General Notes

(Research):Richard Warren appears to have been a merchant
, who resided in London, and became
associated with the Pilgrims and the Mayflower through th
e Merchant Adventurers.
Richard Warren participated in several of the early explora
tions made by the Pilgrims in
1620, while looking for a place to settle. He appears by la
nd records to have been fairly
well-to-do.
When he came over on the Mayflower, he left behind his wif
e and five daughters, planning to have them sent over afte
r things were more settled in the Colony. His wife and daug
hters arrived in America in 1623, on the ship "Anne".
Nathaniel Morton wrote in his book New England's Memorial
, first published in 1669, the
following about Richard Warren:
This year [1628] died Mr. Richard Warren, who was an usefu
l instrument and during his
life bare a deep share in the difficulties and troubles o
f the first settlement of the Plantation of New Plymouth.
Richard Warren is an ancestor to many famous Americans. Amo
ng them are Presidents
Ulysses S. Grant and Franklin D. Roosevelt; and Alan B. She
pard, Jr., the first American
in space and fifth man to walk on the moon. A published lin
eage showing Winston
Churchill as a descendant of Richard Warren has a questiona
ble generation and is most
likely in error. However, Winston Churchill does appear t
o be a descendant of Mayflower
passenger John Howland's brother Arthur.
SOURCES:
Robert S. Wakefield, Mayflower Families in Progress: Richar
d Warren for Four
Generations (Plymouth: General Society of Mayflower Descend
ants, 1991).
Ruth Berg Walsh, "The Search for Pilgrim Richard Warren's P
arentage," Mayflower
Quarterly, 51:109-112.
Eugene Aubrey Stratton, Plymouth Colony, Its History and It
s People, 1620-1691 (Salt
Lake City: Ancestor Publishers, 1986).
Nathaniel Morton, New England's Memorial (Cambridge, 1669).
William Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation, ed. Samuel Moriso
n (New York: Random
House, 1952).
History and Genealogy of the Mayflower Planters, by Leon Cl
ark Hills, 1981
1. Warren, Richard', born England; died Plymouth, Mass., 16
28; married before 1611,
Elizabeth March, widow of Juat Pratt; born England 1583 (?
) ; died Plymouth Oct. 12,
1673.
(See Warren Family, by Prof. J. C. Warren, 1854).
He was closely affiliated with the Merchant Adventurers o
f London, but the details of his
life in England are not now available, and will be commente
d upon in future volumes of
this work as they are found. His life in Plymouth was short
. Bradford states "Mr. Richard
Warren, but his wife and children were left behind and cam
e afterwards."
Mrs. Warren and her five daughters came to Plymouth in 1623
. After the death of her
husband in 1628, she demonstrated a high efficiency, especi
ally in property transactions.
There is no account of the settlement of his estate in Plym
outh, and the papers are
probably carefully preserved somewhere in England.
During the landing operations, Warren went out with the 3r
d exploring party from the
Mayflower as it lay at anchor in Cape Cod Harbor. The part
y set out in the Shallop on
Wednesday, Dec. 6, 1620, and after numerous adventures, inc
luding a fight with the
Indians early Friday morning, landed at Plymouth on the fol
lowing Monday, Dec. 11,
1620. A few weeks after the arrival of his wife and daughte
rs in the "Anne," he received
lots on "the north side of the eele-river."
He was among the "Purchasers" of 1627 to buy from the Londo
n Adventurers all their
rights in the Colony. In the division, the 9th lot fell t
o Richard Warren, naming his family
In "New England's Memorial-Morton-1667," p. 68 is this stat
ement about Warren:
"This year (1628) died Mr. Richard Warren, who hath been me
ntioned before in this Book
and was an useful Instrument, and during his life bore a de
ep share in the Difficulties and
Troubles of the first Settlement of the Plantation of New P
lymouth."[sparrowsma3.ged]
Said to