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John Wesley Warner
Decatur County
JOHN W. WARNER Born on the banks of Stillwater in Dark County, Ohio, on the 6th day of June, 1827. Up to fourteen years of age, he did small work on the farm of his father and his neighbors and in no wise differed from the ordinary boy of Pennsylvania Dutch descent in that neighborhood at that time. He like the rest was without even the rudiments of an education. It was thought among the fathers and mother of Pa. Dutch that learning was only an excuse for laziness, so at fourteen young Warner, who was filled with an ambition and an aspiration to better his surroundings, found himself buying his liberty of his honest but misguided old father and the world was before him. For a time he worked in the summer for eight dollars per month and used the money thus earned in going to school during the months of winter. Hearing that there was a superior school at Bloomfield, Illinois, in the spring of 1884 he took his younger sister and they went west to Bloomington. During the sessions young Warner attended academy and in vacation husked corn to make further expenses. At the end of his time here he and his sister started home to Ohio. They got back home in Ohio in due time and young Warner began to teach and to read law. He was admitted to the bar in 1851. He married Mary Wright Martin on the 11th day of December 1851. In 1853 he came to this county and began the practice of law and speculate in land. He was never aspiring for political honors. The only official position he ever held was State Senator from this district in 1856-58.
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