Alden, John (redirected from John Alden)

Alden, John, c.1599–1687, Puritan settler in Plymouth Colony. He came to America on the Mayflower and was prominent as assistant to the governor of the colony. He moved (c.1627) to Duxbury and there was neighbor and friend of Miles Standish. Alden's marriage to Priscilla Mullens gave rise to the romantic legend made familiar by Longfellow's poem, The Courtship of Miles Standish.

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Alden, John

(born 1599?, England—died Sept. 12, 1687, Duxbury, Mass.) British-born American pilgrim. He was hired as a cooper by the London merchants who funded the Mayflower's expedition to the New World in 1620. Alden signed the Mayflower Compact and held various civic positions in the colony, including assistant to the governor (1623–41, 1650–86). He was mythologized as the first Pilgrim to set foot on Plymouth Rock and as the stand-in for Myles Standish in his suit for Priscilla Mullens's hand in marriage in the poem “The Courtship of Miles Standish” (1858) by Henry W. Longfellow. Alden in fact married Mullens in 1623.

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Alden, John (c. 1599–1687) Pilgrim; born in England. He was a cooper aboard the Mayflower and signed the Mayflower Compact. Although he did marry Priscilla Mullens, there is no basis for the story told in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's The Courtship of Miles Standish. He held several important posts within the Duxbury colony, where he had moved to from nearby Plymouth c. 1627.

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Alden, John

(1599–1687) speaks to Priscilla Mullins for Miles Standish. [Am. Lit.: “The Courtship of Miles Standish” in Hart, 188–189]

See : Messenger

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Alden, John

(c. 1599–1687) too timid to ask for Priscilla’s hand in marriage. [Am. Lit.: “The Courtship of Miles Standish” in Benét, 230]

See : Timidity