Pioneer and Leader in Fishing/ Maritime Industries

Andrew Fuller Warren was born in 1842 in Massachusetts, schooled in Boston and graduated from Brown University in 1863. He served in the 10th Rhode Island Volunteers during the Civil War. Later, he was employed in the shipping business in Boston. In 1871 Andrew Warren came to Pensacola to work for the Pensacola Fish Company, an offshoot enterprise of the city�s first ice factory. He saw the great potential of the fishing industry made possible by a more plentiful source of ice. For years, ice harvested from the rivers and lakes of New England had been shipped to Pensacola and other gulf ports. Soon he became a partner in the Pensacola Fish Company.

In 1873 Warren returned to New England to marry Fannie Clark Stearns of Bath, Maine. His brother-in-law, Silas Stearns, joined them in Pensacola and, in 1880, they established Warren and Company; later, the name was changed to Warren Fish Company. The company flourished and Silas Stearns became one of the most remarkable naturalists in American history.

The next year Eugene Edwin Saunders and Thomas Everett Welles, bought the equipment and boats from the Pensacola Fish Company and founded E. E. Saunders and Company (see vignettes re: Saunders and Welles on this page). About that time construction of the railroad into Pensacola was completed, providing access to large inland and northern markets. For many years the two companies, with little or no competition and working harmoniously, did well and were a part of the boomtown prosperity of Pensacola at the turn of the 20th century. Finally, a slow decline in the over-fished resource brought it all to an end.

The Warren Fish Company also developed a reputation for serious scientific research into the fish population of the gulf. Silas Stearns, although untutored in the sciences, became a naturalist of national repute by collecting and supplying specimens of gulf marine life to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. In 1878 Stearns visited the Institution in and later they carried on extensive correspondence. This work resulted in the identification of fifty previously unidentified species of marine life, four of them named after Stearns. In recognition of his expertise, Stearns was appointed a Special Agent of the U.S. Fish Commission; he was in charge of the 10th census of the marine industries of the gulf. In 1885 Stearns reported �a marked diminution of Snapper on current grounds� and suggested ways to correct the situation: to discover new fishing grounds or to assist fish culture. He called for research as the key to the future of the fishing industry. Stearns always was in frail health with chronic lung disease. His early death in 1889 was a great loss to science, nature conservancy, and the red snapper industry and to the Warren Fish Company.

In 1889 Andrew Warren took a Scottish sea captain, William Hayes, as partner and the company continued to prosper. (Hayes son in law, Francis Taylor, later became president of the company). The Warren Fish Company built a rail spur to its docks at the end of the Baylen Street Wharf, a 2,000-foot pier. The Warren Fish Company weathered devastating hurricanes in 1906 and in 1916.In addition, in 1906, a Warren Fish Company smack (sailing ship), the Silas Stearns, and crew were seized by a Mexican government ship near the Campeche (snapper) Banks off the coast of Mexico. The crew was released but the smack was confiscated. In 1898 Andrew Warren presented a paper to the National Fishery Congress, expressing his concerns about the increasing world competition by other nations with lower labor costs and the reduced supply of fish.

Andrew Warren was a very thoughtful and skillful businessman as well as an imaginative marketer. He tried to promote snapper and grouper presentation in smaller portions by salting, canning, and �steaking� in iced cans. He even published a special cookbook to improve culinary skills in preparing fish from �The Red Snapper Capital of the World�.

Andrew Fuller Warren and his wife Fannie Stearns Warren were an important part of the community. They lived in a beautiful, spacious home, now a lawyer's office, on the corner of Baylen and La Rua Streets. They had three daughters: Lucy, Mollie and Fannie. Lucy Penelope Warren married Juriah H. Pierpont, M.D., a leading physician in Pensacola and in the state of Florida (see vignette on this website). Dr. Pierpont was the son of the composer of Jingle Bells, James Lord Pierpont, and the first cousin of financier J. Pierpont Morgan.

Andrew F. Warren died on October 15, 1919 and, along with Fannie and infant son, William Stearns Warren, was buried in St. John�s Cemetery 2 North Section 17. as was Fannie Stearns Warren Mitchell (her first husband), Halstead (her second husband). Lucy and her husband, Dr. Pierpont were buried in the adjacent lot 2 North Section19 at St John�s .Silas Stearns also is buried in 2 North, Section 17. Mollie Waterman Warren Brent is buried in St. Michaels Cemetery.