Harris, Walter & his wife, both Deceased at Pequett. Invt. £79-02-03. Taken 14 April, 1656, by Jonathan Brewster, Obadiah Bruen, Wm Meedes and James X Morgan. The Deposition of Gabriel Harris, Eldest son of Mary Harris, that the above is a true Invt. of all the goods that was left by his Father, Walter Harris, and his Mother, Mary Harris, both Decd. Testified 6 May, 1656, before John Winthrope.
Walter1 Harris was born in the 1590s, as estimated from the dates of his children's baptisms, and died at New London on 6 November 1654. He married by 1621 (first child) Mary Fry, perhaps from Axminster, Devonshire, England, who died at New London on 24 January 1655(/6).
No further record of Walter Harris is seen. Some sources identify this Walter Harris with the man of that name who appears later in Dorchester, and then New London, but this cannot be the case. The Dorchester man already had a family, including sons born in the 1620s; this is supported by the passenger list recently discovered by Coldham, for the ship Speedwell, sailing from Weymouth 22 April 1637, which includes an entry for "Walter Harris, his wife, and six children & three servants" [Coldham 185]. Such a man would not have come to Plymouth in 1632 as a servant.
