Individual Details

From http://homepages.rpi.edu/~holmes/Hobbies/Genealogy2/ps02/ps02_232.htm:
Born in England, where is not known, and travelled with his father to Massachusetts Bay Colony in about 1631 where his father was an agent for a wealthy trader. The wealthy trader had a big brick house in Medford?, Massachusetts, which the Mayhews inhabited, so they lived in high style. His father remarried when he was about fifteen and his new step-mother brought a daughter and a son into the house from her former marriage. The daughter was then about five or six, and would
become Thomas's wife in about 1647. Savage says, he served with his father at the Vineyard being the first minister there before removing to Nantucket. He was on board of that ship of which Garrett was master, from Boston to London, in Nov. 1657, with Davis, Ince, Pelham, young scholars, the hope of the country, fellow passsengers never heard of, so properly lamented by Gookin, as in his Hist. Coll. may be read. He sailed from Boston the same day in another ship for London.

All the known details of his life are related in volume 1, PP.127-30 et seq. Married his step-mother's daughter.
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5. Thomas Mayhew, Jr., born in 1620 or 1621 in Southampton, co. Hampshire, England. He died February 2, 1688,
in Edgartown, Dukes County, MA. According to one report, he died while on board a ship called "The Garrett", and
was lost at sea. According to Torrey, he died in 1657. See below for Akers account of his death. He was the first
missionary bishop of Martha's Vineyard. After his death his father became the second missionary bishop. He came to
America in 1631 according to Who Was. He was the Governor, as was his father was after his death, of Martha's
Vineyard, Nantucket, and Elizabeth Islands and a missionary to those regions. He was the pastor of the Edgartown
Church. He converted the Indians of the islands to Christianity, opening and Indian school in 1652. According to Who
Was, he died at sea in 1657.

According to Charles W. Akers, "Called Unto Liberty, A Life of Jonathan Mayhew, " written in 1964, the definitive
work on the life of Jonathan Mayhew:

"Thomas Mayhew, a merchant originally from Tisbury Parish in Wiltshire, left England in 1631 during the Great
Migration that brought 20,000 persons to Massachusetts in thirteen years. While engaged in business ventures in
the vicinity of Boston, he acquired the title in 1641 to Martha's Vineyard, an island of one hundred square miles
located four miles south of Cape Cod. The following year he sent his only son, Thomas Mayhew, Jr., to assume
control of the island, where, after some business setbacks, the father joined the son."

"Through a maze of conflicting land grants, changing political allegiances, and settler unrest, Thomas Mayhew,
self-styled--"Governour Mayhew"--ruled his island with an iron hand for forty years. The most serious threat to
his control came in 1665 when Martha's Vineyard was included in the lands placed under the Duke of York. After
much delay a settlement, worked out in 1671, confirmed the Mayhew patent and named Thomas Mayhew
"Governour and Chiefe Magistrate" for life. At the same time a patent was issued erecting the Manor of Tisbury
in the southwestern part of the island. The Governour and his grandson were made "joint Lords of the Manor of
Tisbury," and the inhabitants became manorial tenants subject to the feudal political jurisdiction of the Mayhews.
This full-fledged feudal manor appears to have been the only such institution actually established in New
England."

"The attempt of the Mayhews to create a hereditary aristocracy on the Vineyard met with increasing opposition
as more and more colonists arrived. When the Dutch temporarily recaptured New York in 1673, open rebellion
broke out and lasted until the English rewon New York and restored the authority of the Mayhews on the island.
The old patriarch died in 1682 at eight-nine. Nine years later the political rule of the family ended when Martha's
Vineyard was annexed by Massachusetts after the Glorious Revolution, but the problem of manorial tenancy
remained. Although some of the Mayhews clung to the "pleasant fiction" of their manorial rights almost until the
American Revolution and received token quit rents as late as 1732, feudalism on Martha's Vineyard died the same
slow, lingering but certain death it did elsewhere in the colonies."

"Kenneth Scott Latourette has concluded that the Missionary Mayhews of Martha's Vineyard represent what is
likely the longest and most persistent missionary endeavor in the annals of all Christendom. Thomas Mayhew,
known for his missionary work, was not concerned for Indian souls when he settled on his island; he sought only to
improve his social and economic position. The son rather than the father receives credit for launching the Indian
mission. Thomas Mayhew, Jr., had emigrated from England with the elder Mayhew. Somewhere he received a
liberal education, apparently from private tutors. After moving to the Vineyard to begin the white settlement
there, he became pastor of the small English church as well as the acting governor in his father's absence. He soon
discovered that he could not refuse the challenge he found among the three thousand Pokanaukets, a branch of the
mainland Narragansetts, far outnumbered the whites, so an effective settlement required friendly relations with
the Indians. But Thomas Mayhew, Jr., appears to have been motivated largely by spiritual concern, while his
father and other members of the family enjoyed the practical results of the Indian mission. The younger man
gradually abandoned most of his secular tasks and spent the remainder of his life among the natives. Progress was
slow at first, but by the end of 1652 there were 283 converts, a school for Indian children, and two Indian meetings
each Sabbath. The Praying Indians of Martha's Vineyard who said grace before meals became a topic of
conversation on both sides of the Atlantic. Thomas Mayhew, Jr., carried on his missionary work with little heed to
his personal fortunes. As the elder Mayhew put it, his son had followed this work "when 'twas bare with him for
food and rayment, and when indeede there was nothing in sight any waies but Gods promises." The situation was
improved somewhat by the formation in 1649 of a London missionary society, usually called the New England
Company, which in a few years began to provide substantial aid for the Mayhews and other missionaries."

"In the fall of 1657, Thomas Mayhew, Jr., sailed for England on a trip combining an appeal for missionary funds
with personal business. After leaving Boston Harbor, the ship was never seen again. The death of his only son at
thirty-six was a heavy blow to the father and greatly increased the burdens he carried in old age. He made
repeated efforts to find a replacement to continue his son's ministry to the Indians, but no minister who knew the
language or was willing to learn could be induced to settle permanently on the island. So Thomas Mayhew, who
started as a merchant, then turned landed proprietor, became at age sixty a missionary in his son's place. For the
next twenty-five years he traveled on foot as far as twenty miles to preach once a week at the Indian assembly or
to visit the native camps."

"From the beginning the elder Mayhew had worked to preserve the original political institutions of the Indians.
Religion and government are distinct matters, he told the Indian chiefs. When one of your subjects becomes a
Christian, he is still under your jurisdiction. Indian land was guarded against further encroachment by white
settlers. So successful were these policies that during the bloody battles of King Philip's War, in 1675-1676, the
Vineyard Indians never stirred, although they outnumbered the English on the island twenty to one. By practicing
as well as preaching the gospel and by understanding the value of the native institutions, the Mayhews gave
Martha's Vineyard a felicitious pattern of Indian-White relations seldom duplicated in the conquest of the North
American continent."

"When the venerable Governor Mayhew became ill one Sunday evening in 1682, he calmly informed his friends
and relatives that `his Sickness would now be to Death, and he was well contented therewith, being full of Days,
and satisfied with Life.' His great-grandson, Experience Mayhew, Jonathan's father, was only eight at the time,
but he remembered clearly being led to the bedside to receive from the dying man a blessing `in the Name of the
Lord.' Family leadership then passed to the three grandsons, two of whom deserted the mission, leaving John, the
youngest grandson and grandfather of Jonathan, to care for Indian souls. John possessed all the zeal and aptitude
for missions exhibited by his father, Thomas Mayhew, Jr., but like his father died in the prime of his life, only
seven years after Governor Mayhew. At John's death in 1689, the Indian mission had reached its summit. Four or
five Indian congregations met for worship each week under ministers of their own race. Never again would the
outlook be so bright."

"John left behind a family of eight children, the eldest of whom was Experience Mayhew, age sixteen.

Birth	1618
Birth	1620 - 1	England
Birth	1620	Tisbury, Wiltshire, England
Birth	Abt 1620	England
Birth	1620	Tisbury, Wiltshire, England
Removed	1642	Marthas Vineyard, British America
Marriage	Abt 1647	Dukes, Massachusetts Bay, British America - Jane [wife of Thomas Mayhew] [UNKNOWN]
Marriage	Bef 1648	Jane [wife of Thomas Mayhew] [UNKNOWN]
Religion	1651 - 1657	was pastor - Congregational Church, Tisbury, Dukes, Massachusetts Bay, British America
Death	Nov 1657	at sea on voyage to England
Death	Nov 1657
Alt name		Thomas MAYHEW (Rev)
Residence		Medford, Middlesex, Massachusetts Bay, British America
Residence		Watertown, Massachusetts, British North America

Spouse	Jane [wife of Thomas Mayhew] [UNKNOWN] (1625 - 1670)
Child	Matthew MAYHEW (1648 - 1710)
Child	Thomas MAYHEW (1650 - )
Child	John MAYHEW (1652 - )
Child	Jerusha MAYHEW (1654 - )
Child	Jedidah MAYHEW (1656 - )

Father	Gov. Thomas MAYHEW (1593 - 1682)
Mother	Abigail "Anna" PARKHURST (1600 - 1634)

Father	Gov. Thomas MAYHEW (1593 - 1682)
Mother	Abigail PARKUS ( - )

Notes