Ancestors

John Alden

He was not one of the company. Bradford, listing who came in the Mayflower, sets him apart at the end: "John Alden was hired for a cooper, at South-Hampton, wher the ship victuled; and being a hopefull yong man, was much desired, but left to his owne liking to go or stay when he came here; but he stayed, and maryed here." A cooper kept the casks tight, which on a ship victualled for a winter crossing meant the beer and the water, and he was about twenty one.

He signed the compact in the cabin, married Priscilla Mullins, and moved with Standish and others across the bay to Duxbury. From there he served the colony for fifty years as an assistant, and at intervals as treasurer and as deputy governor, longer than any other man of the first landing.

In 1634 the work nearly cost him. A Plymouth trading party on the Kennebec cut the cables of an interloping bark, John Hocking shot Moses Talbot dead, and Hocking was shot dead from the Plymouth boat. When the vessel next put into Boston the Bay authorities took Alden off it and jailed him. Bradford's protest is flat: he "was in the bark, and had been at Kenebeck, but was no actore in the bussines, but wente to carie them supply." Plymouth sent Captain Standish up to Boston with letters to get him out, and he was released inside a week on the bonds of Timothy Hatherley and Lieutenant Richard Morris.

He died at Duxbury on 12 September 1687, the last surviving man who had signed the compact.

If John Alden is in your family, start your own tree.

Cite: Heirology, "John Alden (1599-1687)", https://heirology.com/ancestors/john-alden-1599-1687-2d41db.