Desire Howland
Desire Howland was the eldest daughter of John Howland and Elizabeth Tilley, who had both come to Plymouth on the Mayflower in 1620. She was born at Plymouth in the 1620s, among the first children born in the colony. The Gorham genealogy places her birth before 22 May 1627.
She was a small child in 1627, when the colony divided its cattle. The fourth lot fell to "John Howland & his company," and its list begins with her father, her mother, her brother John and "Desire Howland."
She married John Gorham in 1643. Their first child, Desire, was born at Plymouth on 2 April 1644. Eleven more followed over twenty-three years. The family lived at Plymouth, then at Marshfield from 1646, then at Yarmouth on Cape Cod from 1652.
When her father made his will, he left "unto my Daughter Desire Gorum twenty shillings." Each of her five sisters, Hope, Elizabeth, Lydia, Hannah and Ruth, received the same.
In October 1675 her husband became captain of the second Plymouth company in King Philip's War. He died at Swansea that winter and was buried there in February 1676. On 7 March the court granted administration to "mistris Desire Gorum" and her sons James and John. Her youngest child, Shubael, was eight. Two days later she signed the administration bond, writing her name "desier gorham."
She went on living at Yarmouth. She died on 13 October 1683 at the home of her son in Barnstable.
The court's settlement of her husband's estate gave her the profits of a third of the lands, housing and mill for life, a third of the movables, the right to live in her own house, and "Improvement of the Negro Dureing her life." The inventory had listed "1 Negro man" among the captain's goods. His name is not recorded. The court also set aside fifty pounds "to bringe up Shubaall to scoole, as his mother shall see fitt." When her own estate was divided in 1684, the magistrates found that "a great prte" of that money had been spent on Shubael's learning.
The Barnstable town book records: "Mre Desire Gorham Relict of Cap John Gorham Senr Late of Barnstable Deceasd Departed this Life ye 13 Day of Octor 1683." Her inventory, though, is dated 3 August 1683, so one of the two dates is wrong. Her sons James and John swore to the inventory at Plymouth on 6 March 1684.
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Cite: Heirology, "Desire Howland (d. 1683)", https://heirology.com/ancestors/desire-howland-1683-e82034.