Heirology

Ancestors

Phineas Pratt

1590-1680 · England
Born 1590, England
Died 1680
Children include Aaron

Phineas Pratt came to New England from England about 1622. Lincoln's History of Hingham says he came in the "Swallow", lived some time at Weymouth, afterwards at Plymouth, and lastly at Charlestown. He died at Charlestown on 19 April 1680, aged ninety, which puts his birth about 1590.

He came as one of Thomas Weston's men. In 1622 Weston's company settled at Wessagusset, on the shore of what is now Weymouth, north of Plymouth. By the next winter the settlement was starving, and the Massachusett people around it were preparing to destroy it. In March 1623 Pratt slipped away and went alone through the snow to Plymouth to warn Governor Bradford. Myles Standish's attack at Wessagusset followed. The Great Migration Begins quotes Pratt's own account of reaching "the safety of Plymouth".

A tablet put up by his descendants at Cohasset tells it this way: "Phineas Pratt came over from England with the Weston Colony in 1622, and first settled at Weymouth. The Indians threatening to destroy the colonies, he traveled in the then wilderness with the Indians threatening to destroy him. After three days, he arrived at Plymouth and gave information to the Governor, and by the blessing of God the colony was saved."

He married at Plymouth, probably, Mary Priest, a daughter of Degory Priest of the Mayflower and of Sarah (Allerton) Vincent. Degory died in the first winter, and Sarah married Godbert Godbertson, written Cuthbertson. Lincoln's name for Pratt's wife, "Mary Cuthbert or Cuthbertson," was her stepfather's. When Sarah and Godbert both died in 1633, the Plymouth court on 11 November appointed Phineas "to take into his possession all the goods & chattels of Godbert Godbertson & Zarah his wife." The next March it recorded that "Phineas Prat joyner in the behalfe of Marah his wife is possessed of thirty Acres of land neer unto the high Cliffe." George E. Bowman, editor of The Mayflower Descendant, identified her from those orders.

His son Aaron settled in the second precinct of Hingham, now Cohasset, about 1683. The tablet says Phineas "died at Charlestown April 19, 1680, aged 90 years, and had a tombstone yet to be seen."

Children

Aaron Pratt 1649-1735

Sources

History of the Town of Hingham, Massachusetts (1893), vol. III, p. 115, archive.org historyoftownofh03hing, leaf 121
History of the Town of Hingham, Massachusetts (1893), vol. III, p. 116, archive.org historyoftownofh03hing, leaf 122
Find a Grave memorial 32607821, Aaron Pratt, Cohasset Central Cemetery, Cohasset, Massachusetts
Headstone, Phipps Street Burying Ground, Charlestown, Massachusetts; photograph, 2018, via Wikimedia Commons.
Facsimile plate "Phineas Pratt's Deed, Gov. Bradford's Acknowledgement," in Edward O. Skelton, The Story of New England (1910), archive.org storyofnewenglan01skel.
The Mayflower Descendant, vol. IV (1902), archive.org mayflowerdescendv4mass, "Phineas Pratt of Plymouth and Charlestown," p. 94, leaf n214, from Plymouth Court Orders I:1, 9, 35, 37, 57, 61 and II:244
The Mayflower Descendant, vol. II (1900), archive.org mayflowerdescendv2mass, Depositions, p. 46, leaf n108, from Plymouth deeds I:81
History of the Town of Hingham (1893), vol. III, archive.org historyoftownofh03hing, pp. 115-116; Find a Grave 32607821; Robert Charles Anderson, The Great Migration Begins (1995), vol. II p. 1516 (index) and vol. III (Hugh Stacy); Edward O. Skelton, The Story of New England (1910), plate "Phineas Pratt's Deed, Gov. Bradford's Acknowledgement", archive.org storyofnewenglan01skel; his headstone, Phipps Street Burying Ground, Charlestown; Lincoln III p. 115; Lincoln III pp. 115-116; The Mayflower Descendant, vol. IV (1902), archive.org mayflowerdescendv4mass, "Phineas Pratt of Plymouth and Charlestown," pp. 94-95; The Mayflower Descendant, vol. II (1900), archive.org mayflowerdescendv2mass, p. 46

If Phineas Pratt is in your family, start your own tree.

Cite: Heirology, "Phineas Pratt (1590-1680)", https://heirology.com/ancestors/phineas-pratt-1590-1680-3f064a.