Henry Warner

“Henry Warner, Randolph Twp. Pioneer”
Written by Roger Rhoads
Henry Warner (1754-1815) was my 5x great grandfather. He was born in Frederick Co.,
Maryland to Nicholas and Anna Maria Warner. Nicolas was the immigrant having arrived
probably from Wurttemberg, Germany about 1754. About 1774 Henry married Susanna
Bostetter (1752-1820), daughter of Andrew Bostetter and Elizabeth Long.
By 1775, Henry was in old Bedford Co., Pennsylvania, east of Altoona, and during the
Revolutionary War he was in the Pennsylvania militia. Ten children were born to Henry and
Susanna, the first six being married in Bedford Co., Pennsylvania:
Jacob (1775-1835) married Rosanna Lingenfelter
John (1777-1859) married Catherine Nicodemus
Elizabeth (1779-1815) married William Snider
Henry, Jr. (1781-1860) married Elizabeth Nicodemus, Catherine’s sister
Andrew (1784-1823) married Catherine Brumbaugh
David (1787-1862) married Esther Brumbaugh, Catherine’s sister
Susannah (1791-1825) married Samuel Folkerth
Daniel (1792-1826) married Sarah Eller
Samuel (1795 – bef. 1810)
Catherine (1797-1865) married John Mast
Henry amassed several farms in the Bedford and Huntingdon Co., PA areas, but
apparently wanted his children and their families to live more closely together. Therefore, in
1811 when he was 57 years old, he sold all of his land and together with his nine surviving
children and their families took the road west to the Ohio River where they boarded flatboats
for Cincinnati and then came over land by wagon to Randolph Twp.
Prior to the trip he had one of his sons go ahead to buy land. Divided among the various
families it comprised a strip almost three miles long extending west from what is now St. Rt. 48
(old Covington Pike) and lying on the north side of Sweet Potato Ridge Road. It became known
as the “Warner Settlement.”
After settling in, it was time to help start a new church. The Warner’s were founders of
present-day Salem Church of the Brethren in 1817, at the corner of Diamond Mill and
Phillipsburg-Union Roads. One son became an elder while another was a deacon of that church.
Henry back in Bedford Co., PA was Brethren and probably attended Clovercreek
Brethren Church east of Martinsburg that dates from before 1790. Certainly, his children were
of that faith, and they married families that were Brethren as well. Two of the children moved
on from there. John moved to Koskiusko Co., Indiana, after his wife’s death. Henry, Jr. in his
later years moved to near Bradford, Ohio.

Henry died in 1815, and along with some of his children and their spouses, he is buried
in the Old Warner Cemetery (aka Herr Cemetery) on Sweet Potato Ridge Road about one mile
west of St. Rt. 48. This little burial site was ravaged by time and vandalism, and Henry’s
tombstone has been lost. Local members of the Warner family refurbished the remaining stones
and placed a granite memorial to Henry and his family.
Back in old Bedford Co., PA, George Rhodes, another 5x great grandfather of mine, lived
a few miles away from Henry. In 1810, three of his sons moved to Montgomery Co., Ohio and
two of them homesteaded 160 acres a bit north of Farmersville. In 1814, George and his wife
decided to come to Ohio with a daughter’s family. They got as far as Pittsburgh were George
got sick and died. His widow filed a petition for his estate’s administration from near Wolf Creek
Pike and Diamond Mill Road, south of Brookville.
The sons helped found Slifers Church in 1816 on the corner of Clayton and Chicken
Bristle Roads. It was a union church composed of Evangelical Lutheran and German Reformed
congregations.
Later one of the sons, Jacob, moved a bit further north, and in 1825 homesteaded 80
acres on Little Richmond Road, a bit east of Brookville-Johnsville Road. His son, Jacob, became
an elder at the Providence Lutheran Church.
Now, moving forward almost a hundred years, in 1907 Earl Rhoads (1886-1969), 3x
great grandson of George Rhodes, married Alma Warner (1888-1920), 3x great granddaughter
of Henry Warner. He was Lutheran and lived on Providence Road south of Brookville. She was
Brethren and lived near Phillipsburg.
I have always wondered how my grandparents from such similar geographical but
totally different religious backgrounds ever got together. They lived only ten miles apart but
many more than that from a Christian theology point of view. One of the great mysteries of my
family’s history.
Editor’s Note: Roger Rhoads, who contributed the above article, lives in Mentor, Ohio. Last
year he made an especially important donation to the historical society – an original postcard
dated 1899 that had been sent out by then postmaster Welby Waymire, announcing the name
change from Harrisburg and Iamtown Post Office to Englewood, Ohio.