♀Mary Warren

Mary Warren (about 1610 – 27 March 1683) was a woman of Plymouth in Plymouth Colony^W, the wife of Robert Bartlett (died 1676), a wine cooper there. She was the ninth great-grandmother of Frederic Roger Curtis (1928–2007), through her daughter Rebecca Bartlett (died 1658).

Early life and the crossing

According to the Mayflower Society’s compiled genealogy of the Warren family, Mary was born in England about 1610, the eldest daughter of Richard Warren^W, who sailed on the Mayflower in 1620, and his wife Elizabeth Walker, whom he probably married at Great Amwell, Hertfordshire, in April 1610. The same genealogy records that in 1623 she crossed on the Anne^W with her mother and four sisters to join her father at Plymouth. Governor William Bradford^W later wrote that Warren “had five daughters more came over with his wife, who are all married and living, and have many children”. On 22 May 1627 Mary was listed with her parents, brothers and sisters when the colony divided its cattle, and her father died at Plymouth, most likely the next year, in 1628.

Marriage and family

Robert Bartlett and Mary Warren married at Plymouth after 22 May 1627, perhaps in 1629, as the compiled genealogy places it. On 1 July 1633 “Mrs. Warren and Robt. Bartlet” were assigned to mow where they had mown the year before, which the compilers take to mean that he was married to the widow Warren’s daughter by 1632 at the latest. At a court of 7 March 1636/7 the colony confirmed the land that Mary’s mother, Elizabeth Warren, widow of Richard Warren, had given to her sons-in-law Richard Church, Robert Bartlett and Thomas Little at their marriages to her daughters.

The compiled genealogy credits the couple with eight children born at Plymouth, Benjamin, Rebecca, Mary, Sarah, Joseph, Elizabeth, Lydia and Mercy, the eldest by 1633 and the youngest in March 1650/1. Their daughter Rebecca married William Harlow at Plymouth on 20 December 1649 and died before July 1658, when he married again.

Later life and widowhood

In a codicil of 16 July 1667 her brother Nathaniel Warren named her among his sisters as Mary Bartlett Sr. Her mother died at Plymouth on 2 October 1673, aged above ninety, and on 4 March 1673/4 Mary acknowledged before the court that she had received full satisfaction for whatever she might claim from her mother’s estate.

Robert died in 1676. His nuncupative (spoken) will of 19 September 1676 left her all his estate, to dispose among their children. On 29 October 1676 she exhibited his inventory on her oath as widow, and on 6 March 1676/7 she and her son Joseph were granted administration. On 13 February 1677/8, as the compiled genealogy dates it, she sold to Joseph, for a bond of £300, her life interest in the lands Robert had reserved to her in his deed of gift, two fifty-acre uplands and a meadow at Eel River, together with the personal estate he left her; she signed with her mark.

Her sons later stated that during her widowhood she had affirmed her husband’s gift of 50 acres to her grandson William Harlow Jr. She died at Plymouth on 27 March 1683, in her seventy-third year, as the compiled genealogy gives it from the Plymouth church records. She was a communicant member of the Plymouth (First) Church, where her death is entered under ‘Members dyed’; no record of her admission is known.

Lines of descent

The line descends through their daughter Rebecca Bartlett, who married William Harlow. Rebecca’s place in the family rests on a confirmation of 1683, as the compiled genealogy abstracts it, in which her brothers Benjamin and Joseph Bartlett upheld their father’s bequest of 50 acres at Plymouth to his grandson William Harlow Jr., born to William Harlow on 2 June 1657, while Rebecca was his wife. The next step is less certain. The line continues through Rebecca Harlow (1655–1727), the wife of Isaac Cushman (1648–1732) of Plympton, whom compiled Mayflower genealogies identify with William and Rebecca’s daughter Rebecka, born at Plymouth on 12 June 1655, only as a possibility; her age at death fits that birth, and a journal article discusses the question.

Notes

Parentage and sources

Her place as Richard Warren’s daughter rests on the compiled genealogy’s abstracts of three records: her mother’s gift of land to Robert Bartlett at the marriage, confirmed by the court in 1636/7; her brother Nathaniel’s codicil of 1667; and her release of her share of her mother’s estate in 1673/4. Except for Rebecca’s marriage, which is entered in the Plymouth Colony records, and the estate matters described under the next heading, the dates and transactions on this page are taken from that compiled genealogy, Mayflower Families Through Five Generations, volume 18, part 1 (Richard Warren). Her birth year of about 1610 is reckoned from her age at death.

Her parents’ marriage

The marriage of Richard Warren and Elizabeth Walker is known from the FamilySearch collection England Marriages, 1538-1973, which gives the couple as married at Great Amwell, Hertfordshire, on 14 April 1610, with the bride’s name spelled Wallker in the entry, an abstract of the Great Amwell parish register.

The will of Augustine Walker of Much Amwell, dated 19 April 1613, names his daughter Elizabeth, wife of Richard Warren, and her three children, written Marey, Ann and Sarey Warren. That will is known only from a transcript, and the original has not been located. Augustine Walker was buried at Great Amwell on 18 August 1614, according to the printed parish register.

The identification of this Elizabeth with the wife of the Mayflower Richard Warren was made in The American Genealogist, volume 78 (2003), pages 81-86. Older Mayflower genealogies said that her maiden name and origin were unknown. Mary’s age at death, given in the church records as her 73rd year, fits a birth after the April 1610 marriage.

Estate and membership

The will, the inventory and the administration come from the colony’s court records in Records of the Colony of New Plymouth in New England, volumes 3, 5 and 7. The sale to Joseph of 13 February 1677/8 comes from a compiled source, The Mayflower Descendant, volume 3 (1901), pages 105-117, and is double-dated as that source gives it. Her membership of the Plymouth (First) Church, and the entry of her death under ‘Members dyed’, come from Plymouth Church Records, 1620-1859, volume 1, page 250.