Holbrook line: John Warren Immigrant, died 1677

 Earlier, I wrote a post about the John Warren of Watertown whom I believed to be the father of this John Warren.  I am no longer convinced the connection exists, so the search for this John's origins are still ongoing.  It appears that his first son may have been named Joshua, and there is a Joshua Warren born in 1594 who is sometimes given as John's father.  However, once bitten, twice shy, and I'm not ready to state that as a fact.

We really know nothing of John Warren until he shows up in Exeter, New Hampshire in 1649.  He was approved then as a member of a 5 person group who were given permission to set up (and possibly operate) a sawmill then.  I am supposing that means he had been in the area long enough to have built up some sort of reputation, so I'm guessing he may have been 25 years old then.  Working back, that gives us a potential birth year of 1624, which is what I'm seeing, with no documentation, on various family trees.  But he could have been 10-15 years older, or a few years younger than that.  

He married Deborah Wilson, daughter of Thomas and Ann Wilson in Exeter on October 21, 1650. Thomas had died in Exeter in 1643.  Thomas was part of a group of families who went to with the Boston theocracy.  The Exeter men were led by Reverend John Wheelwright, who was a supporter of his sister in law, Anne Hutchinson.  (That's a story for another day.)  We don't know if John arrived with this group, too young to be listed in documents, or if he arrived later.  However, he was given land grants in 1650, 1652, and 1664, which along with the saw mill permit, indicates he was an early settler there.  One possible reason that he would not be found in immigration records is that he was an indentured servant when he left England.  

John was a selectman for Exeter in 1655 and 1657, which means that he was probably a little bit wealthier, relatively speaking, than most of his fellow residents.  Poor people were not chosen for this job. So if John did come as an indentured servant, he had certainly come up in the world.

John and Deborah presumably had 18 happy years together in Exeter, and at least six children, before Deborah died in 1668.  John remarried the following year, to Elizabeth Royal Coombs, and they seem to have lived in Hingham, Massachusetts, where they had one child together.  Elizabeth had three children of her own, so there may have been as many as 10 children in the home when Elizabeth died in 1671/72.  John then married, date unknown, Elizabeth Danson, and they had two children together.  

Probably sometime during his second marriage, the family moved to Boston, where John set up a shop on land owned by the Coombs family.  He was a tobacconist, meaning he sold tobacco, and a  cardmaker, which seems to mean he made the combs used for carding wool.  I don't think these were high status jobs, but he seems to have been able to support his family.  

John wrote his will July 10, 1677 and died soon after.  His wife was left everything, in order to raise his son by his second marriage and his daughter by the third marriage, except son Thomas was given his shop, to be removed from the Coombs land at Thomas's pleasure, and Joshua was given his tobacco "engine".  The inventory, which I have not seen, is reported to have been valued at a little over 301 pounds.     

There are of course unanswered questions about John besides his parentage.  Was he a church member?  (Probably he was, since it's unlikely that he would have been chosen as a select man if not.) Was he involved in any military service?  He was over the age of 50 when he died, so it's not likely he was a participant in King Philip's war, but there may have been earlier skirmishes in New Hampshire.  It would be interesting to know, and to know why he died at a somewhat early age.  

The line of descent is:

John Warren-Deborah Wilson

Mary Warren-John Burr

Mary Burr-Thomas Marsh

Deborah Marsh-Isaac Lazell

Deborah Lazell-Levi Rockwood

Susanna Rockwood-Nahum Holbrook 

Joseph Holbrook-Mary Elizabeth Whittemore

Fremont Holbrook-Phoebe Brown

Loren Holbrook-Etta Stanard

Gladys Holbrook-Richard Allen

Their descendants