Rock Island daily Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1886-1893, 1888-03-31

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| JOHN WARNER.
fishing or camping party can be expected
to achieve any degree of success without
the presiding presence of "Uncle John. u
He is the centre of the camp. the one
man who is looked upon to keep things
straight overlook the cooking and point
out the best places for fishing. He has
fished in every stream of importance as
he has been heard to say from 4 to
Utah" He is one of the best fishermen
in this Countrywide prince of piscatorial
pleasure, the king of camp cooks.
| Who does not know John Warner2
Yet there are few persons that realize the
active and eventful life he has led, and
the by no means small part he has taken
in the formation of the avenues of com.
merce which are the very arteries of the
community. Mr.. Warner has not been Il
great railroad manager; his has been an
other, but no less important work in
| the Interstate commerce of n great nation.
1t has been his duty to locate
the lines of some of our greatest roads
and to do and oversee the rough work
| such as few in his day were capable of
| doing Born in the town OF Greenbush
! In Rensselaer, county, New York, August
0, 1914. he received the early advantages
OF common school education and com
menced the work of public improvements
in 1898, doing the masonry on the Black
river canal near Rome, N. Y. The next
year he was engaged on the Western
railroad doing the grading and masonry
for that great line. Then he did similar
work for the Boston & Albany road, the
Boston 81 Schenectady road, and
1874 found him grading the Harlem
and Connecticut river road, including the
construction of the Willimassett and Ok
DO bridges. Then he built the Pittstield
& Adams road. did great deal of me-
chanical work, stone work and grading
for the Worcester & Providence, the
Rutland & Burlington, being engaged in
the latter undertaking in 1913. 49. and
then he was engaged in grading for the
Hudson River road below Albany and
afterward graded the Rochester & Mag
ara Falls line. This was in 1850 and the
same year he did the grading and stone
work for the Michigan Southern and then
came his work in Illinois on the main line
of the Rock Island road.
1t was on Monday, March 3, 1859, that
Mr.. Warner arrived in Rock Island, the
only person living here now who came
with him theM being W. II. Whitman;
these gentlemen and others having
driven across the state from Chicago |
They stopped the night before in Moline.
There was great excitement here in
those days. The people wanted the
Rock Island road built, but they believed |
it never would be; that the chief contrac'
tors simply wanted to get the right of
way for Fleeing purposes, etc, and that |
the road would never come farther west |
than La Sale. Jarvis Il Farnam were the |
engineers having the contract and the |
afternoon of the day that Mr.. Warner and |
Mr.. Whitman arrived, great mass meets
ing was to have been held at the court |
house and at which Mr.. Farnam was to |
speak, but the people were so indignant
over what they believed to be the pur |
poses of the engineers, that they would |
not permit Mr.. Farnam to speak until |
he had rinted hand bills bearing a state
ment from John Warner that the latter
had been given a sub contract to do the |
grading and stone work OF the road west |
and across the Mississippi When these
hand bills were put in circulation they |
caused great rejoicing, and a grand pubs
lie reception was accorded Mr.. Warner.
The road was built, but Mr.. Warner
had to commence the operations of grad
ing several months before he expected |
to in order to show the people that the
company meant business But he was
equal to the emergency and the part sub
let to him proved one Of the best graded |
parts of the entire system. In fact he
did most of the mechanical work of the |
entire road, east of the Mississippi, |
though his principal work was from
Green river to this point. He also took |
ths.eontract for the grading across the
Island and the stone work, and 1t became |
Mr.. Warmers duty to lay the first stone
ever placed in the Mississippi for bridge
rests.
On Jan. Q. 1854. Mr.. Warner met with
an extremely unfortunate accident above
Moline, his horse running away and he
was thrown out and one of his limbs was
so badly fractured that he has never since
entirely regained the use of it. At that
time be was overseeing work on the
Usage bridge in Missouri and at other
points on the st. Louis & Pacific road,
where he had taken heavy contracts for