John Alden

John Alden (1599?-1687) was one of the Pilgrims who emigrated to America in 1620 on theMayflower (ship) and founded the Plymouth Colony. According to William Bradford's History of the Plimoth Plantation, he was hired as a cooper at Southampton just before the voyage. He was one of the first settlers of Duxbury, Massachusetts, where he lived for most of his life, and from 1633 until 1675 he was Assistant to the governor of the colony, frequently serving as acting governor.

At the time of his death, at Duxbury on 12 September 1687, he was the last male survivor of the signers of the Mayflower Compact of 1620, and with the exception of Mary Allerton was the last survivor of The Mayflower's company. He is remembered chiefly because of a popular legend, put into verse as The Courtship of Miles Standish by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, concerning his courtship of Priscilla Mullins, whom he married in 1623, after having wooed her first on behalf of his friend, Miles Standish.

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