the two families in blood as well as in friendship. Ruth, who married
John Bass, became the ancestress of John Adams and John Quincy
Adams. Elizabeth, who married William Pabodie, had thirteen children,
eleven of them girls, and lived to be ninety-three years; at her death
the _Boston News Letter_ [Footnote: June 17, 1717.] extolled her
as "exemplary, virtuous and pious and her memory is blessed." Possibly
with all her piety she had a good share of the independence of spirit
which was accredited to her mother; in her husband's will [Footnote:
The Mayflower Descendant, vi, 129.] she is given her "third at Little
Compton" and an abundance of household stuff, but with this
reservation,--"If she will not be contented with her thirds at Little
Compton, but shall claim her thirds in both Compton and Duxbury or
marry again, I do hereby make voyde all my bequest unto her and she
shall share only the parte as if her husband died intestate." A
portrait of her shows dress of rich materials.

Captain John Alden seems to have been more adventuresome than the
other boys in Priscilla's family. He was master of a merchantman in
Boston and commander of armed vessels which supplied marine posts with
provisions. Like his sister, Elizabeth, he had thirteen children. He
was once accused of witchcraft, when he was present at a trial, and
was imprisoned fifteen weeks without being allowed bail.
[Footnote: History of Witchcraft; Upham.] He escaped and hurried to
Duxbury, where he must have astonished his mother by the recital of
his adventures. He left an estate of L2059, in his will, two houses,
one of wood worth four hundred pounds, and another of brick worth two
hundred and seventy pounds, besides much plate, brass and money and
debts amounting to L1259, "the most of which are desperite." A tablet
in the wall of the Old South Church at Copley Square, Boston, records
his death at the age of seventy-five, March, 1701. He was an original