Jared Warner From History of Grant County, Wisconsin, 1881, p. 880 - 881.

JARED WARNER

was born in Canfield, Ohio, on Decemgber 6, 1811. He removed, with his father's family, to this county in the year 1838, where they made the first settlement in Millville, and built their first shelter on the banks of the Wisconsin River. They were towed up the Mississippi in a keel-boat, with several other families. These came not to make a fortune by speculating, or mining, or hunting, or gambling. They were among the first families that came to this new country to live here, to stay here, to die here. The school of "suckers" ascended the river in the spring, but swam south before winter. These families came here to make farms, build mills, and to test the fertility of our soil and its capacity to support a permanent population. That dull metal, known as "lead," has the honor of turning the attention of the enterprising classes in every part of the United States to the then Territory of Wisconsin. The idea of converting our great natural meadows into corn and wheat fields and sprading them out into a vast agricultural region, was hardly regarded as probable or possible. But cabins began to make their appearance, and small inclosures ran out into the prairies from thicket and grove; there were beaten paths to the nearest spring; attempts were made to cultivate the apple and even the peach. The sod dug-outs and pole shanties were supplanted by more pretentious cabins, and the cheerful word "home" found its way in ordinary conversation. Mr. Warner and his father built the first pine saw-mill in this county, as we are informed. The small stream that discharges into the Wisconsin in the town of Millville became the center of a large business. Here Mr. Warner, then a young man, engaged in the lumber business without a rival, and few houses were built in that part of the country at that time that had not some of its material from his manufacture. He loved business activity - it was a necessity of his nature, and he had less delight in making money than in the pleasures of employment and the perfection of machinery. The cunning handiwork of the inventor always attracted his study and admiration. Mr. Warner was too much of a student, too fervently attached to ideas and opinions ever to become a millionaire. Having secured what he thought was a competency, he abandoned his saw-mills, settled in Patch Grove, where he bought a fine trace of land, built a comfortable house, improved a neat but not extensive farm and superintended its cultivation till the season before his death. Here he enjoyed years of comparative leisure, read books, periodicals and newspapers on all sorts of subjects, and developed those mental traits and speculative opinions that will cause his name to be remembered long after his lumbering and farming are forgotten. Boldly asserting the most unpopular opinions and advocating them with original arguments and illustrations, he compelled his oponents to read and study like himself, so that there are few neighborhoods anywhere to be found where the arguments for and against revealed religion, involving every branch of human knowledge, are more generally understood and examined. The majority of men and women must ever diseent from many of Mr. Warner's views on political and religious subjects; still he believed them to be better adapted to further human happiness than any other, and, when satisfied of the sincerity of the heart, we should pardon the aberrations of the head.
     Mr. Warner had been a great sufferer for several months before his death, but seemed desirous of concealing, as far as possible, his failing condition. He had been much in public life; a member of the Legislature, often in the County Board. He was Collector of Taxes in his town at the time of his death. In this business his intimate friends discovered his memory began to fail. He was original in his modes of doing business. He believed men were more likely to pay a debt when not bound to it by mortgages and securities. He often lent money without even a note of hand, making a memorandum of it in his account book. At his death some of his loans had been forgotten, but those he had accommodated readily come forward and told what they owed. On the day he died, he was observed in the morning to be writing on a sheet of paper. He placed this paper in an atlas, where it was accidently found afterward. He then went to his barn, about one hundred yards distant from the house, to turn out his horse and cow. Mrs. Warner, knowing his custom was to walk every day down to the post office and through the village, thought nothing of his absence. At dinner time it was found he had not visited Mr. Paul's. Miss Weed, who was then living in the family, immediately ran down to the barn. Mr. Warner was lying on some hay as if asleep. She attempted to arouse him. She stepped back affrighted. Jared Warner was dead!
     Mr. Warner thought an obligatory will might cause contention. The paper he had written in the forenoon was found to contain his wishes in reference to the division of his property.
     And such was the effect of this simple writing, that his wife and children all met together at his house, in obedience to his injunction, and by solemn writing and deeds divided their inheritance precisely as he advised.
     Thus passed away one of the most remarkable men known on the roll of the old settlers of Grant County.


This biography generously submitted by Roxanne Munns.