Private User says of Thomas Mudge, of Malden
Thomas was in Malden, Mass., in October, 1657, and had probably lived there several years before that time. Jarvis, whom we presume to have been his brother (although we can find no positive evidence to connect them), was in Boston, Dec. 4, 1638. We also have records of Gilbert Mudge in Essex Courts, Oct. 8, 1664. All three probably came from Devonshire, England; sailed from Plymouth, a seaport town from which many of our early settlers emigrated.
The first record we have of Thomas in this country is the following, when Thomas and his wife Mary are witnesses in a case of assault in Malden, Middlesex Co., Mass.:-- Oct. 6, 1657.
"The Presentments of the Grand Jury met at Cambridge the 6:8:1657. James Barret for prophaning the Sabbath, and Assault of Geo. Knower. Witness, Tho. Mudge and his wife, & others."--Middlesex Court Files, fold 40.
Again, Dec. 28, 1658, he and his wife Marie (Mary) are again witnesses in another case. We give the extract, as it goes to establish their ages:
"The Presentments of the Grand Jury at the County Court at Charlestown, the 28th of the 10th 1658. Malden. Henry Swenaway, Servant to John Bunker is presented for abusing his late master Peter Tufts and his dame in blose and words. Witness, Thomas Mudge and his wife & others."
"The testimonie of Thos. Mudg aged about thirtie foure, saith that Peter Turfs wiffe came too me and desired to com to her house: that I might.....and see the carage of ther mans to her husband: and I se his man strike his master upon the brest with his hand."
"The Testimonie of Marie Mudg aged about thirtie afermeth that she being at Goodman Torfs of an arand: Gudie Torfe and she hereing the Dine in the yard, we went out of the dore, and his man had got vp a great stone and held it vp to thro at his master, as I conseved, but when he se me he threwe it doune; I further Testifie I herd him cal his master base Rouge.
Sworne in Courte 6 (8) '59: as attests Tho : Danforth : R." [October 6, 1659]--ibid 1659, fold 4.
We now add a few extracts from the same records to show the identity of some of Thomas's children, their ages, etc. The first case is where Thomas Mudge, jr., and John Martin (who afterwards married Mary, his sister,) were witnesses in a case of assault: Samuel Sprague vs. Thomas Shepard. Sept. 30, 1667.
Copied from fold 6, file of 1668, Middlesex Co.
"30 of September: I Thomas Mudge, Aged : 15 : years ore thereabouts doe testify : That Beeing with John Martin in the euening betwixt our house & good Thomas : Shepherds : I : did heare : Thomas Shepherd : threaten Samuell : Sprague : & said unto him that nature would Beare noe Longer : & the aforesaid Shepherd Reuiled Samuell Sprague : & said Thou art a bays villaine : & then John Martin & I : drew neerer unto them in the high ways : & : then :I : heard the aforesaid Shepherd say:unto Samuell Sprague:strike: & the aforesaid Sprague said : I : will not strike for this is not the waye to end the difference : then I was soe neere as to see them both : & I did heare Thomas Shepherd : strike Samuell : Sprague two blows then Samuell Sprague said what dost thou meane to playe the foole : I : am Resolved : I : will : not strike : Then the aforesaid Shepherd : said : my Spirit Rises Against you where ever : I : see you : & when ever I meete with you : I : shall : Remember : you : & : further this Deponent saith not:"
"30 of : September, 67. I : John Martin : Aged 22 : years or thereabouts doe testifye that going with my : master Samuell Sprague in the euening : to drive : his cattell in to the common feild the 30 : of : September : 67 : as my master came Back in the high Waye Thomas : Shepperd met : him & : soe theye ffell into Discourse : I was at the time : behind som ten or twelue poles : Talking with Thomas Mudg Junior I heard Thomas Shepheard : bid my : master : put up his knife : & ffor he would beare no Longer my master said as soon as he had don his apple he would : & further said that was not the waye : to end the difference : for wee : then drew nearer : & stood soe as we would see them : then Thomas Shepherd : bid my : master strike ; my master said he would not. Then Shepherd Reuiled my master & said thou art a bays uilliane with other Reuiling Speaches provoking my master to strike : Then he strucke my master two blows which I saw whereupon my master said what dost thou mean to play the foole ; I am Resolued I will not strike The afforesaid Shepherd held on still threatning & said when euer I see you mye spirit Rises at you & whereuer I meet with you I shall Remember you with many other wordes theye ended my master not striking him at all & further this deponent saith not
I Samuell Sprague Aged 36 do affirme to ye truth of ye above written.
Sworne 27 : 9 : 67. Before Th : Danforth."
April 6, 1669. Case of Assault. Elizabeth Wells vs. James Tufts.--Fold 6, file of 1669.
"Mary Mudge, Aged about eighteen years saith that about 2 year sinse James Tuffts being at her fathers house In cherry tyme she gave him some cherrys & he sd Huzzy you have given me wormeaten cherrys but Ile pay ye for it & came & took hold on me & I held by the Barr of the window & he pulled me from the window & then I gott hold on a great Tubb & he draggd me from that & held me violently and kissing mee And I pulled him by the hair of his head & could not get him from me then I cryed out & called to my Brothers Thomas & John & when they came he lefft me. 6. 2 mo. 69."
"Thomas Mudge Aged about 16 years & John Mudge aged about 15 years say that they heard their sister Mary Mudge cry out in the house & call them & they came in & se James Tuffts come out of the roome from her where she was."
"May it please the Honord Court to understand that whereas Peter Tuffts or Broth. hath receiv'd a writing from us which containeth the sum of what Mary Mudge chargeth his son James Tuffts withall. The true scope and intent of that writing was not for an accusation of James Tuffts, but rather for his vindication, in case the matter should be brought to the Court by others, and so should be made worse then it was, though it was bad enough. Whereupon we wrote the substance of what she related, not accounting it needfull nor useful to set down every circumstance (as about her holding fast by the window or some other thing, her pulling of him by the hair of his head to get rid of him, &c.) This we thought needfull to intimate to ye Honord Court, that so or writing may not occasion any trouble to her, if there be some circumstances in her Testimony that is presented to the Court which are not Exprest in or paper; ffor we do well remember she related diverse circumstances which we thought too long & not necessary to write
Witness or hands
MICHAEL WIGGLESWORTH
BENJAMIN BUNCKER
Rev. Michael Wigglesworth, after this date, m. Martha Mudge, sister to Mary.
Will of Thomas Mudge
THOMAS MUDGE Stroade nere the citie of Rochester in the countie of Kent mariner
Will 28 Aug 1620 proved 26 Oct 1621
To poore of Stroade 5
To a preachinge minister of Stroade and dwelling in the said parishe 10s a year as long as now wife Elizabeth lives
To daughter Beatris Mudge 200 at marriage and 50 in three months
To son Thomas Mudge 200 at 21 If he dies to Beatris
To Thomas and Beatris 1 silver cupp each
Wife Elizabeth to give to said 2 children such household stuff as she thinks fit
To wife Elizabeth 200 but if she marry to divide 100 to 2 children
Residue to wife Elizabeth executrix
Overseers son in law stepson Henrie Telff and Martin Coles the elder
Also will and testament sic as to lands and tenements
To wife Elizabeth messuage in Stroade with edifices buildings gardens backsides etc for life then to son Thomas Mudge remainder to daughter Beatris
son Thomas not to mortgage the entail etc Residue of lands in Stroade and Cuxstone Kente ditto Witness Martin Coles notary public of Rochester Rochester Consistory File for 1621
This Is the will which the Mudge genealogy states is not to be found One only needed to look in the proper place The testator was evidently a master mariner of considerable substance and there is some reason to think he may be a grandfather of one of the numerous fathers in law of Rev Michael Wiggles worth ie Thomas Mudge of Maiden The will is a large and handsome document unlike most of the period LW
The family of MUDGE may boast of considerable antiquity in English history, as the name may be found on record as early as the beginning of the 15th or the close of the 14th century. The name was unquestionably originally written Mugge; and, the letter g being pronounced soft, the transition to Mudge was very natural. This conclusion is sustained by the earliest document that treats of the family yet discovered, which is a pedigree recorded in one of the early Visitations of Surrey, and to be found at Heralds' College (Harleian MS. 1561, fol. 7, and additional MS. 14, 311, fol. 67, in the British Museum, are copies of the same pedigree). As well on account of its antiquity, as because it is absolutely the only pedigree to be found either at Heralds' College or the British Museum of this family, it is here quoted verbatim: --
John Mugge alias Mudge=
Stephen Mugge= . . . . .Galfridus Mugge.
Thomas Mugge=Johanna fil. et Michael Mugge=coheres Walter Broke.
Walter Mugge = Johanne . . . . .Agnes. of Guildford, a. Surrey
Daniel Mudge = Isabell dau. & heir Margaret Anne Jane
ob. s. p. of John Hill alias ux. Sir Christopher ux. John ux. . . . Jones.
Hull, of Spirdleston, More, of Loseley, Allen. = = & widow of Thomas Co. Surrey. Knight, Engler. Remembrancer of the Thomas Jones. Exchequer, temp.
in the time of Henry VIII.
(issue)
It would seem that Daniel, the last surviving male of this branch of the family, was the first to adopt the innovation, and that the Heralds recognized the change, commeneing the pedigree with "Mugge alias Mudge." then giving three generations with the old orthography, and finally dropping that altogether, and writing simply "Mudge." That some members of the family clung to the old spelling till a period considerably later, will be seen as we proceed; but it is clear, from this document, that the names were identical.
This pedigree was probably entered by the More family, in order to show its heraldic descent from both ancestors. On the death of Daniel Mudge without issue, the wife of Sir Christopher More became certainly co-heiress, if not sole heir, and her husband would thus be entitled to quarter her father's arms. It does not follow that there was no other issue in the collateral branches, in the earlier generations, and it is almost certain that there was, as will be seen from the similarity of names in the Wills hereafter mentioned. The fact of greatest importance established by the appearance of this pedigree in the Visitation, is that the family of Mudge was entitled to bear arms. It would have been more satisfactory if those arms had been tricked or blazoned on the pedigree itself; but, fortunately, we have other means of ascertaining what they were, and of establishing them by unimpeachable testimony.
As the entire history of the family in England is necessarily, from the paucity of material, reduced into very narrow limits, no better way of recounting it suggests itself than by presenting abstracts of the entire series of Wills to be found recorded in the Registry of the Prerogative Court of Canterbury, popularly known as "Doctors' Commons." In this vast collection, where the testaments of the departed are numbered by millions, embracing testators, living and dying, not only in every quarter of the kingdom, but in every quarter of the globe itself, and than which there is no better source from which to ascertain the relative numerical standing of individual names, the Mudges are but scantily represented. During a period of more than three hundred years, say from about the year 1380 down to the year 1700, there are to be found in this Registry copies of only fourteen Wills, and records of but four Administrations.
In other words, the name of Mudge, or any of its variations, occurs in the calendars but eighteen times during more than three centuries. That this may not be thought to indicate any want of respectability on the part of those bearing the name, it may be stated that the immortal one of WASHINGTON is not to be found in the same calendars much more frequently. It has been already stated that the name occurs in but a solitary instance in the enormous collection of pedigrees at the British Museum, and in that, almost if not quite as extensive, in the Bodleian Library, it has not yet been discovered at all. To this may be added the fact that, among the vast number of matriculations at the University of Oxford, the name of Mudge appears only three times between the years 1562 and 1850. The natural conclusions to be arrived at from these statistics are that the families bearing the name died out at an early period, or that they fell into a social rank and condition in life in which Wills are not often made, and from which young men do not often go to the universities, or, finally, that the representatives of the name sought new homes in other lands. There is probably considerable truth in each of these suggestions; and if the two former be established as regards the history of the family in England, there arises the strongest inducement for those representing it elsewhere to elevate it again to that rank which it unquestionably once occupied, if not to one still higher.
With this brief introduction, we will proceed to an examination, seriatim, of the Wills referred to.
The earliest Will to be found is that of Walter Mugge, of Guildford, in the county of Surrey, the last of that name mentioned in the foregoing pedigree. It was made on the 9th of February, in the year 1494-5, and was proved on the ?? of April following. He bequeathed all his lands and te??ments in the county of Surrey to his wife Johanne for her life, with remainder to his son Daniel and his beirs. His lands in Detonshire he left to his executors in trust. To his daughters Johanne (called Jane in the pedigree). Margaret, and Anne. be gave œ40 each to their marriage. (This was a considerable ?? in those days, equivalent to at least œ1000 at the prevent time.) He appointed as his executors his wife and one Thomas Polsted, and desired to be buried in the church yard of Guildford, near his mother Johanne. The Will is very brief, but contains one more passage that gives it its greatest importa??ce. He directs his executors to erect within the church two ?? of marble over the graves of Thomas Mugge (his father). Geffrey Mugge. Esq. (his great uncle), and Walter Broke and Alice his wife this maternal grandparents), On these stones "pictures" of these persons were to be engraved, and also their arms, which he particularly describes. Those to be engrated upon the Broke monument were "three red lions, with a cherron of sable, the field silver." or, in modern parlance, Argent, a chevron sable between three lions gules. The arms to be out upon the Mudge stone were to be "three cockatrices in sable and the field silver." No further testimony is needed as to the character of the Mudge arms, or the right of the family to bear them, than this of the man who died nearly four centuries ago. In those times men did not use arms unless they were entitled to them, and this testimony, if no other existed, would be accepted as conclusive at the College of Arms even at the present day. There is, however, corroborative testimony in the archives of the college. In a volume known as "Le Neve's Baronets," in the pedigree of Sir Christopher More, whose descendant Sir Poynings More was created a Baronet in 1642, the alliatee with Mudge is stated, and the arms of the family given as Augtal, a ??
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