General Notes

Society of Mayflower  5G volume 18 pt 2, page104, #403, covers through James Randall and Mayflower Families Through Five Generations, Richard Warren, by Robert S. Wakefield
Mayflower Society G72230

Born ca 1578 at England

Richard came to America on the Mayflower. He was not one of the Puritans fleeing religious persecution for Leyden Holland, but rather was one of the "strangers" picked up in London by the ship (the "strangers", over 30 men and families, comprised more than half the Mayflower passengers). The Mayflower, having departed Plymouth, England, on 6 September 1620, landed in America later that year. Richard's wife and five daughters came later aboard the Anne in 1623. He was not one of the Leyden, Holland Pilgrims, but instead had been a merchant at Greenwich, county of Kent, England. He joined the Pilgrims in Southampton and, upon their landing at Plymouth, was one of ten men chosen to be in the exploring party, and was one of those surprised by the Indians in "The First Encounter". Though Warren appears to have been all but excluded from some Pilgrim histories such as Bradford's, it appears he was among the more important and accomplished of the Pilgrims. Richard was one of the signers of the Mayflower Compact, the first establishment of civil government in America. He was given the prefix "Mr.", or Master, by Governor William Bradford, which indicates one of high birth or achievement. He may have had a period of illness before his death in 1628. Even so, he appears as a leader of one of twelve groups formed to own cattle in 1627. In that same year, he is listed as one of the 58 sole proprietors of land in Plymouth Colony.

See Robert S. Wakefield's Mayflower families in Progress, Richard Warren of the Mayflower and his descendants for four generations, 1991