Individual Details

Priscilla Mullins

(1602 - 1685)

American Colonial Figure. One of the charter members of the Plymouth Colony, arriving on the first voyage of the "Mayflower", her marriage to John Alden is the third known marriage in the Plymouth colony. Born in Dorking, Surrey, England, she was a young girl of 16 or 17 at the time of the sailing of the Mayflower in 1620 for America, when she arrived with her parents. When her parents died in the first winter ashore, in early 1621, a hard time when about half of the colony perished, she chose to stay with the Pilgrims even though she had a brother and sister surviving in England. Between the time of her parents' deaths in 1621 and her marriage to John Alden about 1623, it is not known whom she stayed with or how she survived. John married Priscilla Mullins about 1623, but the exact date has been lost to history. A legend of a rivalry between John Alden and pilgrim Miles Standish for Priscilla Mullins arose, and was first published in the book, "Collection of American Epitaphs and Inscriptions" in 1814, by Timothy Alden. The story was popularized by the poem, "The Courtship of Miles Standish" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in 1858, however, there is no documentation of such a rivalry to have existed in any of the records of the Plymouth Colony. (bio by: Kit and Morgan Benson) 
 

Events

Birth1602Weybridge, England
Marriage1622Massachusetts Bay, British America - John Alden
Death1685South Duxbury, Plymouth, Massachusetts Bay, British America

Families

SpouseJohn Alden (1599 - 1687)
ChildRuth Alden (1634 - 1674)
ChildJoseph Alden (1627 - 1697)
ChildDavid Alden (1626 - 1719)

Endnotes