- Shortly after the FORTUNE arrived at Plymouth in 1621, a shallop from the ship SPARROW, which Had arrive in Damaris Cove. In this little vessel were ten men, who came to select a site for another plantation; Phineas Pratt was one of them, Joshua Pratt, probably the brother of Phineas, and like him, unmarried, arrived at Plymouth in the ANNE in the summer of 1623. Most of those who came in thes ship and in the LITTLE JAMES were friends and relatives of the Plymouth settlers. During the year 1623 there was a division of the land at Plymouth, under three groups: those who came in the MAY FLOWER, those who came in the FORTUNE, and those who came in the ANNE. As part of the last group, Phineas and Joshua received two acres. Since Phineas did not come by any of those vessels, the probability is that he was the brother of Joshua and put with that group to make the division complete. In 1624 the settlers of Plymouth were divided into twelve companies of thirteen persons each. Joshua and Phineas were assigned to Francis Cooke.
He was appointed a surveyor on January 3, 1627, along with William Bradford, Edward Winslow, John Howland, Francis Cooke and Edward Bangs. He was mentioned in the cattle division of June 1, 1627, when he was a member of Francis Cooke's company which received "the least of the four black heifers came in the JACOB." He was a freeman at the time of the incorporation of Plymouth in 1633, and in April of that year he was foreman of the jury, as well as Constable in 1633, 1636, 1637. On December 4, 1638 he was again sworn in as Constable and the Court gave him the duties of measuring lands and the sealing of weights and measures.
*Reference: Clemens, 176; NEHGR 9:314; Plymouith Colony Records, 1:3, 12, 105; Pratt, Simon Newcomb, "Founders of Early American Families", pamphlet, 1917, reprint 1938; MD 14:113, 18:56; Peirce's Colonial Lists; Goodwin, John, "The Pilgrim Republic",292-3; Rev. Sherwood Anderson Davis, "Ancient Landmarks of Plymouth", 209; Plymouth Colony Records, 8:17, "Ancestors and Descendants of Minnie Hale Gorton" by Carolyn C. Volpe, p. 108-110.
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