Richard Boughton (?-1706)
Lower House, Charles County, 1669 (Aggrievances)
Anne Arundel County Court Clerk, 1674-1682
MSA SC 3520-118

Biography:

Immigrated:  in 1666 as a free adult, possibly from Virginia.
Resided:  in Nanjemoy, Charles County.
Father:  possibly either Thomas Boughton, armiger of Bilton, Warwickshire, England, who attended Gray’s Inn in 1647/48, or Richard Boughton, of Lewes, Sussex, England.
Uncle:  William Stone (ca. l603-ca. 1659/60).
Married:  first, in 1667 Verlinda (?-by 1694), widow of Thomas Burdett; daughter of Rev. William Cotton, of Lower Accomack County, Virginia; second, by March 1694 Honor.
Children:  Samuel, Katherine, Verlinda, and Mary.
Education:  literate; had clerical skills; may have attended Gray’s Inn or Lincoln’s Inn.
Religious Affiliation:  Protestant.
Social Status and Activities:  may have been distantly related to the proprietary family; early preferment seems to have come from his education and family connections, but he failed to maintain his position; Gent., 1666/67; accused of dishonesty and temporarily lost his positions in 1669.
Occupation:  placeman; attorney, admitted to the following courts: Provincial Court in 1666/67 Charles County in 1670.
Public Career:  Lower House, Charles County, 1669 (Aggrievances); Council, 1666-l666/67; justice, Provincial Court, 1666; secretary and judge of Probate, 1666-1667; clerk, Upper House, 1674-1676.
Local Offices:  clerk, Charles County, 1667-1669, 1682-1689/90, Anne Arundel County, 1674-1682 (commissioned 29 April 1674); registrar, Nanjemoy Parish, Charles County, 1700; deputy commissary, Charles County, 1704.
Stands on Public/Private Issues:  opposition to the revolution of 1689 brought his dismissal from the Charles County clerkship and virtually terminated his political career.
Wealth:  in February 1670/71 he was in debtor’s prison. His debts included money owed for drinks consumed at his first wedding; no evidence of land-ownership while a burgess or councilor; patented 950 acres in 1679, but he sold it in 1684; acquired 100 acres in 1684, which he sold in 1690; took a 21-year lease on 400 acres in 1684; died in 1706; personal property TEV, £164.4 sterling, plus 1,420 pounds of tobacco.
Death:  in 1706

Source:  Papenfuse, Edward C., et al., A Biographical Dictionary of the Maryland Legislature, 1635-1789, Vol. I, A-H, (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1979), 149.

"Richard Boughton of Charles County, com. 29 April 1674."

Owings, Donnell MacClure.  His Lordship's Patronage:  Offices of Profit in Colonial Maryland.  (Baltmore:  Maryland Historical Society, 1953.), 147.

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