Elizabeth Poole

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Elizabeth Poole (unspecified-May 21, 1664; sometimes called Elizabeth Pole) was the foundress of Taunton, Massachusetts, in Colonial America. She was the first woman to have founded a town in the Americas. She was an English woman and a Puritan who came from Dorchester travelling onto a whole new frontier. She came upon the land called Cohannet by the Wampanoag in 1637 and soon peacefully purchasing 5,122 acres (21 km²) of land from them. This led to the development of the Taunton settlement in 1638. The next year in March 3 of 1639, the settlement was incorporated as a town. Also, she was the first-ever business woman in the Americas.

This inscription remains on the gravestone of Elizabeth Poole, "Here rest the remains of Elizabeth Poole, a native of Old England, of good family, friends, and prospects, all which she left in the prime of her life, to enjoy the religion of her conscience, in this distant wilderness; a great proprietor of the township of Taunton, a chief promoter of its settlement, and its incorporation in 1639-40; about which time she settled near this spot, and having employed the opportunity of her virgin state in piety, liberality, and sanctity of manners, died May 21, 1664, aged 65."