Jackson County IA Archives Obituaries.....Warren, Capt. W. A. March 1, 1884
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Maquoketa Excelsior
Maquoketa Excelsior,
March 8, 1884

The Late Captain W. A. Warren,
Obituary.

We quote from the Bellevue Leader the following concerning Capt. W. A. Warren, 
whose death was briefly announced by the Excelsior last week. We are also 
indebted to Major Evans for the above likeness of the captain”

“Capt. Warren, according to his own story, was born in Fayette county, 
Kentucky, August 23, 1812, where his boyhood days were passed. In 1826 he went 
to Callaway county, Missouri, where he resided until 1831, when he enlisted 
for the Black Hawk war, and came to Galena with his command, where he was 
mustered out of service in the winter of 1833. he then engaged in 
merchandising and mining for a time; then sold out and accepted a clerkship 
under General Taylor at the then pioneer military post of Prairie du Chien, 
Wisconsin. From there he removed to Dubuque, and then to Bellevue in 1836, 
where he continued to reside until his death.

He was appointed Sheriff of Jackson county by the Governor of the territory in 
1839, and held the office seven years. On the first day of April, 1840, 
Sheriff Warren an Col. Cox led a sheriff’s posse in an attack on Brown and his 
bandits, who were defeated and driven from the town after a sanguinary 
struggle in which several of the combatants on both sides were killed and 
wounded. In 1840 he hanged Jackson, the only culprit ever executed in this 
county according to law. It was about this time, too, that he filled the 
office of sergeant at arms during one session of the territorial legislature, 
which then assembled in Burlington.

In 1857 he was elected a member of the constitutional convention, and served 
with distinction in that body of able men. In 1852 he was appointed a post 
quartermaster in the army, and for a time acted as chief quartermaster of the 
army of the Tennessee. During his term of office he disbursed over seventy 
millions of dollars for the government, and controlled hundreds of millions of 
dollars worth of government property and supplies. At one time his enemies 
thought to get him out of the army. They preferred charges against him and had 
him arrested and court marshaled, but the court acquitted him. He was 
honorably discharged from the army in September, 1865, receiving a receipt in 
full from the government.

Soon after his return home from the army he was elected a member of the Board 
of Supervisors in this county. In 1870 the city council of Bellevue sent him 
to Des Moines, with several others of our prominent citizens to obtain a land 
grant to aid in the building of the Chicago, Clinton & Dubuque railroad. The 
project succeeded, the land grant was obtained, and the road built. He held 
the office of justice of the peace for nearly thirty years, was mayor of the 
city several times, and filled at different times all the township and city 
offices. He was twice a presidential elector, and a member of the convention 
that nominated Abraham Lincoln at Chicago in 1860. He cast his first ballots 
in that convention for Edward Bates, of Missouri, but finally dropped Bates 
and voted for Lincoln.  He attended nearly all the Whig and Republican state 
conventions ever held in Iowa, and was an acknowledged leader of the 
republican party in the state ever since its organization in 1855. When Grimes 
canvassed the state for governor in 1856 Warren accompanied him, and traveled 
all over the state with him in a buggy, sometimes making speeches for that 
able man, when he was sick or indisposed. He supported both Grimes and Harlan 
for the senate and both gentlemen owed much to his efforts in their behalf, 
and both were his warm personal friends.”

Capt. Warren fell on an icy sidewalk some weeks before his death, and never 
recovered from the shock.  He was married three times, and leaves a widow and 
three children. He was buried as he requested without pomp or parade by the 
Grand Army Post. By his request he was laid to rest on his left side, because 
he had bad dreams when he slept on his back.

As a citizen Capt. Warren was patriotic and public spirited. An ardent 
Republican, he delighted in taking a hand in the game of practical politics, 
and was remarkably shrewd and far-seeing, though singularly devoid of ambition 
for himself, preferring apparently the interests of his friends above his own.

As a man he was brave, generous and kind. Prosperity did not unduly uplift 
him, and adversity, which was a constant guest during the later years of his 
life, could not cast him down. Cheerful, keen of observation, with a tenacious 
memory, and the faculty of graphically relating what he saw and heard, he was 
an interesting person to meet. He was benevolent to a fault, and had the large 
love for his fellows that distinguished Ben Adhem, whose name “led all the 
rest.”


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