We’ve written about several leaders of Plymouth Colony, including Mayflower passengers William Bradford, William Brewster, and John Howland. Another Plymouth leader deserving of our commemoration is Thomas Prence, who was not a Mayflower passenger, but whose long service to the Colony was unmatched: he was the Governor of the Colony off and on for almost 40 years, from 1634 to the day he died on March 29, 1673. Today we honor him on the anniversary of his death.
Born in about 1601 in Gloucestershire, England, Prence came from a middle-class family; his father was a carriage maker. At the age of about 21, he came to the Plymouth Colony on the second ship that arrived there in 1621, the Fortune, which also brought a number of other new settlers to the Colony. He was there to see the graduation growth of the Colony over the next five decades, but also the growth of the rival colony of Massachusetts Bay, founded in 1630 by John Winthrop (famed for his “Winthrop Fleet” which brought a large number of new colonists to America).
Prence was a highly regarded member of the Colony, so much so that he was chosen to be one of the eight leaders to serve as “Undertakers” who entered into an agreement with the “Merchant Adventurers” in 1627 to take over the Colony’s debts to the Adventurers. This move changed the entire direction of the Colony’s fortunes. No longer would the colonists be beholden to the Adventurers, or work in virtual servitude to them. The Colony’s economy thrived as new trading posts were established, from which the colonists made money from the fur trade. Later, the Colony produced an abundance of trade goods and agricultural products which they sold to the Bay Colony colonists.
In the meantime, Prence started a family when he married one of the daughters of William Brewster, Patience Brewster, in 1624, and together they had four children. Patience’s life was cut short by an outbreak of small pox in 1633, and she died at the age of about 30.
Prence’s three terms as Governor were not without controversy. Besides the Colony’s sometimes fraught relationship with the Bay Colony, Prence also became embroiled in religious controversies, starting with the “Remonstrance of 1645,” which sought to have the Colony declare its opposition to religious intolerance, but Prence was among the leaders of the Colony who successfully tabled any consideration of the Remonstrance. Prence also has to deal wit large numbers of Quakers came to the Colony in the 1650’s and began practicing their faith there, and who were met with widespread opposition bordering on persecution. A common myth is that the Pilgrims came to Plymouth Colony seeking religious freedom. But they were intolerant, to say the least, of religious dissenters such as the Quakers, and Prence himself was not an exception. In 1657 he was serving his third term as Governor when the Colony’s General Court enacted several punitive laws designed to punish Quakers, or drive them from the Colony altogether. The religious strife continued for several more years, as many Quakers voted with their feet, and traveled south to join the more tolerant Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations founded by the dissident minister Roger Williams in the 1630’s.
In his last term as Governor, Prence also presided over negotiations to resolve border disputes with Massachusetts and Connecticut, culminating in the Treaty of Hartford in 1650. He also was serving as Governor when the very first witch trial took place in 1661. On a more positive note, Prence sought to keep the peace with Native-Americans, and supported a seven-year embargo on acquisitions of Indian lands.
So, today we honor the memory of Governor Thomas Prence, a major force in the development of Plymouth Colony, and one of the revered members of the Colony to this day.
