MATTAPOISETT — On March 21, the Mattapoisett Museum and Mattapoisett Library will co-host a talk with Author Stephen C. O'Neill via Zoom about his work, “The Life of Peregrine White: The First Englishman Born in New England.”

Peregrine White was born to William White and his wife Susanna while the Mayflower was anchored at Cape Cod, now recognized as Provincetown Harbor. White later moved to Marshfield with his family and became a person of note in the early settlements of NewEngland.

O’Neill is a graduate of Boston College and Boston University. He is currently the Executive Director of the Hanover Historical Society, Senior Lecturer in History at Boston’s Suffolk University, and the Guest Curator for the Alden House Historic Site’s archaeological exhibit In Small Things Remembered.

In 2018, he was Scholar-in-Residence at Taunton’s Old Colony History Museum.

O’Neill was formerly the Associate Director & Curator of Collections at Pilgrim Hall Museum. He’s also a lifelong resident of the South Shore, a member of Plymouth’s Old Colony Club, the Colonial Society of Massachusetts, and a Proprietor of the Boston Athenaeum.

O’Neill has curated more than twenty temporary exhibitions. And was guest curator for exhibits on New England pirates at The Bostonian Society and Heritage Museums & Gardens. He has lectured widely on Plymouth Colony, Pirate history, and lead tours of many burying grounds and cemeteries.

O’Neill was the 2018 Massachusetts Foundation for the Humanities funded Scholar-in-Residence at the Old Colony History Museum in Taunton for the project Plymouth Colony in the Collections of Taunton’s Old Colony History Museum.

Register on the Mattapoisett Library’s online event calendar to gain access to the talk. Zoom information will be sent the day before the presentation. Those interested can also register by sending an email to jjones@sailsinc.org or by completing the registration form. Call the library at (508) 758-4171 or email to jjones@sailsinc.org with questions. This program is part of the Purrington Lecture Series, a presentation of the Mattapoisett Library Trust, a charitable organization working to expanding the role of the library in the community.