An American Family is about the Warner family of Philadelphia's Blockley Township. R. David Warner Sr., the author, is qualified to write this book because he and his father are the twelfth and thirteenth generation of a family which settled on the shores of the Schuylkill River five years before William Penn laid out the city. Before his death in 1992, the author's father wrote a series of letters containing the stories told to him as a child in the early twentieth century. He researched the public records of both the Historical Societies and the Quaker Meetinghouse to build upon the actual accounts of his family members. He spent the last twenty years of his life collecting this historical information.

In the mid-nineteenth century, the author's great-grandfather began building on the names and facts about family members. The information he gathered was also used to write this book. Actual letters written from the foxholes of the civil war are typical of the documents used to complete this book. Our past can only be retrieved from what we remember and from the historical records that have been kept. Without memories and without records, we have no personal history!

An American Family

The Warners of PhiladelphiaBy Ralph F. Warner R. David Warner Sr.

iUniverse, Inc.

Copyright © 2010 Ralph F. Warner and R. David Warner Sr.
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4502-1063-8

Contents

Introduction...................................................................................xiWarner Family Tree.............................................................................xviiBlockley.......................................................................................2Domesday.......................................................................................5The Hundred Rolls..............................................................................6The Name Warner................................................................................7Thomas Warner # 1..............................................................................8Warners of Blockley, Worcester (now Gloucester)................................................12Sir Edward Warners Family Tree.................................................................20The Emigrant, Captain William Warner...........................................................22The English Rebellion..........................................................................23The Wounded Captain............................................................................24The Ring.......................................................................................27Why America?...................................................................................29The New World..................................................................................31The Question of the Warners' Arrival...........................................................37The New World "Blockley" Homestead.............................................................38The Swedish Connection.........................................................................40Swann Skuuta...................................................................................42Emalea Pusey Warner School.....................................................................44William Warner Jr. (1653-1714) and Christina Schute............................................46Establishing the Blockley Homestead............................................................48The Colony on the Schuylkill, 1732.............................................................51Mary (Warner) Kite (1651-1686).................................................................54John Warner (1649-1717) and His Family.........................................................55Isaac Warner (1662-1727) and His Descendents...................................................57Jacob "Jake" Warner............................................................................58John and Eugene Nugent.........................................................................59Lea Pusey Warner...............................................................................60The Married Cousins............................................................................62The Two Josephs................................................................................66Joseph Warner Sr. (Joseph #1, 1701-1746) and His Family........................................67Joseph Warner Jr. (Joseph #2, 1728-1800) and His Family........................................69John Warner (1773-1825) and William Warner IV (1774-1846)......................................72Stephen Girard.................................................................................79The Warner Companies...........................................................................82The "Welcome Society"..........................................................................84The Certificate................................................................................85Cuthbert Hayhurst Warner (1753-1838)...........................................................88The Plateau....................................................................................91Old Lancaster Road and Ardmore.................................................................92"The Warner Family," by Dr. John W. Jordan, Germantown Independent Gazette.....................94Silversmiths to Baltimore......................................................................97The nineteenth century approaches..............................................................107Heroes of the American Revolution..............................................................109The Pieries....................................................................................110Serendipity: The Story of Colonel John Smith Warner (1796-1867)................................112George Washington..............................................................................124William Cuthbert Warners Family and Descendants (1791-1872)....................................127Washington Grays Quartermaster Book (1840s)....................................................130Memorial to the 119th Regiment.................................................................132Henry Clay (1831-1886) and Five Tacy's.........................................................136Kesiah's Boston Trip (1849)....................................................................140Ralph Newton Warner Sr. (Grandpop, 1829-1915)..................................................149Ralph Newton Warner Jr. (1853-1915)............................................................154George Augustus Warner (1878-1942).............................................................164David Jones Warner (1883-1890).................................................................172Rev. Charles P. Warner #1 (1864-1947)..........................................................174C. Pierie Warner #2 (1887-1959)................................................................176Frank Dreby Warner Sr. (1891-1965).............................................................179Edith Warner (1893-1951), The House at Otowi Bridge............................................183Ralph F. Warner (1912-1992), Milestones and Memories...........................................189Frank Dreby Warner Jr. (1914-1976).............................................................202R. David Warner Sr. (1941-)....................................................................206Air Force Reserves.............................................................................208Ralph David Warner Jr. (1969-).................................................................213The Monument (Captain Henry Clay Warner and Captain Charles Pierie Warner......................215"Who's Who" of early Colonial America..........................................................258Nina's Legacy..................................................................................260Gee! Genes?....................................................................................316Bibliography...................................................................................327Endnotes for Nina's Legacy.....................................................................328Index..........................................................................................339

Chapter One

Blockley

In April 1986, my son, Ralph David Warner Sr., made a business trip to the Netherlands. Upon completion of his business affairs, Dave took the time to hop across the channel to England, where he visited the little village of Blockley in Gloucestershire. The village was originally located in Worcestershire, but the county recently had been relocated. Our Warner family originated in Blockley many centuries ago.

David met two of our surviving English Warner relatives while in Blockley. Sir Reginald Warner, age ninety-four, and Sir Edward Warner, age seventy-four, were distant cousins to each other and to David. Both the Blockley Warners were alive, hearty, and well. Sir Edward and his wife, Gretel, welcomed David with open arms and treated him enthusiastically and warmly. They fed him, housed him, took him on several tours of the countryside, and provided him with a few books and verbal information about the Blockley area and about the Warner family. They also had a number of anecdotes to tell, some of which David tape-recorded.

Blockley is located in the Cotswold Hills of south central Britain, a sort distance below Shakespeare's Stratford-Upon-Avon home. The village had its origins more than twelve centuries ago. Members of our Warner family lived in Blockley since before the year 1273, and some continue to live there today. Very early in the eighteenth century, a few of the Warners moved about four miles to the southeast to Draycott Village, where some of the more affluent Blockley citizens were relocating.

Blockley, being in a hilly region, had a remarkable number of springs bubbling out of the high ground above it. The water from one set of springs flowed together to form a stream known as the "Cole-Brook." Another group of springs formed the "Blockley-Brook." For more than twelve centuries these streams provided Blockley with a plentiful supply of good, clean, clear water. With a never-failing head of spring-fed water, the Cole-Brook was eventually harnessed to drive the water-wheels of at least eight other mills.

Visualize, if you can, twelve mills, each with its own catch-basin where spring water was stored until needed. The water was then passed on a regular schedule from one mill to the next until all twelve mill waterwheels had done their jobs using the same water over and over again.

Domesday

By 1066 the Normans had crossed the channel from Europe's Normandy and conquered Anglo-Saxon Britain. Twenty years later, in 1086, "Domesday" dawned. The "Domesday Book" was produced at the command of William the Conqueror, Duke of Normandy, who reigned as the king of Britain from 1066 to 1087. A year before his reign ended, he commanded that the Domesday Book be produced. The book contained the record of a survey made at that time of all British landowners. The book listed all persons holding title to land in Britain (for tax purposes) and showed the value and extent of their holdings. There were no Warner landowners in Britain at the time the Domesday Book survey was undertaken.

By 1120 the Roman Catholic bishop of Blockley Parish had claimed ownership of all the lands in and around Blockley. However, the book recorded the fact that the above-mentioned mills were in Blockley Parish.

The Hundred Rolls

Around 1273, approximately two hundred years after the 1066 Norman Conquest at the Battle of Hastings and the establishment of the Domesday Book, Britain's rulers, searching for more taxpayers, had a census taken of all British citizens. The census records were posted in what have become known as the "Hundred Rolls." In order to make the census-takers' jobs a little easier and to help clarify the records, surnames (last names) were given about that time to many families and were recorded as such in the "rolls" for the "hundred" in which they resided.

"Hundreds" were subdivisions of British "shires," or counties. Originally there may have been one hundred "hides" of land or perhaps one hundred "heads of households," since some hundreds were only five miles square and others covered more than five hundred square miles. Differences in the size of "hundreds" may possibly have indicated denser populations in some areas. Similar divisions were made in early British colonies in Colonial America, but "hundreds" now remain in the United States only in Delaware.

The Name Warner

The surname Warner may have evolved at the time of the Hundred Rolls census from Norman names that had gained acceptance after the conquest of 1066. Our name could have developed into its present form from the Norman names Guarin or Garnier. Many names were written phonetically, the way they sounded. Using the French pronunciation, the G takes on a W sound, and thus Garnier phonetically resembles Warner.

It is virtually impossible to pinpoint the exact date of the formation of any new names established during those medieval days. Warner, of course, is no exception. However, some of the preserved records of the English nation give evidence of early forms of Warner and show the name in use as early as 1273.

The following early Warner names have been copied from those Hundred Rolls records of 1273 and a few of England's more recent shire (county) records:

Richard le Warner Cambridgeshire 1273 Jacke le Warner Norfolkshire 1273 Warner Buckston Huntingdonshire 1273 Wariner le Botilier Huntingdonshire 1273 Henricus Warner Yorkshire Poll Tax 1379 Richard Warner Wiltshire Stourton Register 1572

The surname Warner occurred most frequently in England's Gloucestershire. By 1790, the year the first national census was taken in America, many Warner families had settled in the New World.

Thomas Warner # 1

About 1470, Thomas Warner #1 was born. He was the first of our early ancestors about whom we have any reliable records. On the Blockley hillside down which the Blockley Brook flowed, Thomas #1 was apparently one of the first purchasers of several leases for land adjacent to the water catch basins. Over the years Thomas's two mills, operated by waterwheels, became known as the "French Mill" and the "Corn Mill." The French Mill and the Corn Mill are still standing today, more than five hundred years later. David has visited them.

Thomas #1 (1470-1545) had three sons, Rychard, John #1, and William #1. Rychard #1 and his wife, Johane, had four children, including one boy, Thomas #2 (who died in 1595), and three daughters, Johane, Anne, and Mary. Thomas #2 and his wife, Frances, had eleven children, one of whom was John #2 (who died 1657). John #2 was the fourth Warner generation to continue leasing and operating the family Blockley mills. He and his wife, Margaret, had at least seven children, one of whom eventually immigrated to the New World, which we know as America. The emigrant was Captain William Warner (1627-1706), our direct American ancestor. The captain was the first of our Warner family to arrive in the New World in 1664, the year the English drove the Dutch out of the Delaware Valley (nine years after the Dutch had driven the Swedes out). The English took over and governed the area until the time of America's Revolutionary War.

The mills had passed from John #2 into the hands of fifth-generation Edward #1 (1629-1698), younger brother of the captain. Anne Warner, Edward's widow (after 1698), was willed Edward's lease to the French Mill; however, the lease wasn't renewed after about 1700. The French Mill, in the Warner family for at least 136 years, was now no longer operated by the family.

A copy of the family tree as developed fairly recently by a genealogist employed by Blockley's Sir Edward Warner soon follows this portion of the family story. The tree depicts the line of Warners living between 1470 and 1700.

The five English generations from Thomas #1 down to our first American ancestor, Captain William Warner, are as follows:

Thomas Warner #1 1470-1545 Rychard Warner #1 ?-1546 Thomas Warner #2 ?-1595 John Warner #2 ?-1657 Captain William Warner 1627-1706

Although some birth dates were not available, the deaths of the first four are recorded in the Parish Records of Blockley's Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul. Those records are still available. The church is more than 1,100 years old and was originally started as a Roman Catholic monastery about AD 825. It still stands today and services are held there regularly.

Chapter Two

Where we came from - Blockley, England, 1545-1675

The pages that follow are excerpts from the Parish Records of the Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul in Blockley and were copied by Sir Edward Warner of Blockley in the early 1980s. The excerpts date from 1562 to 1733. Due to their age, the Parish Records now reside in the National Archives outside of London.

As David walked into the church in April 1986, he described how it felt to "walk into his past." The grounds and building are very well kept. Pictures of the church and grounds as they appear today also follow.

On July 8, 1627, my great (7) grandfather William Warner was baptized at this church.

(Continues...)

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