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Passenger List, ship Fortune, 1621
The ship Fortune arrived at Plymouth on November 9, 1621, just a few weeks after the First Thanksgiving. This passenger list is based on the 1623 Division of Land, the passenger list compiled by Charles Edward Banks in Planters of the Commonwealth, by material published occasionally by Robert S. Wakefield in the Mayflower Quarterly, and by the information found in Eugene Aubrey Stratton's Plymouth Colony: Its History and Its People, 1620-1691. The author (Stratton) is descended from Fortune passengers John Adams, William Bassett, and Moses Simmons.
incl. Adams, John
Pitt, William
Prence, Thomas
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AncestryViews: Plymouth Colony, its History and People-
Prence, Thomas
Plymouth Colony, p.340
?Thomas Prence was born ca. 1600, for he was in his seventy-third year at his death on 29 March 1673 (PCR 8:34).
His father was Thomas Prence (or Prince;?the Plymouth man always spelled it Prence) who had lived at Lechlade, Gloucestershire, but was a carriage maker of All Hallows Barking, London, when he made his will 31 July 1639 and named his "son Thomas Prence now remayninge in New England" (Dawes-Gates 2:683, gives an excellent documented account of Prence's life).
Prence arrived at Plymouth Colony in 1621 on the Fortune, and from the beginning seemed to have taken a leading role in Plymouth affairs. Of the eight Plymouth Undertakers, who seemed to be the most important men in the colony in 1627, Prence was the only one who had not arrived on the Mayflower.
He became governor in 1634, and was elected an Assistant in 1635, and from then on he was either an Assistant or governor every year for the rest of his life. He also served as treasurer, as president of the Council of War, and in various other capacities.
With the death of Bradford in 1657, Prence became without doubt the most important and influential man in the colony.
He was of a conservative nature, as is shown by his siding with Bradford and Winslow in the 1645 Vassall controversy, and by his actions against the Quakers. He was involved in several law suits which were decided in his favor, such as 1650, when Strong Furnell of Boston submitted a written humble apology to the court for having evilly slandered Mr. Prence after the latter sued him for £200 damage (PCR 2:152).
In 1665 as compensation for having required Prence, as governor, to reside in Plymouth, the court ordered that he would be paid £50 per year as long as he remained governor, and he was given a house in the Plain Dealing area of Plymouth as a residence (in 1668, at his request, the court sold him [p.341] that house for £150) (PCR 4:108, 184). He engaged in many land transactions, and he died a wealthy man, leaving a personal estate in excess of £400 and some eleven tracts of land, at least two of them containing 100 acres each (MD 3:206).
Plymouth Colony, p.341
He married (1) Patience Brewster, daughter of Elder Brewster on 5 August 1624 Patience Brewster, daughter of Elder Brewster (2) on 1 April 1635 Mary Collier, daughter of William Collier; (3) between 1662 and 1668 Apphia (Quicke) Freeman; and (4) before 1 August 1668 Mary (_____) Howes, widow of Thomas Howes (Ella Florence Elliot, "Gov. Thomas Prence's Widow Mary, Formerly the Widow of Thomas Howes, and the Inventory of Her Estate," MD 6:230;
Dawes-Gates 2:692 gives other dates for (3) and (4) and supplies the name Quicke).
His children by Patience Brewster were
- Rebecca, who married Edmond Freeman;
- Mercy, who married John Freeman;
- Hannah, who married (1) Nathaniel Mayo and (2) Jonathan Sparrow; and
- Thomas, who died before 13 March 1672/73 in England.
His children by Mary Collier were
- Jane, who married Mark Snow as his second wife;
- Mary, who married John Tracy;
- Sarah, who married Jeremiah Howes;
- Elizabeth, who married Arthur Howland; and
- Judith, who married (1) Isaac Barker and (2) William Tubbs (Dawes-Gates 2:693).
In his will dated 13 March 1672/73, proved 5 June 1673, he named his wife Mary; his seven surviving daughters, Jane, the wife of Mark Snow; Mary Tracy; Sarah Howes; Elizabeth Howland; Judith Barker; Hannah; and Mercy; his grandson Theophilus Mayo; his granddaughter Susanna Prence, the daughter of his deceased son Thomas; his son John Freeman; Lydia Sturtevant; and his brother Thomas Clarke (MD 3:203). His chagrin over Arthur Howland's eventually successful suit for the hand of his daughter Elizabeth is related in the text, and he probably was not happy over the marriage of two of his daughters to sons of Edmond Freeman. The mention in his will of his deceased son Thomas's daughter Susanna Prence would indicate that he died without surviving male issue in the Prence line.
Plymouth Colony, p.341
Mary Walton Ferris makes the point in Dawes-Gates 2:686-87 that his reputation for intolerance, particularly toward the Quakers, has clouded over his extensive service to the colony. She especially notes that he presided over the court in the very sane and reasonable handling of Plymouth's first witchcraft trial in 1661; that he dealt in a humane way with the Indians, and missionary Thomas Mayhew wrote of his "gentle and kind dealing" with them (Prence also presided over the court as governor in 1638 when the momentous decision was made to execute the white men who had murdered an Indian); that he showed wisdom in 1637 when he negotiated with the Massachusetts men who unjustly demanded much of the land on the Connecticut River that Plymouth had purchased from the Indians; and that he advocated and brought about a free school system in the colony.
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Ancestry Reference Library CD-
Plymouth records as kept by Secretary Nathaniel Morton show two consecutive items of interest:
...
Thomas Prence, Esquire, Govr of the jurisdiction of New Plymouth, died the 29th of March 1673, and was interred the 8th of Aprill following. After hee had served God in the office of Govr sixteen years, or neare therunto, hee finished his course in the 73 yeare of his life. Hee was a worthy gentleman, very pious, and very able for his office, and faithful in the discharge therof, studious of peace, a welwiller to all that feared God, and a terrour to the wicked. His death was much lamented, and his body honorably buryed att Plymouth the day and yeare above mensioned.31
also: Governor Prence, too, having arrived in 1621 on the Fortune, had spent more than fifty years intertwining his life with that of the colony. Though reputed to be a strict man, a severe man, he must have been in some way representative of at least the freemen of the colony, for after the death of Bradford they continually reelected him governor until the day he died. [p.107]
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