Leaving his family behind, Richard Warren of London set sail from England on the Mayflower in 1620 to help found the New Plymouth Colony. He was a merchant by trade, but his courage and confidence aided the Pilgrims through that brutal first winter. Nathaniel Morton wrote of him, “grave Richard Warren, a man of integrity, justice, and uprightness; of piety and serious religion,” and also “as a useful instrument; and during his life bore a deep share in the difficulties and troubles of the first settlement of the plantation of New Plymouth”. Governor Bradford, in his folio manuscript gave him the honorable prefix of ‘Mr.’.

In 1623, Mr. Warren’s wife Elizabeth and their five daughters came to New Plymouth aboard the Anne. Under the land division of 1623, the Warren family was granted 400 acres at Eel River and what is now Warren Cove. They built their home just south of us at the head of Clifford Road. The house that stands there now, with its back to the ocean, was built in 1700.

The Warrens bore two sons before Richard’s death in 1628 at the age of 48. The land was disputed over in courts for years. Mrs. Warren, acting on behalf of her deceased husband, had given portions of the lands to her sons-in-law instead of her sons. Robert Bartlett, who had sailed aboard the Anne with Mrs. Warren and her daughters in 1623, married the eldest Warren daughter, Mary. They built there home nestled at the foot of the Pine Hills, and the site is marked by a tablet about a half mile south of us on Route 3A.

Elizabeth Warren died at the age of 90 in the year 1673. A well respected woman in town, she was often mentioned in records as ‘Mistress’, which was not common at the time. Some famous descendants of the Warrens include Presidents Ulysses S. Grant and Franklin D. Roosevelt, Chef Julia Child, Actor Orson Welles and Astronaut Alan B. Shepard, Jr.

By all accounts, the first signs of tourism at Warren Cove did not begin until long after the Revolutionary War. At that time there would have been fish drying facilities at the harbor edge near the mouth of the Eel River, and numerous mills and foundry’s upstream. The land between Plymouth Center and the Pine Hills would have been clear-cut farmland and cow pastures. This cutting left much of the ocean bluffs exposed and resulted in serious erosion. In 1826, The Commonwealth of Massachusetts stepped in and started building extensive sea walls along the beach and cove. The repairs would be ongoing for decades.

About the time of the Civil War, the cove began to undergo a period of transition that lasted until the early 1900’s. The mills that dotted the river valley and the beach were slowly giving way to vacationers staying at the Franklin and Clifford houses. Descendants of the first families built summer cottages along the shore. The Turner Cottage stood about where The Pilgrim Sands is today.

Near River Street, Captain Nathaniel Hoxie and his son, also Nathaniel, were host to weekend hunting and fishing parties for men from Boston and New York. They kept a guest register that shows such guests as President Grover Cleveland and Eben Jordan, founder of the Boston Globe and a developer of the Jordan Marsh Co.

Eben Jordan, Jr. purchased land in the Eel River valley after coming to Plymouth with his father in the late 1800’s. He built his estate, raised horses and helped with the development of Plymouth, including a $20,000 donation to open Jordan Hospital.

In 1883, the Plymouth Beach association built a pavilion near the end of the beach. It was reached by a steamer that left Plymouth Wharf and brought passengers to a pier located on the Eel River side of the beach. Chicago businessman Charles L. Willoughby bought it in 1890, added a third floor, and renamed it the Columbus Pavilion. The Pavilion and all but one of the seventeen cottages on the beach where swept away during the famous ‘Portland Gale’ of November 26th, 1898. Some of the cottages of the era are still in use as private homes, our neighbors on the bluff to the south.

After selling the beach pavilion to C.L. Willoughby, the Plymouth Beach Association used land located at the head of the beach to erect a band pavilion and bathhouse. This structure was also wiped away during the ‘Portland Gale’, but the P.B.A. built a new, permanent structure in 1925 that stood until it was razed in 1974 following a fire. It stood about in the area of the guard shack next to Bert’s Restaurant.

In 1889, Charles Stone, along with his business partner, Edwin Webster, decided their engineering and management company, Stone & Webster, ought to get into the trolley business. They organized the Brockton & Plymouth Street Railway. The Old Colony Railroad provided heavy rail service to the area, but no one provided short runs along the streets where people lived and worked. Route 3A (Warren Avenue) was still a cow path before the rails where built.

Having added streetcar service to the cove in 1893, Mr. Stone purchased the Clifford House, a large Victorian Era hotel built in 1857 overlooking the cove, and renamed it the Hotel Pilgrim. It was located a short distance south of us on Route 3A near the flashing yellow light, next to the original Warren home site facing Clifford Road. He also bought much of the land in the lower part of the cove from the Warren family and built a grand estate overlooking the cove on what is now Rocky Hill Road. His gardens were world-renowned and he enjoyed many summers there. Although the estate is long gone, the main gate and steeplechase can still be seen along the side of the road. The estate was eventually sold and sectioned off into lots for building single-family homes. The Hotel Pilgrim was renovated in the Colonial Revival style in 1903 and closed for good in the 1950’s.

The Pilgrim Sands was built in 1964 and has been owned and operated since 1969 by the Harrington Family. It originally had 44 rooms that now comprise our south end building and two cottages available for rent in the current location of our north wing. The north wing, lobby and indoor pool were added in the late 70’s, giving us a total of 64 rooms. Two suites known as ‘The Crows’ Nest’ make up the third floor. We have been through everything from hurricanes to nor’easters, heat waves to blizzards. Through the years we have undergone many renovations; some planned and some unexpected…

The nor’easter of February 1972 was a test on the new stone dike that the State and Federal Governments constructed and the Blizzard of ’78 made national headlines when it dumped over two feet of snow in New England. During the blizzard, right next door, “Bert's Rock” crashed through the wall on the ocean side of Bert’s restaurant and remained in the foyer for years as one of the restaurant's attractions.

By far, our worst storm occurred in October of 1991. The “Halloween Nor’easter” was later re-coined “The Perfect Storm” by a meteorologist and made famous by Sebastian Junger’s novel and movie adaptation of the same name. Waves broke on the back patio and crashed over the building. The lobby and first floor rooms received extensive damage.

However, the good days far outnumber the bad. Season to season, our guests have been treated to some of the most picture perfect days you could imagine. From catching an early morning sunrise over the bay to spending a relaxing afternoon lounging by the sea to a romantic evening stroll along the beach, there is always something to see or do at Warren Cove.

We thank you for your interest and invite you to relax and let us make your stay a truly enjoyable and refreshing experience.
~ The Harrington Family and the Staff of The Pilgrim Sands

Sources: Images of America: Plymouth by James W. Baker available from Arcadia Publishing at bookstores and online at www.ArcadiaPublishing.com ~ The Pilgrim Hall Society and their writers, Peggy M. Baker, Howard P. Barnes and Victoria B. Engstrom, online at www.PilgrimHall.org ~Local Newspaper Old Colony Memorial ~ www.Sail1620.org ~ C. Ricker ~ The Harrington Family ~The Robert Bartlett Room at the Plymouth Public Library ~ and various genealogy websites devoted to Mayflower descendents.