GENERATION 11

GENERATION 10

Biography

WILLIAM PABODIE came to New England with his father in 1635 or 1636. He grew up in Duxbury, Plymouth, MA, and is referred to in various documents of the period as a yeoman, boatman, planter and wheelwright. He was also a land surveyor. On Nov. 1, 1648, four years after he was married, he bought from John Holland and Hopestill Foster of Dorchester, MA, a dwelling house, garden, stables, land and meadow. He later bought additional tracts of land in Mattapoisett and Sepecan.

He served as a Duxbury town officer and as a representative or deputy to the General Court at Plymouth, being repeatedly elected to the court from 1654 to 1663, then again in 1668, and 1671 through 1682. He was admitted a freeman of the colony June 5, 1651.

On July 31, 1673, WILLIAM PABODIE, along with CONSTANT SOUTHWORTH and Nathaniel Thomas, made the first purchase of the Saconnet Land from the Squaw Sachem Awashonks. Awashonks was the leader of the Saconnet sub-tribe of the Wamponoags (or Pokonokets), of whom Massasoit was chief when the settlers arrived at Plymouth. Two more purchases were made over the next eight years, the third being on May 10, 1681.

Part of this third purchase was known as the "three quarters of a mile square", which was divided into thirty-two lots. WILLIAM purchased twenty-eight of these lots, on the west side of the main road across from where the Little Compton Historical Society now exists.

About 1684, he removed to Little Compton, then in Massachusetts but now in Rhode Island, where he had acquired land in 1681. Thus he established in Rhode Island what has come to be known as the Rhode Island branch of the family.

ELIZABETH ALDEN was born in 1625, and is said to be the first child born in Plymouth Colony. WILLIAM died Dec. 13, 1707, in Little Compton. ELIZABETH survived for almost 10 years, dying May 31, 1717, in Little Compton. She is buried there, her burial site being a memorial in the town. It is doubtful that ELIZABETH could read or write for when her husband's estate was settled, she signed by making her mark, drawn like a printed capital E about an inch in length.