A briefe discription of New England and the severall townes therein together with the present government thereof   By: Samuel Maverick

MAVERICK'S

DESCRIPTION OF NEW ENGLAND.

A BRIEFE

DISCRIPTION OF NEW ENGLAND

AND THE

SEVERALL TOWNES THEREIN

TOGETHER WITH

THE PRESENT GOVERNMENT THEREOF.

[From a Manuscript written in 1660 by Samuel Maverick, and recently discovered in the British Museum by Henry F. Waters, A.B.]

[1885]

BOSTON:

PRESS OF DAVID CLAPP & SON.

PREFACE.

BY JOHN WARD DEAN.

The Committee on English Research of the New England Historic Genealogical Society called attention in their last annual report to the fact that there were in England many important documents relating to the American colonies, as well as manuscript maps hitherto unknown to historical investigators. They urged upon the society the desirability of having exact copies of them made now while we have in Mr. Henry Fitz Gilbert Waters an experienced American antiquary resident in London. This statement has been most strikingly verified by the recent discovery by Mr. Waters of the Winthrop map one of the most valuable contributions yet made to our early colonial history notices of which appeared in the Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society for June, 1884, and in the REGISTER for July, 1884 (xxxviii. 342).

The manuscript "Description of New England," which is here printed, is a still more important discovery. Though it bears neither name nor date, there is internal evidence that it was written in the year 1660, after the return of Charles II., by Samuel Maverick, afterwards one of the king's commissioners. Maverick, when Winthrop and his company arrived, was settled at Noddle's Island, now East Boston, and was known to have been here some years before. The date of his arrival in New England has hitherto been unknown. This manuscript gives it as 1624. Maverick was then about twenty two years old.

An account of New England by one of the first white men who ever settled on the shores of Massachusetts Bay, one of the "old planters" whom Gov. Winthrop found here, is certainly of extraordinary interest to all students of our colonial history. Its fortunate discovery emphasizes in the strongest manner the great importance of the work which Mr. Waters is doing for us in England.