The Churches, The Spragues & The Warrens

My 7th great-grandmother Hannah (Church) Boomer was born in Dedham, Massachusetts of three important pioneering families: the Churches, the Spragues & the Warrens. Her place in the early American Boomer family and marriage to the difficult character Matthew Boomer is surprising in light of her own family’s high standing. Their storied history in America is outlined below.

Hannah’s parents were both born to pioneers who arrived in Plymouth in the very beginnings of American history on the Mayflower (1620) and the third ship that carried colonists (mainly families of those on the Mayflower), the Anne (1623). Hannah’s father Caleb Church was born in Plymouth, Massachusetts and married Joanna Sprague in Hingham on December 16, 1668. The couple had 10 children.

The Churches

Caleb Church originally co-owned a majority of land shares of Fall River, Massachusetts with his brother, Hannah’s uncle, Colonel Benjamin Church. Benjamin Church was one of the first (of eight men) to settle the area in 1680 and has been written about extensively with his important role as captain in King Philip’s War of 1675-6 (see my blog entry on this). He has been characterized by his unusual tactic of bribing many of the Wamponaog Indians, whom before the war he had originally befriended, into defecting from their side and joining the forces of the colonists. This tactic, in the end, allowed the colonists to win the war over the Wamponaog and settle much of their land.

Caleb’s parents, Richard Church (a carpenter from London) and Elizabeth Warren (daughter of Richard Warren and Elizabeth Walker, described below) came to America separately as early settlers and married in Plymouth on the 14th of March, 1634. It is unclear when Richard came to America, however I have found record of Elizabeth’s trip to Plymouth with her mother and sisters on the ship Anne in 1623.  The first record that I have of Richard Church in New England is when he applied to be made a free man of the Massachusetts Bay Colony on October 19, 1630. This means that he came to Plymouth on one of the ships sometime before this date (needs further research, although 1630 could be the date). He is also on record in 1633 as a freeman of the Plymouth Colony, a year before he married. All of his vital details are listed in Charles Henry Pope’s text The Pioneers, A Descriptive List (1900).

Richard and Elizabeth had 13 children together, all in Plymouth, MA:  Elizabeth Hobart (1636-1658), Joseph Church (1638-1710), Colonel Benjamin Church (described above, 1639-1717), Nathaniel Church (1640-1688), Richard Church Jr., Charles Church (1644-1659), Priscilla Irish (b. 1645),  Caleb (my 8th great grandfather, described above), Abigail Thaxter (1647-77), Hannah Sturtevant (b. 1647), Sarah Burrows, Mary Church (1652-1662), Deborah White (1656-1689). In 1637, one year after the birth of his first child,  Richard volunteered for the military in the Pequot war in its final bloody year. As a middle aged man, on Jan. 24, 1653, Richard purchased half a corn mill in Hingham, Plymouth MA, where he did a stint as town officer and also worked as a carpenter and apple farmer. Richard died on December 27, 1668 at the home of his son Caleb. In his will he left his lands in Hingham and a share in Ironworks at Tauton, Massachusetts to his wife Elizabeth who died two years later.

I Richard Church of Hingham, having perfect understanding, yet visited by sickness of body, order this my last will. Debts pay’d then my will is that my wife, Elizabeth Church (Warren), shall enjoy during her life. And when it shall please God that she shall leave this life, my will is that the estate I shall leave to her that shall not be necessarily expended for her maintenance shall then be equally divided amongst my children, only my sonn Joseph to have dubble portion, that is twice as much as any of the rest of my children, by reason of the lameness of his hand, whereby he is disinabled above the rest of my children for the getting of his livelihood. I ordain my son Joseph to be my Executor. (Richard Church, December 25, 1668)

The Spragues

Joanna Sprague, my 8th great grandmother and Hannah Church’s mother, was born in America to early British pioneers. Her father William Sprague (1609-1675) was originally from Dorsetshire, and came to Massachusetts on the ship Abigail in 1628, which arrived at Salem on September 6. He travelled on this ship with his brothers Ralph and Richard, alongside future governor of Salem, John Endicott. After the arrival of the ship and the settlement of Salem, John Endicott gave permission to the three Sprague brothers and six other pilgrim men to travel through the woods to the peninsula on which Charlestown is now located. The town records state the following of this event:

“Amongst others that arrived at Salem at their own cost, were Ralph Sprague, with his brethren Richard and William, who with three or four more, by joint consent and approbation of Mr. John Endicott, Governor, did the same summer of Anno 1629, undertake a journey from Salem, and traveled the woods about twelve miles to the westward, and lighted of a place situate and lying on the north side of Charles River, full of Indians called Aberginians. Their old Sachem being dead, his eldest son, by the English called John Sagamore, was their chief, and a man naturally of a gentle and good disposition, by whose free consent they settled about the hill of the same place, by the said natives called Mishawum.”

William Sprague settled in the newly founded Charleston where he married Millicent Eames on 26th of May 1636. That same year he was granted land in Hingham where he became an important figure: active in public affairs, the town constable and ‘fenceviewer’. One of the early planters there, he is also purported to have had one of the best situated house lots in town. Together, William and Millicent had 10 children: the first, Anthony Sprague (1635-1719), born in Charlestown. The following 10 children: John Sprague (1638-1683), Samuel Sprague (1640-1709), Elizabeth Sprague (1641-1684), Jonathan Sprague (1642-1647), Persis Doggett (1643-1684), Joanna (my 8th great grandmother, mentioned above), William Sprague Jr. (1650-1723), Mary King (b. 1652), Hannah Sprague (d. 1658) were all born  in Hingham, Plymouth MA. All of these details are verified in Charles Henry Pope’s text The Pioneers […] (1900).

The Warrens

The signing of the Mayflower Compact

Elizabeth Warren’s father, Richard Warren (my 10th great grandfather) arrived in America on November 11, 1620 on the Mayflower. He was a married man separated by the journey from his wife and 5 daughters. According to the Mayflower and Sprague documents and Charles Henry Pope’s authoritative text on The Pioneers (1900), Richard was originally from  Great Amwell, co. Hertfordshire, England, and was a 35-years old merchant when he arrived (he was born around the year 1579). He co-signed the Mayflower Compact, the first governing document of Plymouth colony, and was one of the 19 of 41 signers who survived that first Cape Cod winter.

It is clear that Richard Warren was a man of rank, as he was accorded by Governor William Bradford the prefix “Master”, used in those times to distinguish someone because of birth or achievement. In the earliest text describing the Mayflower’s landing and the Pilgrim settlement, A Relation or Journal of the Beginning and Proceedings of the English Plantation Settled at Plimoth in New England (1622), Richard is described as one of the 18 men chosen to be a member of the exploring party, before the ship had reached Plymouth.

Three years after his arrival at Plymouth, his wife Elizabeth and daughters (Elizabeth Jr., Anne, Sarah and Abigail) came over on the ship Anne, as was the case for many of the Mayflower families. Richard and Elizabeth’s two sons, Nathaniel and Joseph, were born in Plymouth, Massachusetts.

Richard was granted land in the Division of Land the same year that he family arrived, which the Plymouth Colony Records, Deeds, &c, Vol. I 1627-1651 describes:

“The ninth lot fell to Richard Warren & his companie Joyned with (2) him his wife Elizabeth Warren (3) Nathaniell Warren (4) Joseph Warren (5) Mary Warren (6) Anna Warren (7) Sara Warren (8) Elizabeth Warren (9) Abigall Warren (10) John Billington (11) George Sowle (12) Mary Sowle (13) Zakariah Sowle. To this lott fell one of the 4 black heyfers that came in the Jacob caled the smooth horned Heyfer and two shee goats.”

Four years later,  they also shared in the 1627 Division of Cattle. Richard was accorded “one of the black heifers, 2 she-goats, and a grant of 400 acres of land”  at the Eel River. The Warren house was built in that year (1627)at the head of what is now Clifford Road, with its back to the sea.

Richard died the following year (1628), and the only known record of his death has been found in Nathaniel Morton’s book New England’s Memorial (1669): “This year [1628] died Mr. Richard Warren, who was an useful instrument and during his life bare a deep share in the difficulties and troubles of the first settlement of the Plantation of New Plymouth.”

All research done on Richard Warren can be found on the Pilgrim Hall Museum website.