 1600 - 1673 (73 years)
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| Name |
Thomas Prence [2, 3, 4, 5] |
| Prefix |
Govenor |
| Suffix |
of the Fortune |
| Birth |
1600 |
Lechlade, Glouchestershire, England  [2, 3, 4, 5] |
| Gender |
Male |
| Immigrated |
1621 |
America [3, 4, 5] |
| on the "Fortune" |
| FamilySearch ID |
9MWV-FM6 |
| FamilySearch URL |
https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/details/9MWV-FM6 |
| Death |
29 Mar 1673 |
Eastham, Barnstable, MA [2, 3, 4, 5] |
| Burial |
8 Apr 1673 |
Old Burial Ground, Plymouth, Plymouth, Massachusetts, United States [6] |
| Person ID |
I4313 |
Main |
| Last Modified |
28 Jan 2020 |
| Family 1 |
Patience Brewster, of the "Anne", b. 1603 d. 12 Dec 1634 (Age 31 years) |
| Marriage |
5 Aug 1624 |
Plymouth, Plymouth, MA |
| Children |
| + | 1. Rebecca Prence, b. 1625 d. Yes, date unknown |
| + | 2. Thomas Prence, b. 1627 d. England |
| | 3. Hannah Prence, b. 1629 d. Yes, date unknown |
| + | 4. Mercy Prence, b. 4 Jan 1631, Duxbury, MA d. 28 Sep 1711, Eastham, MA (Age 80 years) |
|
| Family ID |
F1719 |
Group Sheet | Family Chart |
| Last Modified |
30 Sep 2009 |
| Family 2 |
Mary Collier, c. 18 Feb 1611, St. Olave, Southwark, Surrey, England d. Yes, date unknown |
| Marriage |
1 Apr 1635 |
Plymouth, MA [3, 4, 5] |
| Notes |
|
| Children |
|
| Family ID |
F1724 |
Group Sheet | Family Chart |
| Last Modified |
7 Nov 2004 |
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-
| Notes |
- From Great Migration Begins:
THOMAS PRENCE
"the ninth marriage at New Plymouth"
ORIGIN: All Saints Barking, London
MIGRATION: 1621 on Fortune
FIRST RESIDENCE: Plymouth
REMOVES: Duxbury by 1637, Eastham 1644, Plymouth by 1665
FREEMAN: In the "1633" Plymouth list of freemen Thomas Prence was just after the councillors, and ahead of those admitted on 1 January 1632/3. In the list of assistants at the head of the "1639" list of Plymouth Colony freemen, but as this list was revised and annotated his name was included in the "Nawsett" portion of the list
EDUCATION: His inventory included a long list of books valued at £14 2d., including two great Bibles and "100 of psalm books."
OFFICES:
Plymouth Governor, 1634, 1638, 1657-72
Assistant, Plymouth Colony, 1632-33, 1635-37, 1639-56
Treasurer, 1637
Commissioner for the United Colonies, 1645, 1650, 1653-58, 1661-63, 1670-72
In Plymouth section of 1643 Plymouth Colony list of men able to bear arms
.
ESTATE: In the 1623 Plymouth division of land Thomas Prence received one acre as a passenger on the Fortune
In the 1627 Plymouth division of cattle Thomas Prince, Patience Prince and Rebecca Prince are the tenth, eleventh and twelfth persons in the fifth company
DEATH: Plymouth 29 March 1673, in his 73rd year ("Thomas Prence, Esquire, Governor of the jurisdiction of New Plymouth, died the 29th of March, 1673, and was interred the 8th of April following. After he had served God in the office of Governor sixteen years, or near thereunto, he finished his course in the 73 year of his life. He was a worthy gentleman, very pious, and very able for his office, and faithful in the discharge thereof, studious of peace, a wellwiller to all that feared God, and a terror to the wicked. His death was much lamented, and his body honorably buried at Plymouth the day and year above mentioned" [ PCR 8:34; see also MD 3:203-04]). [8]
- (Research):From:
http://www.newenglandancestors.org/research/database/great_migration/p.asp#THOMAS_PRENCE
CHILDREN:
With first wife
i REBECCA, b. say 1625 (living at time of cattle division in 1627; m. Plymouth 22 April 1646 Edmund Freeman
ii THOMAS, b. say 1627 (in the 1627 Plymouth division of cattle is a second Thomas Prence, inserted at the end of the tenth lot; this may be the son Thomas Prence, born at about the time this list was compiled, and added separately from his family); m. _____ _____ (an appendix to the fifth edition of Morton's Memorial refers to letters from the widow and daughter of this Thomas Prence, in London, to his father, the immigrant [pp. 424-25]; these letters have apparently never been published, but copies of some of them are held by the Massachusetts Historical Society).
iii HANNAH, b. say 1629; m. (1) Eastham 13 February 1649/50 Nathaniel Mayo ; m. (2) by 1671 Jonathan Sparrow.
iv MERCY, b. say 1631; m. Eastham 13 February 1649/50 John Freeman.
With second wife
v JANE, b. Duxbury 1 November 1637 [ MD 6:230]; m. Eastham 9 January 1660[/1] Mark Snow [ PCR 8:28], son of NICHOLAS SNOW .
vi MARY, b. say 1639; m. by about 1661 John Tracy [ Tracy Gen 26].
Perhaps with third wife
vii JUDITH, b. say 1645; m. (1) Plymouth 28 December 1665 Isaac Barker [ PCR 8:31], son of ROBERT BARKER ; m. (2) after 1693 William Tubbs [ PPR 1:168; PLR 2:123].
viii ELIZABETH, b. about spring 1647 [ WP 5:169]; m. Marsh~field 9 December 1667 Arthur Howland [ MarVR 10], son of Arthur Howland [ NGSQ 71:90-91].
ix SARAH, b. about 1648 ("departed this life March the 3d 1706 in the 60th year of her age," tombstone, Yarmouth, which conflicts with YarVR [ NEHGR 59:217]); m. by about 1669 Jeremiah Howes (birth of child estimated by child's date of marriage), her stepbrother [ MD 6:233; NEHGR 59:217-18].
COMMENTS: For many years it was believed that Prence had married only three times and that his last wife was "Mary" Freeman, but this was straightened out in 1904 by Ella Florence Elliott, who divided the erroneous construct into its proper wholes, revealing divorcee Apphia Freeman and widow Mary Howes as Prence's last two of four wives [ MD 6:230-35].
Establishing the probable date of marriage for Apphia and Thomas Prence has significant implications for the parentage of Prence's last three children. Apphia is last seen as a Freeman 1 July 1644, about a year before the birth of Prence's seventh child, and at the end of a six- year hiatus in the birthdates of his children. She is called "Mrs. Freeman" as late as 15 October 1646 in a deed where she appears as an abutter, but this does not necessarily imply that she had not remarried by this date, since it was not unusual for archaic bounds to be used in this sort of description [ SLR 1:78].
In a letter dated at Plymouth 8 June 1647, Thomas Prence wrote to John Winthrop that "since my parting company [with you] I have almost met with Jacob's trial in his travel between Bethel and Ephrath: God's having been heavy upon my wife and that for diverse months and is not yet removed" [ WP 5:169]. In Genesis 35:16-19 Jacob's favorite wife Rachel died between Bethel and Ephrath after giving birth to a son she named Benoni, but he called Benjamin. Prence here is referring to the birth of his own daughter Elizabeth, apparently a difficult childbirth.
On 6 March 1637/8, having been elected governor, Thomas Prence was excused from the requirement that the governor live in Plymouth, and was permitted to retain his residence in Duxbury [ PCR 1:79]. When he was again elected governor, in 1657, he was allowed to maintain his residence in Eastham, but in 1663 the court ordered that the governor's house at Plymouth be enlarged, and by 1665 Prence again became a resident of Plymouth [ Dawes-Gates 2:684].
BIBLIOGRAPHIC NOTE: Perhaps due to the fact that Thomas Prence had no grandsons that carried the Prence surname, little attention has been directed to this family. A very brief account of his family was prepared in 1852 by David Hamblen and a more substantial treatment was published in 1931 by Mary Walton Ferris [ Dawes-Gates 2:682-94].
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| Sources |
- [SAuth] John Spencer Howell, Jr., John Spencer Howell, Jr., (http://www.jhowell.com/ jhowell@jhowell.com).
- [S986] Glen C. Bodie, Glen C. Bodie, http://worldconnect.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=gcbodie&id=I9954.
- [S946] Robert Charles Anderson, The Great Migration Begins: Immigrants to New England, 1620-1633, (New England Historic Genealogical Society), http://www.newenglandancestors.org/research/database/great_migration/P.asp#THOMAS_PRENCE.
- [S1012] Mary Elizabeth Bedwell, Genealogical History of the Whitman, Bedwell and related, (Commonwealth Press; Richmond, VA; 1974).
- [S1013] Leon Bazalgette, Walt Whitman, The Man and His Work, (Translated from the French by Ellen Fitzgerald).
- [S1701] The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, FamilySearch Family Tree (http://www.familysearch.org), ((http://www.familysearch.org)), accessed 23 Jul 2017), entry for Thomas Prence, person ID 9MWV-FM6.
- [S946] Robert Charles Anderson, The Great Migration Begins: Immigrants to New England, 1620-1633, (New England Historic Genealogical Society), http://www.newenglandancestors.org/research/database/great_migration/C.asp#WILLIAM_COLLIER.
- [S946] Robert Charles Anderson, The Great Migration Begins: Immigrants to New England, 1620-1633, (New England Historic Genealogical Society), Extensive article.
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