Wareham, Plymouth County, Massachusetts

USGenWeb Page for Wareham, Plymouth Co., MA

This USGenWeb page for the Town of Wareham, Massachusetts, is a work in progress. It will, hopefully, be expanded periodically in the future. All suggestions are welcome!

If you would like to be placed on a mailing list to be notified when updates occur, please E-mail your request to Richard W. Griffith.

What's New?

Andrew W. Griffith is in the process of constructing websites for the Wareham Cemeteries, including individual gravestone pictures. Thus far, Agawam and Long Neck Cemeteries are complete. Links to these sites are included, below. Centre Cemetery is currently in progress. Andrew is the owner of warehamhistory.com, on which this GenWeb site is now hosted.

Wareham Mailing List

Pat Gately maintains a mailing list for Wareham on RootsWeb.com. As you are probably aware, the RootsWeb mailing lists are for posting queries on local research. Pat is hoping this will facilitate some dialogue for Wareham research.
To subscribe to the Wareham list, send email to:
MA-Plymouth-Wareham-L-Request@rootsweb.com
with the single word SUBSCRIBE in the subject area of your message.
Or if you prefer the digest mode (one daily message containing several emails) try:
MA-Plymouth-Wareham-L-Request@rootsweb.com

General Historical/Genealogical Information:

Wareham was incorporated as a town in 1739, combining the eastern part of Rochester and the western part of Plymouth (called "Agawam Plantation", the present East Wareham). The first settlers in the area that was to become Wareham arrived soon after 1680. These families moved here from other towns in the area, as follows:

Hingham: Bates, Chubbuck, Fearing, Norris

Dartmouth: Hathaway

Plymouth: Sampson, Savery, Sturtevant

Rochester: Briggs, Bumpus, Doty

Sandwich: Besse, Blackmer, Bourne, Burgess, Gibbs, Hammond, Nye, Perry, Saunders, Swift

Genealogies for many of these families have been published, with widely varying degrees of completeness and accuracy. Some references are as follows:

Besse: Florence Besse Balantine, Descendants of Anthony Besse 1609-1656 (Vineyard Haven, MA: n. pub., 1965)

Bourne: Hannah S. B. Dykes, comp., History of Richard Bourne and Some of his Descendants (Cleveland, OH: Benjamin F. Bourne, 1919), and
Lydia B. (Phinney) Brownson and Maclean W. McLean, "The Rev. Richard Bourne of Sandwich, Mass.", The New England Historical and Genealogical Register 118-119 [1964-1965]

Briggs: Edna A. Hannibal, comp., and Claude W. Barlow, John Briggs of Sandwich, Mass., and his Descendants (Palo Alto, CA: the compiler, 1962)

Bumpus: Mrs. John E. Barclay FASG, "The Bumpus Family of New England", The American Genealogist 43 [1967]

Burgess: Rev. Ebenezer Burgess, D.D., Burgess Genealogy: Memorial of the Family of Thomas and Dorothy Burgess (1865), and
Katharine W. Hiam, Burgess Genealogy: Descendants of the Four Sons of Thomas Burgess and Dorothy (Waynes) Burgess (Boston, MA: New England Historic Genealogical Society, 1997)

Doty: Ethan Allen Doty, The Doty-Doten Family in America (Brooklyn, NY: n. pub., 1897)

Gibbs: Lydia B. (Phinney) Brownson and Maclean W. McLean, "Thomas Gibbs of Sandwich, Mass. (ca. 1615-1693", The New England Historical and Genealogical Register 123 [1969]

Hammond: Robert Hammond, A History and Genealogy of the Descendants of William Hammond of London England and his wife Elizabeth Penn through their son Benjamin of Sandwich and Rochester Massachusetts 1600-1894 (Boston, MA: David Clapp & Son, 1894)

Hathaway: Elizabeth S. Versailles, Hathaways of America (Northampton, MA: The Hathaway Family Association, 1965, 1970)

Nye: L. Bert Nye Jr., comp., A Genealogy of American Nyes of English Origin (Sandwich, MA: The Nye Family Association, 1977)

Perry: Lydia B. (Phinney) Brownson and Maclean W. McLean, "Ezra Perry of Sandwich, Mass.", The New England Historical and Genealogical Register 115-116 [1961-1962]

Savery: A. W. Savery M.A. and Lydia A. Savary, A Genealogical and Biographical Record of the Savery Families and the Severy Family (Boston, MA: Collins Press, 1893)

Saunders: Lydia B. (Phinney) Brownson and Maclean W. McLean, "Henry Sanders, alias Sanderson, of Sandwich, Mass.", The New England Historical and Genealogical Register 127 [1973]

Sturtevant: Robert Hunter, Descendants of Samuel Sturtevant (Waco, TX: the author, 1987)

Swift: George H. Swift, William Swyft of Sandwich and Some of his Descendants (Millbrook, NY: Round Table Press, 1900)

Wareham Vital Records:

In 1996, I copied the Vital Records from Town Books 1 and 2 as transcribed by J. M. Lincoln. Abstracts of these records were published in a limited quantity. These are now on this web page, and can be viewed at

Wareham Vital Records from Town Books 1 and 2

Wareham Churches (prior to 1900):

The Wareham First (Congregational) Church was founded soon after the town was incorporated. For nearly 100 years, this was the only church in town. The extant records of the First Church, up to 1891, were compiled and published by the late Leonard H. Smith Jr. as Records of the First Church of Wareham, Mass. 1739-1891 (Clearwater, FL: by the compiler, 1974). However, Church Record Book 2, containing records from about 1800-1845 has been missing since before 1900, so there is a corresponding gap in the information.

The Baptists were active from about 1830 to 1865, after which their church was sold to the Roman Catholics. I am not aware of any extant records for the Baptists, except for marriages which appear in the town vital records.

The Methodists have been active since about 1831, and at times have had churches in the Wareham Center, East Wareham, Onset, and Oak Grove sections of town. In the 1960's, the first three were combined into the Wesley United Methodist Church, located on Main Street in Wareham Center. The extant records of these three churches are now held by the United Church, but are very incomplete, especially for the years before 1900.

The Roman Catholics have been in town since before 1865, but their church was established in that year. This parish has continued to the present time, as St. Patrick's Church, located on High Street.

The Episcopalians began a ministry in Wareham in 1868, but did not become well established until 1883, when the present church building was purchased, and moved to Wareham from West Springfield. This church is located on High Street. Records begin in 1883, the original books being kept at the church and a microfilm copy of the early records being available at the Diocesan Archives in Boston.

The Advent Christian Church, in the Tihonet section of town, was established in 1887. I do not have information on what records they may have, if any, that would be of help to genealogists.