Ernest Warner

Ernest Noble Warner (July 23, 1868 - July 8, 1930) was a Wisconsin schoolteacher turned lawyer who served one term as a Republican member of the Wisconsin State Assembly from Madison. He was the son of Clement Warner, and the grandfather of Fred A. Risser. Warner Park in Madison is named after him.

Background

Warner was born on his parents' farm in the town of Windsor in Dane County, Wisconsin on July 23, 1868, son of Col. Clement E. and Eliza (Noble) Warner. (Clement Warner was at that time a state senator, and would later serve a term in the Assembly.) Ernest attended the district public school, and graduated from the old Madison High School in 1885, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison's modern classics course in 1889. He taught a country school for one term while attending the University, and was principal of Mazomanie High School for one year after graduation. He graduated from the Law Department of the University in 1892, although he was admitted to practice upon passing the state bar examinations in July, 1891; and took up law practice in Madison. On July 5, 1894 he married Lillian Dale Baker, a classmate at Madison High School and also at the University of Wisconsin. They maintained a family farm, Merrill Springs Farm, at a location which was then outside Madison.

Politics and public office

Warner was the Republican nominee for district attorney of Dane County in 1892 but lost; was a law examiner in the Attorney General's department from 1899–1903; and was secretary of the Dane County Republican campaign committee 1902-1904.

In 1904 Warner was elected to the Assembly's 1st Dane County district (the Towns of Blooming Grove, Dunn, Madison and Pleasant Springs, and the city of Madison) to succeed fellow Republican Matthew Dudgeon, receiving 3,761 votes to 2,926 for Democrat Joseph C. Schubert and 82 for Prohibitionist Willam W. Bewick.^[1] He served as floor leader for the Progressive faction of the Wisconsin Republican Assemblymen, shepherding through Progressive bills for civil service reform and for primary elections.

He did not run for reelection in 1906, and was succeeded in the Assembly by Democrat Elmore Elver.

After the Assembly

Warner long continued in the practice of law, eventually forming a partnership with Fred J. Risser, who would later win a state senate seat as a Progressive (by then a separate party).^[2]

Death and legacy

Lillian Warner died on May 23, 1924.^[3] Ernest Warner, who had been president of the Madison Park and Pleasure Drive Association since 1912, died after an automobile accident in July, 1930. Within two weeks of his death, the Ernest N. Warner Memorial Park Committee was formed to raise $20,000 to buy the beach which would later become Warner Park, as a memorial.^[4]

References