On this day, March 31, 1676 Zoeth "Zoar" Howland died, a casualty of King Philip's War

[Tom Kitten]

4. Interesting!

Very interesting story!
I'm originally from New England, born in Boston. We moved out west when I was five, though, and don't feel much connection to there anymore.

My mom was from Taunton. Taunton was one of the epicenters of King Phillip's War. Her aunt, (my great aunt) was into the genealogy thing and traced our family tree back to four people who came on the Mayflower and John Howland was one of them. That was 13 generation's ago I think.
It amazes me that her family basically stayed in one smallish town for almost 350 years. I'm so sorry to hear about my great×13 or so uncle! But it cheers me up knowing he defied the Puritans. My mom's family were all Congregationalists. Don't know if that means much of anything
A funny story that ties into your remark about "you never know..." I once had a showing of my drawings at an art gallery in Portland. It was fairly new and run by a couple who were new arrivals from Boston. So we became friendly. One day, the wife and I were talking about Boston and the Mayflower came up and she said one of her ancestors was on it and I said "who?" and she said "John Howl and". We laughed when I said "me too" and from then on we would greet each other with " Hi cousin".