Parker Warren Explained

Parker Warren (March 16, 1802 – July 11, 1887) was an American farmer from Beaver Dam, Wisconsin who served a one-year term in 1849 as a Free Soil Party member of the Wisconsin State Assembly from Dodge County.[1]

Background

Warren was born in Massachusetts in 1802.[2] Warren was one of the founders of the Beaver Dam Academy, now Wayland Academy, an academy chartered by the legislature of Wisconsin Territory in 1847.[3]

When a meeting was held in Beaver Dam on February 5, 1848 to consider building a plank road from that town to Milwaukee, Warren was elected vice-president of the meeting (which resolved to pursue the project).[4]

Legislative service

Warren was elected in November 1848 for the second (1849) session of the Wisconsin Legislature after statehood, to represent the 5th Dodge County Assembly district (the Towns of Fox Lake, Trenton, Westford, Calamus and Beaver Dam),[5] succeeding Democrat Lorenzo Merrill.

He was succeeded in the 1850 session by Malcolm Sellers, a Whig. He was the Free Soil nominee in 1852 for the same seat,[6] but was defeated by Democrat Edwin Hillyer.

Agriculture and civic life

In March 1849, when the Wisconsin State Agricultural Society was organized, Wells was appointed as a member of the committee which drafted a plan of organization for that body; but is not recorded as among those who became actual members of the society by the payment of an initiation fee.[7] He also served as vice president of the Sabbath School Society in Beaver Dam in 1849.[8]

In 1852, he was one of the judges for the prize for "Best tilled farm in Dodge co. without reference as to size" at a Jefferson and Dodge County agricultural fair.[9]

He was the leading figure in a group of Dodge County farm mortgagors who petitioned the Legislature for debt relief in 1859.[10] He was also the leading figure in a group of sixteen who petitioned the legislature in 1865 that railroad directors should be required to reside and transact business within the state.[11]

Warren and his wife Clara later relocated to Augusta, Wisconsin,[12] where he died in 1887.[13]

Notes and References

  1. http://www.legis.state.wi.us/lrb/pubs/ib/99ib1.pdf "Members of the Wisconsin Legislature 1848–1999 State of Wisconsin Legislative Bureau. Information Bulletin 99-1, September 1999. p. 119
  2. "United States Census, 1850," database with images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:M4DF-VNZ : 23 December 2020), Parker Warren, Beaver Dam, Dodge, Wisconsin, United States; citing family, NARA microfilm publication (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.).
  3. "AN ACT To incorporate the trustees of the Beaver Dam Academy". Laws of the Territory of Wisconsin, Together with the Joint Resolutions and Memorials Passed at the Annual Session of the Legislature in 1847 Madison: H. A. Tenney, Territorial Printer, 1847; pp. 203–207
  4. "Plank Road Meeting at Beaverdam" Daily Sentinel and Gazette February 16, 1848; Issue 317; col. 2
  5. "Next Legislature: Dodge County". Milwaukee Sentinel and Gazette November 17, 1848; Issue 183; p. 1, col. 3
  6. "Nominations" Milwaukee Daily Sentinel October 27, 1852; p. 1, col. 2
  7. http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/WI.WSASv01 Buck, Royal. "State Agricultural Society of 1849" in, Wisconsin State Agricultural Society. Transactions of the Wisconsin State Agricultural Society, with an abstract of the correspondence of the secretary Vol. I. Madison: Beriah Brown, State Printer, 1851; pp. 332, 336
  8. News: Sabbath School Society . Watertown Chronicle . June 20, 1849 . Watertown, WI . 2 . . April 26, 2021.
  9. Atwater, Allen H. Milwaukee "Jefferson and Dodge County Agricultural Society", in Watertown Chronicle, reprinted in the Daily Sentinel September 3, 1852; p. 1, col. 2
  10. Journal of the Assembly of Wisconsin; Annual Session, A.D. 1859 Madison: James Ross, State Printer—Patriot Office, 1859; p. 449
  11. Journal of the Assembly of Wisconsin for the Year A.D. 1865 Madison: Atwood & Rublee, State Printers, 1865; p. 213
  12. "United States Census, 1870", database with images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MN9Z-RB7 : 2 January 2021), Parker Warren, 1870.
  13. News: Parker Warren . The Eau Claire News . July 16, 1887 . Eau Claire, WI . 2 . . April 25, 2021.