John and Priscilla Alden Family Sites
The John and Priscilla Alden Family Sites is a National Historic Landmark consisting of two separate properties in Duxbury, Massachusetts. Both properties are significant for their association with John Alden, one of the settlers of the Plymouth Colony who came to America on board the Mayflower and held numerous posts of importance in the colony. Alden and his relationship with Priscilla Mullins were memorialized by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in The Courtship of Miles Standish, a fictionalized narrative poem that made the story a piece of American folklore.
John and Priscilla Alden Family Sites | |
U.S. National Register of Historic Places | |
U.S. National Historic Landmark | |
John Alden House, 2009 | |
| Location | 105 Alden St., Duxbury, Massachusetts |
|---|---|
| Coordinates | 42°2′42″N 70°41′9″W |
| Area | 2.4 acres (0.97 ha) |
| Built | c. 1630 (Original) c. 1700 (Current) |
| NRHP reference No. | 78000476 |
| Significant dates | |
| Added to NRHP | December 14, 1978 |
| Designated NHL | October 6, 2008 |
One of the two properties contains the archaeological remains of the house that Alden built c. 1630, and is also significant in the field of historical archaeology as the mature field work of Roland W. Robbins (1908–1987), an early historical archaeologist. It is on land owned by the Town of Duxbury. On the second property stands a house which was traditionally dated to c. 1653 as a work by Alden, but it has been judged by forensic analysis to have been built around 1700, probably by Alden's grandson. This property has been under the continuous ownership of the Alden family; it is now managed by a family foundation as a historic house museum.