Elizabeth Poole or Pole (25 August 1588 – 21 May 1654) was a Plymouth Colony English settler who founded Taunton, Massachusetts

Elizabeth Poole or Pole (25 August 1588 – 21 May 1654) was a Plymouth Colony English settler who founded Taunton, Massachusetts. She was the first woman to establish a town in the Americas.

𝐁𝐢𝐨𝐠𝐫𝐚𝐩𝐡𝐲

Poole was a well-born woman from Shute, near Axminster, in East Devon. She was the daughter of Sir William Pole, knighted by James I in 1601, and Mary Peryam, daughter of Sir William Peryam, Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer. Until 2009, her family's descendants, the Pole-Carews, lived in the Devonshire house she was born in, Shute Barton, a National Trust property open to the public four weekends a year. The property has been refurbished and is now rented out as holiday accommodation by the Trust.

In 1633, Elizabeth embarked on the Speedwell from Plymouth, England, with two friends, fourteen servants, goods, and twenty tonnes of salt for fishing provisions. She intended to establish a settlement and convert the Native Americans to Christianity. Poole is depicted on the Taunton town seal purchasing land from the local Wampanoag Indians, but she was not involved in the original transaction. However, in 1637, she and her brother William Poole purchased a large portion of this land. This resulted in the establishment of the Taunton settlement in 1638. The settlement was officially incorporated the following year, on March 3, 1639.

She was a wealthy spinster when she died in 1654, having built her own house with an orchard that was occupied by her brother, as well as a second home she purchased from Robert Thornton. She was one of the few women at the time who left a will, naming John Poole, her nephew and Boston merchant, as the beneficiary of her estate, which included a 40-acre meadow.

The inscription on her gravestone reads:

Here rest the remains of Elizabeth Poole, a native of Old England, of good family, friends, and prospects, all which she left in the prime of her life, to enjoy the religion of her conscience, in this distant wilderness; a great proprietor of the township of Taunton, a chief promoter of its settlement, and its incorporation in 1639-40; about which time she settled near this spot, and having employed the opportunity of her virgin state in piety, liberality, and sanctity of manners, died May 21, 1654, aged 65.