Throwback Thursday: Who Is George Maxton?
A Recurring Name in our Records and Research Leads Us on a Journey of Discovery
Setting the Scene
As we were doing research to better understand what Yellow Springs was like during (and just prior to) the American Revolutionary War, we came across the name “George Maxton” a number of times. We were intrigued, especially since we had seen that name at least once in our records and on our property timeline, and reconstructing who owned what land has been important for us in determining more about the nebulous early spa era of Yellow Springs. Doing a bit of research online, we found a Find-A-Grave posting for a George Maxton, whose son was a blacksmith, but he was born far too late to be the same George Maxton that shows up in newspaper clippings from before the Revolutionary War.
Entering the Rabbit Hole
The George Maxton born in 1816 left behind very little documentation. However, a Find-A-Grave entry for his son, William Maxton, offers an important clue. William, born in 1852, worked as a blacksmith in Marshallton, Chester County. His profession suggests that the Maxton family remained in Chester County for generations. During this period, trade skills often passed from father to son. While the evidence remains circumstantial, we can tentatively hypothesize that George Maxton may have also worked as a blacksmith.
The Find-A-Grave trail ends with George Maxton (b. 1816) and his wife, Ruth B. Nichols Maxton, who was born in 1829. Even so, this information provided a starting point for further research. By building a family tree on Ancestry.com, it became possible to connect existing records and draw upon the work of other researchers. That process identified this George Maxton’s parents as William Maxton and Elizabeth Lewis.
As a side note, the Lewis surname immediately stood out to us. During the Civil War era, Yellow Springs housed a Soldiers’ Orphan School. Its first and only female principal, Mrs. Eleanor “Ellen” Bechtel Moore, was raised by her aunts, the Kimberton Lewis sisters- renowned abolitionists and feminists who played important roles in the Underground Railroad. It remains unclear whether Elizabeth Lewis belonged to the same extended family that would eventually include Graceanna Lewis and her sisters. However, since both families lived in Chester County, the possibility is worth noting here for future investigation.
Continuing backward through the Maxton family line revealed that William Maxton, born before 1785, was the son of a man named George Maxton and a woman named Ann. Little is known about Ann. This George Maxton, however, was born in June 1743. He would have been the grandfather of George Maxton (b. 1816) and is also recorded as living in Chester County. George Maxton’s 1743 birth date places him at the right age to be the same George Maxton who appears in newspaper references from the years just before the Revolutionary War.
This George Maxton
We then turned to Newspapers.com, a helpful website archiving a number of newspapers that were published as far back as the early 1700s. Using this process, we found several mentions of George Maxton- which is actually what made us interested to look into him in the first place when we doing research on another topic.
Our earliest mention of him occurs on December 3, 1767, in the newspaper The Pennsylvania Gazette. This post advertises a message from George Maxton of Yellow Springs, seeking the capture and return of an indentured servant, an Irishman named Thomas Haggerty, who ran away from Maxton on November 25.
Also in The Pennsylvania Gazette on July 20, 1769, a George Maxton of Chester County is informed that he has letters waiting for him at the post office in Philadelphia. He is mentioned alongside a man named John McClifh, who is noted to be of Yellow Springs. However, Maxton’s residence here is listed simply as “Chester County,” so we cannot know for certain whether he was near what would be considered Yellow Springs proper or whether he moved there after this time and was based elsewhere in the county. The 1767 clipping above demonstrates that George himself identified as a resident of Yellow Springs. Based on that, we can tentatively conclude that he was likely living in or near the village. At the time, the actual plantation that was Yellow Springs may have been what was considered “Yellow Springs” proper. Alternatively, he could have moved around, though this is less likely.
Again featured in The Pennsylvania Gazette, on March 1, 1770, George Maxton is referenced in the public sale of the Yellow Springs plantation, previously held by Philadelphia silversmith John Bayly. This advertisement indicates that George Maxton is the current tenant of the saw mill on the property.
By June 7, 1770, The Pennsylvania Gazette continues to advertise the sale of the Yellow Springs plantation, but the place where bidding for the plantation would occur has been moved from Philadelphia to Maxton’s house in Yellow Springs. This confirms that George Maxton had a house in the village, or possibly even on the plantation itself, though the exact placement of his home is unclear. This advertisement continued to be posted in The Pennsylvania Gazette until March 14, 1771, when it was also published in another newspaper, the Pennsylvania Journal, or Weekly Advertiser.
After this, though, Maxton’s name does not appear in papers until 1815, when he is mentioned in the newspaper the Record, under a section called ‘The Chester and Delaware Federalist’. Notably, records of Maxton during the Revolutionary war are missing.
Here, a man named Richard Jones is given a reward for bringing in George Maxton. This seems to be associated with the Directors of the Poor of Chester County, but it is unclear if Maxton is being assisted here or is receiving orders from the organization on how to best assist others. It is worth noting here that by 1815, having being born in 1743, Maxton would have been a very old man for the time.
We know this cannot be his grandson, George Maxton (b. 1816), because he was born in 1816, one year later— and even if that date is a bit fuzzy in the records, an infant would not be receiving orders from the Directors of the Poor of Chester County.
To discover what this means for Maxton’s life, we have to compare these clippings with other sources to fill in the gaps.
Following More Tunnels
We then turned to the Chester County archives, who have a wonderful collection of digitized records from as far back as the early 1700s. For the records that have not yet been digitized, they have an extensive and well-put-together series of indexes describing what can be found in their records. Helpfully for us, these indexes can be searched by surname.
In the indexes of Tax Discounts from 1785-1865, we found a George Maxton mentioned several times. Also indicating that we are correct that this is the same George Maxton that we have been tracking is the inclusion of a James Maxton, of the same county, who in 1791 is underage. George and Ann Maxton had a son named James, who was born in or around 1771.
In late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Pennsylvania, being “of age” in a legal sense meant that a young man had reached at least 21 years of age. Borrowed from English common law, this “age of majority” granted men full legal capacity to buy and sell land, vote, marry without parental consent, and sue or be sued in their own names.
If we assume that the estimated birth date for James Maxton is roughly accurate, we must also acknowledge an important caveat: the source for that date is based on crowdsourced genealogical records. Even so, this estimate would place James at 20 years old in 1791, one year short of the age of majority. The contemporary records from this period are primary sources and can therefore be considered more reliable. Based on these records, the oldest James could have been in 1791 is 20 years old, meaning he could not have been born earlier than 1771. Had he been born before that year, he would have reached the age of majority and would not have qualified for a tax exemption. With this established, we can reasonably conclude that this is the same George Maxton and his son James whom we have been tracking.
Interestingly, we can see that from at least 1786, George Maxton is listed as “poor”, an he is noted as living in East Caln Township, not Pikeland where Yellow Springs was located during this time. By 1791-1800, the Maxton family seems to have moved to West Caln, but notably, George himself is listed as “gone” in both 1800 and 1801.
Going back to our searching through Ancestry.com, we would like to note that the reconstructed U.S. Census that they created for reference mentions that Maxton was indeed in Pikeland in 1770, where he is listed as an Innholder.
This is an interesting lead, but we must take it with a grain of salt. Not only is it a source that is neither a primary source nor an index of a primary source, but it is also from a reconstructed census, the details of which we are not privy to. We do not know how this census was compiled or where the information was sourced from, so we must keep it in mind, but do so cautiously.
Turning back to the Chester County Archives records indexes, we found George Maxton mentioned in the admissions to the poor house in 1815, at the age of 69 years old.
This means that the article published in the Record in 1815 that mentions George Maxton is definitely referencing Maxton being brought into the poor house. Why someone is being given a reward for bringing him to be admitted is currently unclear, and we will have to do additional research on the poor house in Chester County to determine why this may occurred.
Back to Maxton himself, though, we can now conclude that no matter who he was or what he was doing in Yellow Springs during the Colonial Era and the Revolutionary War, he seems more likely than not to have become destitute and ended his life in the local poor house.
To understand why that happened, we took to scouring the Chester County archives digital records and indexes for any combination of the names George and Maxton. Using this process, we found several leads. The first of which can be found in the Chester County Archives index for the Pennsylvania Septennial Census Returns 1793-1856, in Index M.
This index shows us George Maxton as a laborer in 1807, and also sheds a bit of light on who James Maxton became. The census return we see summarized here also explains why George Maxton was not in either West or East Caln in the earlier index, since he seems to have moved to West Bradford by 1807. This is before he was taken in to the poor house, but this movement seems to indicate that he’s potentially met with some difficulties that made him move.
Most intriguingly for us at Yellow Springs, we found him mentioned in the tavern petitions for Chester County. During this time, to run a tavern or a public house (where our word for ‘pub’ comes from), tavernkeepers and the like would have to apply for a license. A mark of “A” in this index indicates that the application was allowed, and “D” meant that it was disallowed. Tavern licenses had to be renewed each year. This allows us a fantastic glimpse into what the tavern at Yellow Springs- now part of the Washington Building and known as the Brick Room in the modern day- was like in the past because we can tell when (and to who) it changed hands. As far as our research has shown, there was only ever one tavern locate at Yellow Springs.
This confirms that while he was at Yellow Springs, George Maxton was the tavernkeeper here for a significant period of time. While he was advertising that his indentured servant, Thomas Haggerty, had run away in 1767, he would have been maintaining the tavern at Yellow Springs for about two years. However, by 1772, Maxton was applying to run a tavern in West Nantmeal Township, also in Chester County. However, West Nantmeal is not is not one of the neighboring townships of Yellow Springs and, thus, must have been another tavern. This means that 1771 was his last year operating the tavern at Yellow Springs, and something must have happened that caused that tenancy to end.
What Happened to George?
By piecing together this research and what we know about the timeline of the Washington Building at Yellow Springs, we can create a more nuanced understanding of the events surrounding George Maxton while he was the tavernkeeper here.
We know that on September 6, 1764, Philadelphia silversmith John Bayly acquired the village of Yellow Springs and began leasing the property. After acquiring the village, Bayly improved and enlarged the tavern and placed an advertisement in The Pennsylvania Gazette seeking a tenant to operate it. George Maxton became that tenant, with his first year as tavernkeeper beginning in 1765.
For the next several years, Maxton operated the tavern at Yellow Springs. On March 1, 1770, The Pennsylvania Gazette announced that the entire Yellow Springs Plantation was to be sold on March 21 of that year. However, a notice published in The Pennsylvania Journal on May 31, 1770, stated that the plantation would instead be sold on June 30, creating a discrepancy between the two advertisements. The later notice also confirms that Maxton was living at Yellow Springs at the time.
Maxton’s connection to the property continued into the following year. On March 14, 1771, The Pennsylvania Gazette advertised that the Yellow Springs Plantation would be sold on April 6 at the house of George Maxton in Yellow Springs, further confirming his role as the village’s tavernkeeper. Evidence suggests that Maxton continued operating the tavern through 1771 before either leaving voluntarily or being replaced. By 1772, he had applied to operate a different tavern in West Nantmeal Township, Chester County, although his application was ultimately denied.
On February 27, 1772, Dr. Samuel Kennedy and John Bayly jointly advertised for a tenant at a house (either the tavern or the main house, at this point we are not sure) in Yellow Springs.
This notice predates our earliest records documenting Kennedy’s purchase of the property and may indicate that the Kennedy family acquired Yellow Springs before 1774. Notably, Bayly remained connected to Yellow Springs at this time despite reports that most of his interests had been sold at a sheriff’s sale in 1771. This demonstrates that Dr. Kennedy and John Bayly had a connection to each other and that they had control over the Yellow Springs property after Maxton is removed. We know that later, Kennedy would hire a man named Samuel Culbertson as the tavernkeeper, replacing Maxton’s role here.
After Yellow Springs and the brief attempt in West Nantmeal, Maxton and his family first show up in 1786 in East Caln township. George Maxton is too poor by this point to be taxed completely. Finally, he ends up virtually destitute in the poor house.
While later property records indicate that his son would go on to own land of his own and George Maxton would have a lineage of skilled laborers that followed him, the unfortunate truth is that it seems that something happened to George after Yellow Springs that left him without many prospects.
Unfortunately, we do not know what that event was. It could have been the Revolutionary War itself, or it could have been something as simple as the property changing hands.
To Us, Today
When we look back at George Maxton and the missing pieces that we have about the context of his life, it is important to remember the ‘small’ people in history whom we can overlook. We knew the name of George Maxton and that, potentially, he was one of the tavern keepers at Yellow Springs, but the fact that he ended up in the poorhouse was not something we knew prior to diving deeper into his story.
His presence at the attempted sale of Bayly’s plantation during 1770 and 1771 could hint at a potential conspiracy to sell Bayly’s property, it could hint that Bayly was not the most reputable employer, or it could simply signify that there was bad blood between the two men. At any rate, the fact that Maxton was present at the sales (and that his home was even the place where the auctions were opened to the public) makes his stance on the issue clear.
Maxton seems to have sided against Bayly and supported the sale of the land, an action that may have cost him his employment in the following years. We cannot know why this happened or what happened to him in the immediate aftermath, but from what we can see from surviving records, it seems that Bayly and Dr. Kennedy—the next owner of the Yellow Springs plantation—were on good enough terms that they took out an ad in the newspaper together.
Dr. Kennedy would hire Samuel Culbertson to take care of the tavern, and Maxton would be denied his petition to open a tavern in another township. Eventually, he would find himself destitute. It would seem that the winner, so to speak, in this scenario was clear. At least in that moment- as we know that Dr. Kennedy himself would meet his own fate due to his treatment of the sick at Washington Hall (the hospital he built at Yellow Springs during the war), and that Samuel Culbertson would be captured and become very ill during the Revolutionary War- and it seems that he died while receiving care at Washington Hall as well. The ends of these men’s lives hardly seem like victories either. Even though he was too poor to be taxed, Maxton outlived them at the end of the day.
People may say that history is told by the victors, but in reality it is more of an ebb and flow between highpoints and low points in the lives of individuals who live real, rich lives. We cannot know exactly what happened to George Maxton, nor who he really was as a person. But what we can do is remember his personhood- and try, little by little, to unwravel the mystery of Yellow Springs one person at a time.
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See more online at: Historic Yellow Springs
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Copyright Disclaimer: Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for ‘fair use’ for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. All materials sourced from sources indicated throughout this post are referenced for the purposes of education for reference purposes.
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