Phineas Pratt

Phineas Pratt (c.1593 – April 19, 1680) (a.k.a. Phineaus Pratt or Phinehas Pratt ), a joiner from London, was one of the first English settlers in New England and enrolled among the "First Comers" of Plymouth Colony. Pratt arrived as part of the company of Thomas Weston on the 1622 voyage of the ship Sparrow and was among the founders of the Wessagusset (Weymouth) settlement which failed in March 1623. In 1623, when it still numbered about 32 dwellings, Pratt joined the Plymouth Colony and later married Mary Priest, the daughter of Mayflower passenger Degory Priest. In 1662, he wrote an account of the early days of the Wessagusett colony as part of a petition to the General Court of Massachusetts for "First Comer" status, which he was granted.

The ill-fated Wessagusset settlement Some time prior to 1622, at around the age of 29, Phineas Pratt and his brother Joshua Pratt joined the company of Thomas Weston, a London Merchant involved with the Leiden Separatists and Pilgrims who settled Plymouth Colony in 1620. Known to the Pilgrims as the "Strangers", this group of adventurers arrived in New England in 1622 on three ships: the Sparrow, Charity and Swan. Phineas Pratt was a passenger on the Sparrow, which was the first ship of the three to arrive. Poorly supplied, with inferior provisions and with many ill, Weston's total company comprised approximately 67 men, about ten of whom sailed on the Sparrow and (through some mis-navigation) put ashore in Damarill's Cove (Damariscove Islands), off the now State of Maine, to find a site for another plantation. Encountering some Native Americans, Weston's men thought it best to settle closer to the Plimoth plantation. Weston sent Pratt with a group of about seven men to scout out the area around Plymouth. Encountering the settlers there, who were in need of provisions, they brought some back to the Maine encampment to give them some supplies. Eventually, the group sailed to Plymouth to await the arrival of the Charity and Swan, and the Pilgrims supported them throughout the summer of 1622. In August, after the arrival of the Swan, the merchant's company built a trading post stockade in the abandoned native settlement of Wessaguscus, now Weymouth, Massachusetts, under the leadership of Weston's brother-in-law: Richard Greene.

Pratt's journey through the snow According to the Pilgrim Hall Museum, the settlement at Wessagusset was problematic from the start. Greene soon died during a visit to Plymouth and was replaced by John Sanders.

Members of the company stole both from the natives led by Pecksuot and from their own countrymen in Plimoth. According to Eleazer Pratt's narrative, "The half-starved company of Weston had some among their number who could not resist the temptation of stealing and eating the inviting grain. The Plymouth people detected some of them trespassing thus, and had them severely whipped, for what an old chronicler termed 'a few caps of corn'."

According to Pratt's own narrative, he had become uneasy and told his company that someone needed to warn the Plimoth settlement, lest they all be slain. No one else was willing to accompany him.

Pratt was included in a division of land in Plymouth in 1623, where he and Joshua Pratt were assigned, jointly, two acres of land. In 1624 when Plymouth was divided into twelve companies, Phineas and Joshua were assigned to Francis Cooke. At this time Plymouth comprised about 32 dwellings and was one half mile large.

In response, the court granted him three hundred acres of land "laid out in the wilderness on the east of the Merrimack River, near the upper end of the 'Nacoke Brooke'." (This was in Dunstable, near present-day Litchfield, New Hampshire, though the value would not be able to be realized on this wild land for decades to come.)

In October 1668, at age around 75, Pratt again petitioned the Court:To the Honoured the Generall Court, holden at Boston this— October 1668

I acknowledg myself truly thankfull unto the Honoured Court for that they gave me at the time I presented an History called, A declaration of the affaires of the Einglish People, that first inhabited New Eingland. Yet my necessity causeth me farther to entreat you to consider what my service hath been unto my dread Soveraign Lord King James of famous memory. I am one of that litle number, ten men that arrived in the Massachusetts Bay for the setling of a Plantation, & am the remainder of the forlorn hope sixty men. We bought the south part of the Bay of Aberdecest their Sachem. Ten of our company died by famine. Then said ye Natives of the Countrey, "Let us kill them whist they are weak, or they will possesse our Countrey & drive us away." Three times we fought with them, thirty miles I was pursued for my life, in times of frost, and snow, as a deer chased with wolves. Two of our men were kill'd in warr, one shot in the shoulder. It was not by the wit of man nor by ye strength of the arme of flesh, that we prevailed against them. But God, that overrules all power, put fear in their hearts. And now, seeing God hath added a New England to Old Engl. and given both to our dread Soverig Lord King Charles the second, many thousand People enjoy the peace thereof; Now in times of prosperity, I beseech you consider the day of small things; for I was almost frozen in time of our weak beginnings, and now I am lame.

My humble request is for that may be for my subsistaunce, the remaining time of my life.Pratt's 1668 request was not granted.

Death and burial On April 19, 1680, Phineas Pratt died in Charlestown, Massachusetts. According to his gravestone, he was "about 90 years".

The will of Phineas Pratt dates January 8, 1677. According to the records of the Pilgrim Hall Museum, the text is as follows:I, Phinias Pratt of Charlstown in the Countie of Midellsex Joyner being very aged and Crazye of body yett in my pfect memory and understanding doe make This my last will and Teastamoen. Item I give unto my belovid wife Mary Pratt all my movabl goods and fortie Shillings a year to be payed oute of my land in Charlstowne and the use of the gardon for term of hir life: this fortie Shillings is to be payed by my sonn Joseph Pratt for and in consideration of the having of my land and my wif is to have a convenient room of my sonn Joseph with a chimny in it to hir content to lie in for term of hir life. Wthout molestation or trubl; but If my sonn Joseph doeth not perform this will that then my wif Mary Prat shall have the one half of the land to hir Dispossing for his vest comfort: it is to be understod that the one half wch the new hous standeth one is given to Joseph upon the condistion of providing of a convenient room for me and my wife for term of our lives and this other half for the paying of the fortie Shillings a year paying it quartterly that is to say ten shllig a quarter in mony and fier wood at mony price and If ther be any thing left at the death of my wife it shalbe equally devided a mung all my children. this eight of Jeneary 1677 Phinehas Pratt Sealed and deliverd in the presents of Use Walter alen, the marke of Rebeack Alen

The total value of all Pratt's goods was 32 pounds, 16 shillings, 06 pence. His heirs were given as: John (deceased), Peter (deceased), Samuel, Daniel, and Mary (his other three living children, Mercy, Aaron and Joseph, having disposed of their shares).