Patience Soule

Biography

Patience Soule, daughter of George and Mary Soule, married John Haskell in January 1666. Her father later conveyed land to the couple at Namassakett, or Middleborough, inland from Plymouth in present-day Massachusetts, and the wording of that gift gives Patience a substantial place in the family's legal history.

The deed of January 26, 1668/69 named her first, as George's daughter, and then John as her husband. It conveyed half of George's share of upland and meadow. If Patience outlived John without having a child by him, the whole half-share was to belong to her and her heirs. A corresponding clause protected John if the circumstances were reversed. David Alden and Samuel Nash witnessed the deed.

The property remained important to George late in life. His August 1677 will said that he had already given his Middleborough lands to Patience and her sister Elizabeth. In September he added a striking condition: if his son John Soule or John's successors disturbed Patience's possession and recovered the land from her, John's inheritance would be void. Patience would instead receive George's property at Duxbury, on the Massachusetts coast north of Plymouth, and become his executrix.

George thus made his son's inheritance conditional on respecting Patience's possession of the Middleborough land.

Patience and John raised their family in Middleborough; their son John was born there in 1670. Patience died on March 11, 1706, followed by her husband in May.

The burial listing associates Patience Soule with Standish Burial Ground, Duxbury, Plymouth County, Massachusetts, United States.