Convention Member William Warren

Convention Member
Republican
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, and 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 February 22, 1884. He was appointed Sheriff of Jackson County by the Governor of the territory in 1839, and held the office seven years. 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 he was 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 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. 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. Source: Maquoketa Excelsior, Jackson Co., Iowa, Published March 8, 1884