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John and Priscilla Alden Family Sites
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John Alden House, 2009
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| Location: | 105 Alden St., Duxbury, Massachusetts |
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| Area: | 2.4 acres (0.97 ha) |
| Governing body: | Private |
| NRHP Reference#: |
78000476 [1] |
| Significant dates | |
| Added to NRHP: | December 14, 1978 |
| Designated NHL: | October 7, 2008[2] |
John and Priscilla Alden Family Sites is a National Historic Landmark consisting of two properties in Duxbury, Massachusetts, United States.[3]
According to the Department of the Interior's press release:
The John and Priscilla Alden Sites property consists of the c. 1700 Alden house and the c. 1632 original Alden Homestead site. The property owes it significance to the cultural impact of The Courtship of Miles Standish, a poem about the courtship of John Alden and Priscilla Mullins, written by Alden descendant Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and published in 1858. The public embraced the poem. It became one of the most popular national origin stories in American folklore. The property also is the location of important archeological fieldwork and analysis by Roland Wells Robbins (1908-1987), a pioneer in the field of historical archeology, making the site of national significance in the development in this field. Robbins located and excavated a foundation of the original Alden home in 1960, which yielded nationally significant data that shed light on the lifeways of the first English settlers in North America.[2]
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John Alden House is a historic house museum that was purportedly home to John and Priscilla Alden. It is located at 105 Alden Street in Duxbury, Massachusetts. Scholarship variously dates it as built in 1653 according to family tradition, or c. 1700 according to more recent dendrochronology testing of the beams.[4]
Alden was ship's cooper on the Mayflower who arrived in Plymouth in 1620 and later moved to Duxbury. Although not a Pilgrim himself, he was an important figure throughout the period of the Plymouth Colony. This house may have used materials from Alden's earlier house which was nearby.
This property is the c. 1632 original location of the Alden Homestead. As noted above, although no building stands there now, it is an important archeological site. It is owned by the Town of Duxbury.
John and Priscilla Alden Family Sites was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1978.[1] The sites were declared a National Historic Landmark on October 7, 2008.
The Alden Kindred of America, Inc. is a non-profit 501(c) organization that owns and preserves the John Alden House.
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