John Howland

For the pediatrician, see John Howland (doctor).

John Howland (c. 1593 – February 23, 1673) was an English indentured servant who accompanied the English Separatists and other passengers when they left England on the Mayflower to settle in Plymouth Colony. In later years, he was an executive assistant and personal secretary to Governor John Carver.[1]

In 1620 he signed the Mayflower Compact and helped found the colony.[2] During his service to Governor Carver in 1621, Howland assisted in the making of a treaty with the Sachem Massasoit of the Wampanoag.[3] In 1626, he was a freeman and one of eight settlers who agreed to assume the colony's debt to its investors in exchange for a monopoly on the fur trade.[4] He was elected deputy to the Plymouth General Court in 1641 and held the position until 1655, and again in 1658.[5]

  1. ^ Philbrick 2006, pp. 32–37.
  2. ^ William Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation, 1620-1647, ed. by Samuel Eliot Morison, The Modern Library, (New York: Random House, 1967),pp. 59, 68, 195, 263, 400-3, 415-417
  3. ^ Howland, C. R. (1946). A Brief Genealogical and Biographical Record of Charles Roscoe Howland. Rutland: Tuttle Publishing. p. 14. Retrieved October 2, 2014.
  4. ^ Philbrick, Pg. 168
  5. ^ Hurd, Duane (1884). History of Plymouth County, Massachusetts. J. W. Lewis & Co. p. 103.