By Kate Tobiasson // History Columnist
WESTBOROUGH – Descendants of the Puritanical founding fathers of Westborough could be lumped into two different groups; those who believed in stern, hard living, and those who valued community, generosity and service. Stephen Maynard was unquestionably a member of the latter group.
Captain John Maynard, father of Stephen, was one of the original named settlers of Westborough. A wealthy man, John’s farm stretched across a number of acres. Stephen’s mother, Hepsibath Brigham, was the daughter of a wealthy tanner in Marlborough. Ebenezer Parkman, the first minister of Westborough, described John and Hepsibath Maynard as “the salt of the earth… Hepsibath (was) a woman of remarkable diligence and skill in family affairs and very compassionate and bountiful to the poor. A very serviceable person in our neighborhood.”
An only child, Stephen was by all accounts, a good-looking and charming young man. A leader of all sports in the village as a child, he married for love in 1747 at the age of 27. Rather than continuing to live with his well-to-do parents, Stephen and his wife, Thankful, moved into a small one-story cottage down the road. The couple had nine children before Thankful passed away in the summer of 1756. Only four of their children were still living at the time of her passing.
Stephen committed himself to the military following Thankful’s passing. Serving in multiple battles in the French and Indian War, including Crown Point and Ticonderoga, Stephen found success in the military, quickly rising to captain. Upon his return from the front, the townsfolk were aflutter with gossip; Stephen’s time in the service only helped to improve his good looks and character; he was viewed by the ladies in town as Westborough’s most eligible bachelor.
It was only three days after his return that he married Anna Brigham in January of 1759. After their hurried nuptials, Captain Stephen Maynard returned to the front, often visiting home until the surrender of Canada to the British in 1763; the couple had five children throughout their marriage.
After his return to Westborough in 1763, Stephen began to take on many roles and offices in Westborough politics. He served as selectman, Indian Trustee, and was known to all in town as a generous man. He worked to perpetuate his parents’ legacy of generosity; presents of meat, packages of drink and other sundries were often left at the parsonage in town. At one time, he even endeavored to straighten one of the roads in town, footing the bill and managing the project himself.
For the rest of his life, Stephen Maynard worked to “do more.” It was said that if his neighbors sent a load of wood to the parsonage, he would send three. When Billy Parkman forgot his checkered shirt in a campaign, Stephen packed them with his own belongings and delivered them to the boy.
Although not known to be one who worked for his own comforts, Stephen endeavored to build his family what was to be known as one of the grandest houses in town in 1770. The oak was said to have been brought in from England; the house continued to stand in grandeur until 1891.Unfortunately, Stephen’s timing for building a home of esteem couldn’t have been worse. With the Revolutionary War, and the years following, trade was difficult; inflation was tremendous, and Stephen had no trade to offer the community. Like many of his status, Stephen Maynard fell into tremendous debt. He took out two considerable mortgages on his homestead, and his other properties were sold off. He had also squandered $27,000 (about $621,000 in today’s dollars) of money he was holding in trust for the local indigenous peoples, a crime for which he was charged, prosecuted, and jailed.
Upon his release from jail, Stephen Maynard gave what little he had left to some of his children. He deeded his pews in the meeting house to his two sons, and packed his few belongings. Stephen Maynard was said to have taken to the road with his wife, and possibly a few other family members; little was said in town about their quiet, shameful departure. There stands no record of his death, nor marker to his grave.
