Nathaniel Morton, one of the early Pilgrim settlers of Plymouth Colony, arrived from Leyden on the Anne with his family in 1623 and upon the death of his father, George Morton, in 1624 was taken into the household of his uncle, Governor William Bradford. He later served as the governor's clerk, amanuensis, and agent in public and private transactions, and from 1647 to 1685 he was secretary of the colony and keeper of the records. During the last forty-five years of his life. Morton was one of the wealthiest and most influential men in the colony. Largely responsible for drafting most of the colony's laws, he served the town of Plymouth, the colony, and his church in numerous capacities.

Morton's New-Englands Memoriall ... (1669) was the second and most important history of the colony to be published during the seventeenth century. (Mourt's Relation, largely the work of Edward Winslow with contributions by William Bradford...