Elizabeth Poole

Elizabeth Poole or Pole was an English settler in Plymouth Colony who founded the town of Taunton, Massachusetts. She was the first woman known to have founded a town in the Americas.

Poole was a wellborn woman from Shute in East Devon, near Axminster. She was the daughter of Sir William Pole, who was knighted by James I in 1601, and Mary Peryam, the daughter of Sir William Peryam, Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer. Until 2009, her familys descendants, the PoleCarews, lived in the Devonshire house she was born in, Shute Barton a National Trust property which is open to the public on four weekends during the year. .

Source: Wikipedia