Born: March 13, 1833, Williamsburg, Massachusetts.
Died: December 6, 1929, Brookline, Massachusetts.
Buried: Mount Auburn Cemetery, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
William was the son of Mather Warren and Anna M. Fairfield, and husband of Harriet Cornelia Merrick.
He graduated from Wesleyan University in 1853. After some time in Germany, he became Professor of Systematic Theology at the Methodist Episcopal Mission Institute, Bremen, in 1861.
He returned to America in 1866, and became first president of Boston University in 1873.