Submitted by Pat Wilkey Gilstap
Excerpts:
from Introduction:
"Some Maxeys have sustained a tradition that their forebears
were Huguenots;
but that belief is incorrect. Early Maxeys did, however, marry into
many of
the French refugee families who settled in Manakin Town, west of Richmond,
about 1700, on land granted to them by the English king. Some of
those
Huguenot spouses were Bondurants, Chastains, Sallees, Agees, Subletts
and
Fords. The Maxey name is no longer acceptable for membership into
the
Huguenot Society.
To be
sure, there is a town of Maxey in France. But the first person by
that
name in England was said to have been Organ Maxey of Cheshire, who was
probably there by the 11th century. There is also an ancient town of Maxey
in
the county of Northamptonshire, England. According to The History and
Antiquities of the County of Essex by Philip Morant, published in London
in
1816, the Maxeys of Saling and Bradwell Halls in Essex County, England,
from
the 15th to the 18th centuries were descended from the family originally
of
Cheshire and of the Maxey castle (no longer standing) in the county of
Northhamptonshire. There were also Maxeys in East Anglia, Suffolk,
Lincolnshire and London.
We
have not discovered where our progenitor, Edward Maxey, was born or when
he arrived in this country; but he was definitely English-speaking and
probably came from the British Isles. The earliest record that has been
located for Edward is dated 1720, in Henrico County, Virginia. However,
some
of Henrico's earlier records are missing. Edward may have moved
inland to
that county, but many of the early records of the Virginia coastal counties
also have been destroyed.
An Alexander
Maxcy (not of the lines in this book) came to America in 1659,
settling in Massachusetts -- first in Wrentham, then Gloucester and finally
in
Attleboro. He and his wife, Abigail had a large family. A great-grandson,
Jonathan Maxcy, was the second president of Rhode Island College. (now
Brown
University) from 1792 to 1802 and then became the first president
of South
Carolina College (now the University of South Carolina) in Columbia from
1804
until his death in 1820 in his 52nd year. Other unconnected lines
were
discovered in South Carolina, northern Florida (Robert Clarke Maxey) and
Sabine Parish, Louisiana. Several Maxey families from Ireland settled
in
Illinois, Missouri and Wisconsin in the 1840s, and a Patrick Maxcy, born
1783
in Clonmel, County Tipperary, Ireland, was buried in 1849 in an old cemetery
in Louisville, Ky. (Some say that the Maxey name was a derivation of the
O'McKessessy Clan of County Limerick in Ireland.) There was also a William
Maxey who came with his family in 1832 from Wales and settled in Carbondale,
Luzerne County, Pennsylvania. One of his grandsons, who moved to Gallatin
Co.,
Montana, after the Civil War, was the owner of the Maxey Mines in Bozeman.
None of the above have been linked to Edward and Susannah.
