HARVARD UNIVERSITY ARCHIVES
CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS 02138
June 5, 1998
Dear Mr. Milam:
I am writing in response to your query about John Maylem, A.B. 1715. Enclosed are photocopies of his general biographical folder and his entry in Lives of the Harvard Graduates, vol. VI, 1713-1721. Unfortunately, this is the extent of material relating to him held by the University Archives.
Records in the University Archives do not indicate that John Maylem, Jr. attended or was graduated from Harvard nor does Harvard's online catalog (HOLLIS) indicate that his papers are held by the University. Your local librarian, however, should be able to conduct a search of the National Union Catalog of Manuscripts (NUCMC) on your behalf, which may identify the location of this material.
I hope this information will be useful to you.
Brian A. Sullivan
Archival Associate for Reference
*************************************************************
SIBLEY'S HARVARD GRADUATES
VOLUME VI * 1713-1721
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES OF THOSE WHO ATTENDED
HARVARD COLLEGE
IN THE
CLASSES 1713-1721
WITH BIBLIOGRAPHICAL AND OTHER NOTES
By CLIFFORD K. SHIPTON
MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL
SOCIETY
Boston, Massachusetts
1942
Pg 96:
JOHN MAYLEM, whose chief claim to fame is being the father of the poet, was born in Boston on January 14, 1694/5, and baptized at the Old South a week later. His father, Joseph, described himself as a bricklayer and "kept a house of private entertainment" on School Street, besides being a pious and liberal supporter of the Old South. John's mother, Hannah King, died early, and he was brought up by a stepmother, Keziah Brackett, to whose kindness he testified by naming two of his children Keziah and Brackett.
At Harvard John asked to room with Benjamin Bass, and lived quietly except for participation in the general unrest of senior year. He returned to Cambridge at Commencement, 1717, hired a study, and remained in residence until the next Commencement, when he qualified for the second degree by offering a negative answer to the Quaestio, "An decretum Dei tollit Libertatem Creaturae?"
Pg 97:
Maylem went to Newport, set up as a merchant, and married Ann, probably nee Dehane,
before 1721.(1) In 1722 he described himself as "of Boston," and on April
7, 1729, as "of Newport."(2) Later in the same year he was preaching at
Nottingham, New Hampshire, where he had bought a proprietor's right, and where his
father had acquired property through his second wife, a Rye woman. For four years
the Nottingham proprietors annually voted to "treat and agree with Mr. Malam upon his
continuance and Settlement in the ministry," although part of the time he appears
to have been at Exeter.
Joseph Maylem died early in 1733, leaving John a half share in the double house on School Street.(3) John returned to Boston and several times in the next seven years tried to get the General Court to break the entail on the property. He bought more land on School and Washington streets, attended the Old South, and engaged with Jeremiah Chubbuck (A.B. 1725) of Hingham for large quantities of firewood, timber, and hay.(4) When the town chose him constable in 1736, he paid a fine rather than accept the menial office, and he showed either a great historical interest or a desire to gain public attention by an unusually liberal subscription to the Chronological Hiscary of Thomas Prince (A.B. I707). He did gain some notice when his Negro servant, Dina, married Cato, the Negro servant of Governor Belcher, and again, early in 1739, when "John Maylem of said Boston, Gent.," was indicted for "Selling strong drink without Licence in small Quantjtys as Rum Spirits & Orange Water by the pint half pint & Gill."(5) The town fathers promptly made him an honest man by approving him as an innholder; but early in the next year he was back in Newport, where he was admitted a freeman of the colony.(6)
In Newport, Maylem went into the distilling business with one Jonathan Diamond or Dimon. There he died "very sud-
1 Lawrence C. Wroth, in Publ. Col. Soc.
Mass. xxxII, 90.
2 Early Files in the Office of the Clerk of the Supreme Court of Suffolk County,
22,662.
3 Suffolk Probate Records, xxxI, 279-81.
4 Suffolk Files, 42,985.
5 Ibid.,48,294. His Boston affairs are, however, inextricably entangled with
those the John Maylem of Boston who died on June 11, 1747, and to whom some of the
statements may refer. See R. T. Paine, Diary (Mass. Hist. Soc.), June 11, 1747; Paine Mss.
(ibid.), 1, 55, 85.
6 Records of the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations (Providence
1856-65), iv, 57I.
Pg 98:
denly" on March 13, 1742, leaving "a sorrowful Widow, three Daughters and one Son." (7) Ann Maylem found the business in legal difficulties, hired James Otis as attorney, and spread much of the family history upon the court records. (8)
7 Boston Nws-Lrlra, Mar. 25, 1742. For the
children, see Wroth, p. 91.
8 Boston Weekly Post-Boy, May 24, 1742, P· 4; Suffolk _Files, 169,336, 169,641; Wroth,
pp. 93-4.