Thomas Prence

Thomas Prence was probably born in the area of Lechlade, a town in the county of Gloucestershire, in about 1600 to Thomas Prince and Elizabeth Tolderby.[1] The Prince family moved to the London parish of All Hallows Barking, near Tower Hill, where Thomas' father was a carriage maker.[2][3][4] Prence's father, in his will of July 31, 1639, mentioned "my son Thomas Prence now remayninge in New England in parts beyond the seas", and bequeathed him a "seale Ringe of Gold", indicating the family may have been armigerous.[3] Prence's ancestors spelled the family name "Prince", but, after his emigration, Thomas used the spelling of "Prence".[3]

Prence lived in Ratcliff, at that time a hamlet in the parish of Stepney, which is where he was probably living when he decided to emigrate to the New World.[3]

Thomas Prence came to Plymouth Colony on the ship Fortune in November 1621 as a single man.[4] In the 1623 division of land, Prence is named as "holder of one akre of land".[5]

The Plymouth Colony had been founded as a joint venture between separatists, religious separatists and a group of "merchant adventurers", who underwrote much of the cost of the colony's establishment in exchange for a share of its profit-making activities. By 1626, however, it was clear that the colony was unlikely to yield significant profits, and the merchant adventurers sought to divest themselves of their obligations.[6] Prence was one of eight leaders of the colony (known collectively as the "Undertakers") who agreed to assume all of the colony's debts to the merchants, in exchange for which the other colonists granted them a monopoly on the local fur trade.[7] In a 1633 tax assessment, Prence's wealth was such that he was one of a few men required to pay more than £1.[8]

The Undertakers established several trading posts around New England, where they traded with the natives for furs, which were shipped to England to pay off their debts.[9] The business was risky for a variety of reasons: there was competition from Dutch and French traders (the latter seizing the Plymouth post at Pentagoet, present-day Castine, Maine), and their first shipment to England was taken by French privateers.[10] The group's agent, Isaac Allerton, also casually mixed personal business with the group's, apparently to his advantage.[11] As a result, debts to English merchants continued to mount until the late 1630s, when Allerton deserted them and the Undertakers sought to dissolve their agreement with the London merchants.[12] An agreement was reached in 1641 to pay the London merchants £1,200 over a several-year period, but one of the merchants refused the deal and insisted on being paid an additional £400. To rid themselves of the problem, the Undertakers in 1645 pledged some of their landholdings as security. A few years later, they were forced to sell some land to satisfy the pledge; Prence sold his house to pay his share.[13]

The economy of the colony changed after major migration to the new Massachusetts Bay Colony began in 1630. The Puritans arriving at Boston and other new communities to the north created a demand for Plymouth's agricultural output, which had until then been primarily used for local consumption. Because the land at Plymouth was not particularly good, its colonists began to disperse to other places where land was better. Prence was part of this migration, joining his father-in-law William Brewster in moving to nearby Duxbury in 1632.[14]

In 1644, the Prence family was one of seven to found a new settlement at Eastham on Cape Cod. The area of the Outer Cape (roughly from Brewster to Provincetown) had been reserved to the Undertakers, and Prence became one of the largest landowners in the area. His holdings included land in what is now Brewster, Harwich, Wellfleet and all of Truro. The land there was fertile and the town prospered under his guidance.[15] Prence lived there until 1663 when he moved back to Plymouth.[4]

An early Plymouth deed mentioning Governor Thomas Prence and Josiah Winslow, courtesy of Shiwei Jiang

In 1634, Prence was elected governor, and for the rest of his life he played a role in the colony's governance, serving as either governor or on the council of assistants. He also served, at various times, as colonial treasurer, president of the Council of War, and in a variety of other positions.[4] His first election came after the longtime former governor William Bradford refused to stand for the office, and the outgoing governor, Edward Winslow, was preparing to travel to England. Prence was re-elected in 1638 after Bradford again refused to run.[17]

Prence was involved in the colony's disputes over control of settlements on the Connecticut River. As part of the colony's fur trading operations, a trading post was established at Matianuck, now Windsor, Connecticut, in the early 1630s. This was done over objections by the Dutch of New Netherland, who had established their own trading post at present-day Hartford not long before.[18] Discontented colonists from the neighboring Massachusetts Bay Colony settled in the same area 1634, seeking to escape what they perceived as the harsh rule of "King [John] Winthrop".[19] Although Jonathan Brewster, head of the Matianuck post, gave some assistance to the needy Massachusetts colonists, the Plymouth government protested that the settlers were occupying land that they had rightly acquired from the local natives. The matter was also bound to a conflict between the two English provinces over the Maine fur trade and became further complicated by the outbreak of the Pequot War. Prence negotiated the agreement that in 1637 resolved the dispute: most of the land was purchased by the Massachusetts arrivals, and Plymouth retained the trading post and several smaller plots of land.[20][21] Prence was also involved in an unsuccessful attempt to gain Massachusetts assistance in the recovery of the Pentagoet trading post in Maine.[22]

Prence was elected governor for the second time in 1638.[4] New England was then dealing with the aftereffects of the Antinomian Controversy, a religious dispute that resulted in the banishment of several people (notably Anne Hutchinson and John Wheelwright) from the neighboring Massachusetts Bay Colony, and occasioned significant debate in Plymouth as well.[23] Prence's hardline Puritan views on the matter may have played a role in his election that year. Another persona non grata in Massachusetts was Samuel Gorton, who arrived in Boston, and not finding its religious practices to his liking, settled in Plymouth.[24] Prence objected to Gorton's religious practices as well and saw to it that he was banished from Plymouth. The charges he used to achieve this stemmed from a violation by Gorton of law against harboring strangers without permission, which had until then been only weakly enforced. Prence's action was unpopular, but those protesting Gorton's conviction were themselves fined by the magistrates.[25]

During his 1638 term, Prence presided over a significant criminal case over the murder of an Indian. The matter involved all of the neighboring jurisdictions, because the Indian, a Narragansett, was attacked on the path between Plymouth and the tribal lands, and the perpetrators were captured by the Narragansett. Their leaders appealed for justice to Rhode Island leader Roger Williams, and the victim also survived long enough to make a statement to the Rhode Islanders. Massachusetts Bay authorities were also notified but recommended the case be sent to Plymouth since the attack took place on Plymouth territory. Four white men were involved in the attack, but one managed to escape before the trial and was never recaptured. The other three were tried, convicted, and hanged. Those Narragansetts who attended the trial were satisfied that justice was served.[26]

On the 1643 Able to Bear Arms List, Mr. Thomas Prence is listed with those men of Plymouth.[27]

In 1645, a petition was presented to the colonial council asking for religious tolerance. It was the work of William Vassall, who was also supposedly behind a similar petition that was introduced in 1646 in Massachusetts.[28] The petition had broad support within the colony, but was opposed by the conservative leadership, including Prence, Governor Bradford, and Edward Winslow.[29] The colonial assembly would have approved the petition, except those three, used parliamentary maneuvers to prevent its consideration.[28][29]

Plymouth was a member of the United Colonies of New England, an organization formed in 1643 to facilitate the common defense of most of the English colonies of New England (non-Puritan Rhode Island was not invited to join but joined later).[30]

Prence was sometimes one of the commissioners who represented Plymouth in the organization's meetings. As commissioner of the United Colonies, Prence helped negotiate boundaries between Connecticut and New Netherland in the 1650 Treaty of Hartford.[31] Dutch claims to the Connecticut River were coming under increasing pressure from the rapid growth of the English colonies, and both sides sought to avoid military conflict on the matter. Meeting at Hartford, the commission and Dutch Governor-General Peter Stuyvesant negotiated a formal boundary line that essentially confirmed, to English benefit, English claims to what is now the state of Connecticut as well as eastern Long Island.[32]

In 1658, Prence was appointed to a special commission to mediate a border dispute between Massachusetts and Connecticut. The matter concerned Massachusetts territory in what is now Stonington, Connecticut that it had taken as part of the spoils of the Pequot War. The commission decided that the boundary should be on the Mystic River, with Connecticut to the west and Massachusetts to the east.[33]

After Governor Bradford died in 1657, Prence became the most important person in Plymouth,[34] winning unanimous election to succeed Bradford as governor.[35] He held the post until his death in 1673.[36] e was described as being fairly friendly in informal situations, but when he presided over the colonial court he was strict and authoritarian. He was described by a contemporary as the "Terrour to evill doers", and he was quick to consider his opposition in any matter as "evill".[37]

Thomas Prence married four times. He married his first wife, Patience, on August 5, 1624. Patience was the daughter of William Brewster. They had four children before she died of a "pestilent fever" in 1634. The children were named Rebecca, Thomas, Hannah and Mercy.[34]

He next married Mary Collier, daughter of William Collier, on April 1, 1635. They had at least two children before her death, circa 1644. Their names were Jane and Mary.[34]

His third wife was Apphia (Quicke) Freeman, whom he married sometime between 1644 and the 1660s. The couple had a daughter Judith Prence born in May 1645, AGBI.[34]

Sometime in the 1660s (before either 1662 or 1668),[34] Prence married for the fourth and final time. His wife was Mary, widow of Thomas Howes. He had three more children, Judith, Elizabeth and Sarah, but it is not certain which wife was the mother.[4]

Prence's will was dated March 13, 1672/73, proved June 5, 1673. He named his wife Mary, 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-in-law John Freeman; Lydia Sturtevant; and his brother Thomas Clarke. The mention in his will of his deceased son Thomas's daughter Susanna Prence indicates that he died without a surviving male heir in the Prence line.[1][3][34][52] Prence engaged in many land transactions and died a wealthy man, leaving a personal estate in excess of £400 and some eleven tracts of land, with at least two of the holding 100 acres each.[21]

Thomas Prence died March 29, 1673.[54] He is buried at Burial Hill, a historic cemetery in Plymouth, Massachusetts where many Pilgrims are buried.[55]

Thomas Prence's descendants number in the thousands today. Some of his notable descendants include:

• Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry[56] (1785–1819) an officer in the US Navy. He served in the War of 1812 against Britain and earned the title "Hero of Lake Erie"
• Matthew Calbraith Perry (1794–1858) was the Commodore of the U.S. Navy who compelled the opening of Japan to the West with the Convention of Kanagawa in 1854.[56]
• Linus Carl Pauling (1901-1994) American chemist, biochemist, peace activist, author, educator and winner of two Nobel Prizes (Chemistry, Peace).