Person:Thomas Prence (1)

The proper spelling of this surname is Prince and it was so written by his immediate and collateral forebares, but Gov. Thomas chose to write it as Prence.

Thomas emigrated to America in 1621 on the ship Fortune, and arrived in Plymouth in November 1621, just days after the first Thanksgiving. He was allowed to join with Bradford, Allerton and Standish as a member of the Trade Monopoly. Later, in 1644, he and several other prominent families left Plymouth for better land and founded the community of Eastham, Massachusetts. He became governor in 1634; and after the death of Governor Bradford in 1653, he became the undisputed leader of the Plymouth Colony. ^[1]

In 1621 he went to Plymouth Colony, where he gained prominence and was one of eight colonial "undertakers" who assumed (1627) the colony's debt to the London merchants who had backed the establishment of the colony. He held various offices, including the governorship (1634–35, 1638, 1657–73). Prence supervised (1641) the building of the first bark constructed in the colony and established (1650) the Cape Cod fisheries. As governor he served with credit through a period of Indian wars and internal religious troubles and was noted for his successful effort to secure public revenues in support of schools.^[2]

In 1635, he moved to Duxbury, in 1644 to Eastham, and in 1663, was induced to move back to Plymouth by a gift of a large farm at "Plain Dealing."

George Willison in Saints and Strangers noted that in 1646, Thomas Prence was opposed to religious tolerance and, in 1657, was a leader in Quaker and Baptist persecutions. In Duxbury, the policy of Gov. Prence "met stiff opposition led by Henry and Arthur Howland and others. Henry Howland was up on the malicious charge of 'improperlie entertaining' a neighbor's wife, and his young son, Zoeth, was put in the stocks for saying that he 'would not goe to meeting to hear lyes, and that the Divill could preach as good a sermon as the ministers,' with which many townspeople seemed to agree, choosing to pay a fine rather than attend public worship." Imagine Gov. Prence's feelings when he discovered that "one of his chief enemy's sons, young Arthur Howland, was surreptitiously courting his daughter Elizabeth. As the law forbad 'making motion of marriage' to a girl without her parents' consent, the irascible old governor promptly hauled the 'impudent' youth into court and fined him five pounds for 'inveigeling' his daughter. The young lovers were not discouraged and remained constant, for seven years later Arthur was again in court, was fined and put under bond of 50 pounds 'to refrain and desist.' The couple continued to behave 'disorderlie and unrighteously,' finally breaking the iron will of the old governor." They were married and, "in good time the names of their children, Thomas Howland and Prence (Prince) Howland, were inscribed on the baptismal roll of the church." ^[3]

The inventory of Thomas Prence's estate was taken "by Thomas Cushman Ephraim Tinkham senir and William Crow the 23 dy of Aprill 1673". His goods totaled £422 10 7, and the debts £54 9 6. ^[4]

Family

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 (Judith, Elizabeth and Sarah). 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. ^[5]

Text References

1. ↑ http://www.murrah.com/gen/prence.htm
2. ↑ http://reference.allrefer.com/encyclopedia/P/Prence.html
3. ↑ http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/jtrue/Prence.htm#Thomas
4. ↑ Plymouth Colony Wills 3:60-70, http://www.histarch.uiuc.edu/plymouth/P205.htm
5. ↑ Great Migration, Thomas Prence

Other Resources

Banks, Eng. Ancestry and Homes of Pilgrim Fathers, p. 125.

Gilmore, Albert F., Keene Descendants, 1975.

Hinchman, Lydia, Early Settlers of Nantucket, 1901.

New England Historic and Genealogical Register, Vol. VI, p. 234.

Savage, James, Genealogical Dictionary of the First Settlers of New England, Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1986, Vol. III, pp. 477.

Willison, George, Saints and Strangers, New York: Reynal and Hitchcock, pp. 380, 381, and 445.

Winsor, Justin, History of Town of Duxbury.