication that the Magets were Over Mountain Men or first settlers anywhere, so I do not believe that they lived in close contact with Indians as Daniel Boone did. Indians were enslaved more often than we now realize, and perhaps an ex-slave carried the name back to Indian culture, but mostly I am as puzzled about the use of the Maget name among Indians as is Mr. Ross. In general but not always, the spelling of Majet and its variations have been used more by American non-whites than by whites. The 1910 census reported thirty-four black Majettes, all in Murfreesboro, North Carolina, and in Southampton, Virginia; one mulatto Majette also lived in North Carolina. Nine black Majets lived in Mississippi, but the name was spelled in so many different ways that an accurate count was probably impossible; one black Majet lived in North Carolina. Five mulatto Majets also lived in Mississippi. In the 1910 census, about sixty-three whites used Maget; none used Majet. Only six whites who were born in the United States used Majett; nine used Majette. Even after the Civil War, white Magets continued to work and to live near or with blacks, so some miscegenation is predictable. Doubtless, some mixed-race Majet/Majettes are ultimately descended from Samuel Maget of Surry; and DNA testing might identify such descendants, if they are interested. In some other cases, Majet was a plantation name adopted after Emancipation. In general, the Maget name and its variations are more used by blacks than whites. In the 1910 census, the spelling Maggett was used by fifty-seven whites, but many were foreigners using an anglicized name; 115 blacks used Maggett, as did twenty-two mulattoes. In this census, only twenty-seven whites used Magett/Magit, sixty-nine blacks used the Magett/Magitt surname, all in the South except for two; and eighty-two mulattoes used Magett/Magitt, all but a few in the South. (Rootsweb census reports) U.S. Representative Denise L. Majette represented a district in Georgia but was born in New York. From the information in this revised article, one can reach some probable conclusions. The Madget name began in east England and was probably carried to Ireland as were many English names. Researchers have assumed that the Madget/Maget name was carried from Ireland to Colonial Virginia in one of the great Scot-Irish migrations that coincided with an Irish political convulsion, but the assumption that the original Magets in Virginia were Scot-Irish is open to question in light of the fact that the first recorded Maget banked money in Zeeland. No doubt that the Maget name spread from Colonial Virginia all over the South. Although there are obviously some independent origins of the Maget name from later immigration to the United States, the oldest American origin of the name is from the colonial patriarchs Samuel Maggett/Maget and his son Nicholas in Surry County, Virginia. The marriages of Maggett/Maget women into other early Surry families increased the number of blood descendants over time, but the Maget surname in all variations continues to be rare. The number of modern Americans who descend from this family must be very large. This name and its variations are used among some non-whites in the United States, most often in Southern states where the white Maggett/Magets settled as they went west. Among non-whites who use this name, Majet and its variations are common.
After publishing a first version of this article, I have received
numerous additions and corrections; and the outline descent tree below
incorporates those additions and corrections that seem well researched and
compatible with other known facts about the Maget family.
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