[13]. 1636, O. S.
[14]. The trial of Wheelwright was in progress when Gorton arrived.
[15]. Under date of June 7, 1637, his name appears on the roll of a company of volunteers from Plymouth to aid Massachusetts in the Pequot war. He probably saw no service.
[16]. An early tradition, the origin of which I have not been able to trace, gives the name of Gorton’s wife as Elizabeth. In the New England Historical and Genealogical Register, (Vol. XLIV) however, there is a record of the bequest of Mary Mayplett, of London, widow, on Dec. 7, 1646, to her daughter, “Mary Gorton, wife of Samuell Gorton, being in New England,” of “all the money which her said husband Samuell doth owe me, and a breed of cattle which he hath of mine.” In a later volume (XLVI), there is a record of the will of “John Maplett, Doctor of Physicke, of the city of Bath, Somerset,” dated April 16, 1670, which contains the following clause: “I give and bequeath unto my dear sister, Mistress Mary Gorton, of New England, the sum of 20s., and to each of her children I give the sum of 10s. apiece.” Dr. John Maplett, the brother-in-law of Samuell Gorton, was eminent in letters as well as in medicine, having been for a time the Principal of Worcester College. (Vide Stevens’s Cyc. of Nat. Biography.) Samuell Gorton’s oldest child was a daughter named Mary, probably for her mother. His youngest daughter was named Elizabeth, but the late date of Dr. Maplett’s bequest to his sister Mary precludes the idea of a second marriage. There appear to have been at least two instances in the later history of the Gorton family of marriages between Samuells and Elizabeths, and it is probably from this that the confusion has arisen. I am indebted to Mr. Adelos Gorton, of Philadelphia, for important facts bearing on this question.
[17]. Winslow afterwards vaguely accused her of “having made some unworthy speeches and carriages.” (“Hypocrisy Unmasked”).
[18]. For an account of Gorton’s trial see Plymouth Colony Records, Vol. I, pp. 100, 105, under date “5 Nov. 1638.”
[19]. Vide Portsmouth Records, under date “Aprill the 30th, 1639.”
[20]. April 28, 1639, William Coddington was Governor, under the Royal Charter, from May, 1674, to May, 1676, and from Aug. 28, 1678, to Nov. 1 of the same year, dying in office.
[21]. March 12, 1640.
[22]. He is said to have characterized the magistrates as “just asses,” and to have called one of the witnesses a “jack-an-apes.” (See charges in Portsmouth Records). This occurred in August, 1640.