Capt. Gabriel Maturin (1730-1774)

He was born in Ireland and was commissioned in 1756 as a Lieutenant into the 35th Regiment of the British Army. During the French & Indian War, he saw action at the Siege of Louisbourg in 1758 and was wounded on the Plains of Abraham at the famous Battle of Quebec (1763). He was promoted to Captain in 1764, and in 1768 transferred to the 31st Regiment of Foot. Remaining in America after the British victory in 1763, he served as both French secretary (his grandfather came to Ireland as a French Huguenot and clearly they retained their fluency) and private secretary to the Governors in Montreal. He served in those capacities under General Thomas Gage, Sir Frederick Haldimand, and Sir Guy Carleton. When Sir Guy returned to England, Maturin moved from New York to Montreal (accompanied by his wife and sister-in-law, Mrs. Armstrong), fulfilling several official duties. He died in Boston just before the Revolution.

He was married in 1765 to Mary, a noted beauty and society favorite in her day, daughter of Robert James Livingston, Merchant, of New York City. Their portraits were painted in 1771 by John Singleton Copley and his passed to his nephew in Ireland, Rev. Henry Maturin (Senior Fellow of Trinity College, Dublin) before returning to New York in 1868 when it was acquired by a distant relative, Oscar Frederick Livingston, of New York. The portrait (pictured) was first sold out of the family at auction in 2011, and again at Bonhams in 2014. The Maturins died without issue, and after his death his widow remarried Dr. Mallet.