John Alden

1599 - 1687  (88 years)

• Name	John Alden  [1, 2, 3]
  Birth	1599	Southampton, Hampshire, England   [4]
  Gender	Male
  Arrival	1620	Plympton, Plymouth, Massachusetts, USA   [4]
  Death	12 Sep 1687	Duxbury, Plymouth, Massachusetts, USA
  Person ID	I9448	Master
  Last Modified	26 Jul 2021

  
  

  Father	George Alden,   b. 1575, Southampton, Hampshire, England d. 1620, Southampton, Hampshire, England (Age 45 years)
  Mother	Jane Fowlk,   b. 1584, , Staffordshire, England d. 10 Mar 1664, Plympton, Plymouth, Massachusetts, USA (Age 80 years)
  Family ID	F2706	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

  
  

  Family	Priscilla Mullins,   b. 1602, Dorking, Surrey, England d. 5 Feb 1688, Duxbury, Plymouth, Massachusetts, USA (Age 86 years)
  Marriage	12 May 1622	Plympton, Plymouth, Massachusetts, USA
  Children	1. Elizabeth Alden,   b. 1624, Plympton, Plymouth, Massachusetts, USA d. 31 May 1717, Little Compton, Newport, Rhode Island, USA (Age 93 years) + 2. Joseph Alden,   b. 22 May 1627, Plympton, Plymouth, Massachusetts, USA d. 8 Feb 1697, Bridgewater, Plymouth, Massachusetts, USA (Age 69 years)   3. Sarah Alden,   b. 1629, Plympton, Plymouth, Massachusetts, USA d. 12 Aug 1674, Duxbury, Plymouth, Massachusetts, USA (Age 45 years)
  Family ID	F2705	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

  
  

• Event Map

  Birth - 1599 - Southampton, Hampshire, England Arrival - 1620 - Plympton, Plymouth, Massachusetts, USA Marriage - 12 May 1622 - Plympton, Plymouth, Massachusetts, USA Death - 12 Sep 1687 - Duxbury, Plymouth, Massachusetts, USA  = Link to Google Earth

  
  

• Notes

  http://mayflowerhistory.com/alden/ John Alden may be descended from an Alden family that was residing in the parish of Harwich, co. Essex, England: a family that was related, by marriage, to the Mayflower's master Christopher Jones. He was about twenty-one years old when he was hired from Southampton to be the cooper (barrel-maker) for the Mayflower's voyage to America. The Pilgrims' joint-stock company gave him the option to stay in America, or return to England. He chose to stay, and about 1622 or 1623 he married fellow Mayflower passenger Priscilla Mullins, an orphaned young woman originally from Dorking, co. Surrey, England, whose parents William and Alice, and brother Joseph, had all perished in the first winter at Plymouth. A fictional account of John and Priscilla Alden's courtship and its entanglement with Myles Standish, is the subject of the famous Henry Wadsworth Longfellow poem, "The Courtship of Myles Standish". Likely a combination of his practical skills as a cooper and carpenter, and his young wife Priscilla's substantial inheritance of company shares, John Alden quickly rose up to become a prominent member of the Plymouth Colony. He was elected an assistant to the governor as early as 1631 and was regularly reelected. He was one of the men who purchased the joint-stock company from its English shareholders in 1626, and was involved in the company's trading on the Kennebec River. In 1634, he was involved in a fur trading dispute that escalated into a double-killing (trespasser John Hocking and Plymouth colonist Moses Talbot). He was held by the Massachusetts Bay Colony for questioning, which caused a major jurisdictional controversy as Plymouth Colony leadership felt the Bay Colony had no authority to detain him. John Alden, along with Myles Standish and several other Plymouth Colonists, founded the town of Duxbury to the north of Plymouth. Dendrochronological evidence suggests the men had started building their houses there as early as 1629. Alden served the town of Duxbury as deputy to the Plymouth Court throughout the 1640s, and served on several committees and sat on several Councils of War. He also served for a time as colony treasurer. About 1653, he built the Alden House, which is still standing and is maintained by the Alden Kindred of America. By the 1660s, John and Priscilla Alden had a growing family of ten children. Combined with his numerous public service duties (which were mostly unpaid positions) he was left in fairly low means. He petitioned and received from the Plymouth Court various land grants, which he distributed to his children throughout the 1670s. He died in 1687 at the age of 89, one of the last surviving Mayflower passengers.

  
  

• Sources

  [S137] Gale Research, Passenger and Immigration Lists Index, 1500s-1900s, (Online publication - Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2009.), Place: Massachusetts; Year: 1620; Page Number: 170. Birth date: abt 1599Birth place: Arrival date: 1620Arrival place: Massachusetts http://trees.ancestry.com/rd?f=sse&db=pili354&h=1451499&ti=0&indiv=try&gss=pt [S173] Ancestry.com, Library of Congress Photo Collection, 1840-2000, (Online publication - Provo, UT, USA: The Generations Network, Inc., 2007.). Residence date: Residence place: USA http://trees.ancestry.com/rd?f=sse&db=locphotos&h=423939&ti=0&indiv=try&gss=pt [S174] Signers of the Mayflower Compact. http://trees.ancestry.com/rd?f=sse&db=flhg-mayflowercompact&h=409597&ti=0&indiv=try&gss=pt [S137] Gale Research, Passenger and Immigration Lists Index, 1500s-1900s, (Online publication - Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2009.), Place: Plymouth, Massachusetts; Year: 1620; Page Number: 25. Birth date: abt 1599Birth place: Arrival date: 1620Arrival place: Plymouth, Massachusetts http://trees.ancestry.com/rd?f=sse&db=pili354&h=3502381&ti=0&indiv=try&gss=pt