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John Alden worked as a cooper aboard the Mayflower on its voyage to New England in 1620. He married Mayflower passenger Priscilla Mullins and they left many descendants across America, including the second president of the United States, John Adams and his son, the sixth president, John Quincy Adams.
The date and place of John Alden's birth and the identity of his parents are unknown.[1][2] In a series of articles for The Mayflower Descendant from 1989-1991, Alicia Crane Williams analyzed the most popular theories about John's origins.[1][3] Her theories are incorporated into an analysis here: John Alden Parentage Possibilities.
Many online trees and biographies suggest a possible birthplace in England in either Harwich or Southampton, but no definitive proof can be found that John was from either place. The most popular theory about John's origins is that he came from Harwich, Essex, and could be related by marriage to Mayflower Captain Christopher Jones.[1][4] However, no records have been found in Harwich (or in the county of Essex) for the John Alden of this profile. Also, if John had been related to Captain Jones, Gov. William Bradford did not know about it or he certainly would have mentioned the connection in his detailed written history of the colony which spans three decades.[1] No records for a John Alden have been found in Southampton, Hampshire, either.[1] An "origin" of Southampton is put forth in Robert Charles Anderson's Great Migration Begins simply because John was hired as a cooper on the Mayflower at Southampton, where the ship took on provisions. Anderson makes no claim to where John was born.[5]
John's birth year is estimated as about 1598 based on the following records:
John was a cooper (barrel-maker) by trade and was hired to work aboard the Mayflower in 1620. According to Bradford, John "being a hopeful young man was much desired but left to his own liking to go or stay when he came here; but he stayed and married here".[1][5]
John was one of the signers of the Mayflower Compact, the first governing document of Plymouth Colony, signed 11 November 1620 aboard the Mayflower.[1] The signers of the Compact were all free adult males[1] and represented 41 of the Mayflower's 101 passengers.[7]
It is thought that John and Priscilla Mullins were married in Plymouth Colony sometime after Edward Winslow married to Susanna White on 12 May 1621 (Bradford calls this the first marriage at Plymouth),[1][8] and before the July 1623 land division (because Priscilla is not listed separately on the 1623 division of land, it is assumed the couple were married before that event). The second marriage in the colony was probably that of Francis Eaton to his second wife, Dorothy, and the fourth marriage in Plymouth was of Gov. William Bradford to Alice Carpenter on 14 August 1624, so John and Priscilla's marriage was likely the third in the Colony.[1]
As a 1620 Mayflower passenger, John was granted land in the 1623 Plymouth Colony Division of Land[5] and was in the group that received land on the "north side of the towne". The amount of acreage he received is illegible in colony records, but John likely received four acres, one each for himself and his wife, Priscilla, and one each for his in-laws, William Mullins and his wife, Alice (Priscilla and her parents were also Mayflower passengers, her parents died during the first winter).[1]
In 1626, 53 members of Plymouth Colony, including John Alden, along with five men from London,[9] purchased all the land, stock, etc. held by the Merchant Adventurers, who had originally financed the Colony. This group of 58 became known as the "Purchasers". In May 1627, John and seven other colonists joined together "to undertake the debt owed by the purchasers". This group became known as the "Undertakers". The Undertakers received boats and furs that had belonged to the Plymouth Company as well as the rights to trade for themselves for six years.[1]
John, Priscilla, daughter Elizabeth and son John appear in the 22 May 1627 Plymouth Colony Division of Cattle in the company of John Howland.[1][5] In an effort to create family farms capable of maintaining the population, the following January (1627/28), every individual was allotted a share of 20 acres of land along the coast with each farm having access to the harbor. The Alden family probably received about 100 acres in the division: 20 acres each to John and Priscilla, and also to their children Elizabeth and John, Jr., and perhaps Joseph, who was born about 1627. The location of the land grants was made by drawing lots, so the Aldens did not choose the location of their property, which was among the furthest north.[10]
John Alden was listed on the 1633 Plymouth list of freemen as one of those admitted before 1 January 1632/3.[1][5][11] John also appears on the tax lists of 1633 and 1634.[1]
As early as 1629, John and several other Plymouth colonists were among the first colonists to settle on land they had been granted in 1627, the Alden land being in the area that would become Duxbury, located north of Plymouth[4] and across the bay. Several colonists started building homes around 1629 and, by 1631, the Aldens likely lived in most of the year in Duxbury.[1] In 1632, the families who settled in Duxbury agreed to spend winters in Plymouth but, at some point, returning to Plymouth became a hardship and the families asked to be dismissed from Plymouth, taking up permanent residence in Duxbury.[1]
John was actively involved in trading on the Kennebec River in what is now Maine. In 1634, John was one of the leaders of a group of Plymouth fur traders who became involved in a heated dispute with a group of trespassers from the Piscataqua settlement. One man from each group was killed and John, as one of the Plymouth group's leaders, was detained in Boston for questioning even though he wasn't present during the dispute. Governor Bradford intervened and secured John's release.[1][5]
John appears on lists of freemen in 1636/7,[12] 1639 and 1658. He was listed as "of Duxbury" in the later two lists.[5] He appears on the 1643 list of men able to bear arms in Duxbury, along with his sons John Jr. and Joseph.[1]
He served in many public offices in Duxbury from 1632 to 1686, including: Assistant to the colony government, 1632-1640, 1650-1686;[1] and Deputy to the Plymouth General Court. He was on many councils and committees.[5] He twice served as Deputy Governor, March 1664/5 and October 1677, and also served as Treasurer 1656-1658.[1][5]
John was granted several parcels of land between 1633 and 1673/4. These lands included parcels in Duxbury, Bridgewater, Middleborough, Lakeville and others.[1]
Plymouth Colony in 1652/3 assigned "over one hundred thousand acres" along Buzzard's Bay to significant old-comers (i.e., persons "who arrived at Plymouth before 1627"), among them John.[13][14] This large coastal area, organized as Old Dartmouth in 1664,[15][16] comprises today the towns of "Dartmouth, New Bedford, Westport, Fairhaven, and Acushnet, Massachusetts, and a strip of Tiverton and Little Compton, Rhode Island."[15][17] Assignments were made shortly after 29 November 1652, the date on which the indigenous leader Wesamequen and his son Wamsutta "sold" the land to William Bradford, Myles Standish, Thomas Southworth, John Winslow, John Cooke, "and their associates, the purchasers or old-comers."[18][19] Interests were then assigned to thirty-six old-comers, 7 March 1652/3, including John, who received an undivided one thirty-fourth share of the lands.[15][20] "As [the assignees] all had their residences in other parts of the colony, it was not expected that they would remove to this territory. It was merely a dividend in land, which cost them nothing to buy and [for a time] nothing in taxes to hold."[13][15] Neither John nor any of his immediate descendants ever settled in Old Dartmouth.[21]
Between 1674 and 1687, in a series of several deeds, John gifted various parcels of his land to his sons. John held no lands in his name at his death.[1][5]
John died on 12 September 1687[22] in Duxbury.[1][5] He was the last signer of the Mayflower Compact to pass.[1]
John died intestate and the administration of his estate was granted to his son, Jonathan Alden, on 8 November 1687. On that date, Jonathan provided to the court an inventory of his father's estate taken 31 October 1687.[1][23][24] The inventory totalled £49 17s. 6d in tangible property as John had distributed his lands prior to his death.[1][25] All of John's heirs signed a release dated 13 June 1688, attesting that they had received their shares of their father's estate from Jonathan Alden. Signers of the release were: William Pabodie (husband of Elizabeth), John Alden, Joseph Alden, Priscilla Alden, Mary Alden, Thomas Delano (husband of Rebecca), and David Alden. Alexander Standish signed for Sarah Alden's share and John Bass signed for Ruth's share as both Sarah and Ruth predeceased their father.[1][5][23][26][27]
John and Priscilla were buried in the Old Duxbury burying ground, but the exact location of their graves is unknown.[1] The Alden Kindred of America erected gravestones for John and Priscilla Alden in the area of the cemetery where other Alden family members were known to be buried.[1] The gravestones were erected in 1930.[28]
All of the Alden children were born before Gov. Bradford made his "Decreasings and Increasing" list in 1650.[1][29] John and Priscilla had the following children (all birth dates are estimates as no birth records survive):
John and Priscilla may have also had an unnamed child who either died young or died without issue before John Alden's estate was divided.[2] Bradford wrote in the 1650 "Decreasings and Increasing" list of passengers that the Aldens had eleven children and their daughter, Elizabeth had five children. However, in the marginal tally, he wrote "15".[1][29]
In The Courtship of Miles Standish, a poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow published in 1858, Longfellow immortalized a fictional love triangle between John Alden, Miles Standish, and Priscilla Mullins that was first referred to in print in 1814 in Rev. Timothy Alden’s A Collection of American Epitaphs and Inscriptions with Occasional Notes.[1][30]
The imagined likeness of John, shown on this profile, is by sculptor John Rogers (1829-1904) and is based on a line from Longfellow’s poem. According to the Smithsonian Art Museum,
Although Longfellow's famous poem tells a charming tale of a courtship during the early days of Plymouth Colony, it is likely fictional, especially if the story took place while Priscilla's father was alive. The death of Miles' wife Rose occurred on 29 January and Priscilla's father died 21 February and there is little chance that Miles Standish would have been courting anyone so soon after the death of his wife, especially during the colony's first winter, when so many colonists were starving, sick and dying.[1]
Priscilla Alden was living in 1650/1 when she was named in William Bradford's summary of Mayflower Passengers.[5] Her date of death is unknown, but it is thought that she died before her husband because she was not mentioned in the public notice of his death in 1687.[1]
The original John Alden House, built about 1632, no longer exists. It was located about 800 feet southeast of the current Alden house, built by John's son Jonathan. The core of the present house was built circa 1700 by Jonathan Alden, probably before the death of his father John, perhaps around the time of his marriage in 1672. The 1700 house and the property it is built on (including the site of the 1632 house) are part of the original land grant given to John and Priscilla Alden in 1627 and was made a National Historic Landmark in 2009. The property was purchased by the Alden Kindred of America 1907 to "preserve, educate and exhibit the history and heritage of Pilgrims John Alden and Priscilla Mullins Alden".[32] More information on the original (1632) Alden house is available here.
The original (1632) house built by John Alden may have been disassembled, moved to the site of the newer [Jonathan] Alden house, reassembled and used as a kitchen, borning room and buttrey as the dimensions are the same.[1]
Some older genealogies contain a Zachariah Alden as a son of John and Priscilla. There is no proof they had a son of this name or that Zachariah ever existed.[33] See the G2G post about Zachariah HERE.
Y-DNA Results R1b-P312[34]
Acadian heritage connections: John is 11 degrees from Abraham Lincoln, 11 degrees from Winston Churchill, 17 degrees from Charles de Gaulle, 15 degrees from Vida Goldstein, 12 degrees from Patrick Henry, 14 degrees from John Kennedy, 18 degrees from Hin-mah-too-yah-lat-kekt Nez Perce, 14 degrees from Louis Riel, 10 degrees from Eleanor Roosevelt, 14 degrees from Sojourner Truth, 21 degrees from Richard von Weizsäcker and 15 degrees from Clarence White on our single family tree. Login to see how you relate to 33 million family members.
Categories: Mayflower Family Member | Mayflower Compact Signatories | New Plimoth | Duxbury, Massachusetts | Myles Standish Burying Ground, Duxbury, Massachusetts | US President Direct Ancestor | Example Profiles of the Week | Featured Connections Archive 2022 | Featured Connections Archive 2023 | Mayflower Passengers
edited by Bobbie (Madison) Hall
edited by Bobbie (Madison) Hall
We are featuring this profile in the Connection Finder this week. Between now and Wednesday is a good time to take a look at the sources and biography to see if there are updates and improvements that need made, especially those that will bring it up to WikiTree Style Guide standards. We know it's short notice, so don't fret too much. Just do what you can.
Thanks!
Abby
For the past few weeks I have been working on a WikiTree profile for John Alden, grocer of London (abt. 1535-bef. 1609) who was an international shipping merchant between Antwerp and Billingsgate, London. This John Alden's son, John Alden (1578-abt. 1675), was a lawyer at The Middle Temple, and whose coat of arms is documented. While these men don't appear to be close relatives of John Alden of Plymouth, there may be a connection since members of these families had the unusual occupation of international shipping merchant. Plymouth John Alden's son John Alden (abt. 1626-1702) lived in Boston and shipped goods between England, Virginia, Nova Scotia, and Bermuda. Another potentially related John Alden was John Alden of Harwich, who was documented as trading on ships from England to Spain between 1568 and 1587. See "John Alden Parentage Possibilities" for information on Harwich John Alden:
https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Space:John_Alden_Parentage_Possibilities
Grocer John Alden of London owned ancestral property in Boltolph Lane, Billingsgate that was inherited by his son. Billingsgate was a wharf on the Thames River used by grocers and other traders in foodstuffs. In my research, I discovered that a medieval grocer and international shipping merchant named John Walden, acquired an interest in a house on Botolph Lane, Billingsgate in 1443, and that same property appears to have descended to John Alden, grocer, and then to his son the attorney at The Middle Temple. Medieval grocer John Walden is surprisingly well-documented, although there is no WikiTree profile for him. I have included some of his references here:
https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Alden-3675
London and Botolph Lane appear to be at the center of a shipping dynasty of John Aldens that began in the middle ages. Perhaps medieval John Walden, grocer of London is a new lead for establishing connections between the shipping merchants named John Alden.
Best regards,
Joel
Do we need this notice at the top of the profile? "NOTE: UNTIL DEFINITIVE PROOF IS FOUND, PLEASE DO NOT ADD PARENTS TO THIS PROFILE."
If so, one of us could propose creating a Research Note Box for it. The note is serving the purpose of an RNB but an RNB would be better because it's highlighted and standardized.
On the other hand, an RNB needs to be of relevance to non-members: "They are for information that's deemed so important that anyone who sees the profile should see the research note, even if the viewing user is not a WikiTree member. If the research note is primarily of interest to WikiTree members who are working on the profile, a public comment on the profile and/or in the Research Notes section of the narrative is sufficient."
Non-members see "Son of [father unknown] and [mother unknown]". Members see the more inviting and misleading "Son of [father?] and [mother?]." However, since the profile is project-protected, only Project Leaders, Project Coordinators, and Profile Managers can add parents. They can probably be trusted to look at Research Notes.
By the way, we do have an Uncertain Family RNB but that wouldn't suit the purpose here because it's for when parents are known but they are "so uncertain that it borders on speculation." Here I think we'd be proposing something like "Unknown Family". If you want me to propose that in G2G, let me know.
Cheers,
Chris
edited by Chris Whitten
A new type of Research Note Box would be useful.
I'm working on a G2G post proposing something like "Unknown Parents" for when there are disproven or competing theories.
"England, Essex Parish Registers, 1538-1997," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:XKZG-6NY : 12 February 2018), John Alden, 10 Oct 1596, Christening; citing Bocking, Essex, England, Essex Record Office, England; FHL microfilm 1,471,886.
edited by Traci Thiessen
P.S. I bought the Silver Book vol 16 part 1 if anyone ever needs a lookup. :-)
edited by Anne B
Mary, "Family Mysteries" work-space off major profiles sounds like a good idea that could scale. Perhaps it would be interesting to refactor LOTS of WIP-research notes, and unproven claims & post-merge conflicts OFF our live profiles; into a linked sandbox. Not just for this Alden, but for a zillion folks. That way, our readers could read cleaner profiles when they visit our site, while our members keep working on history's mysteries, behind the scenes...