JAMES WARNICK & THOMAS WARNICK

James Warnick, born on May 10, 1774, was one of the first settlers in what became Greene County, arriving from North Carolina in 1818. At the beginning he bought land that includes the Bloomfield Grandview Cemetery, although it was not then a cemetery. On land where the cemetery is now, he built a cabin in the thick woods. The unknown author of Biographical Memoirs of Greene County, Indiana, recalls that James Warnick kept school in the cabin. If so, it was one of the first schools in the county. The unknown author, however, states: “I knew old Mr. Warnick very well. He was such a man as might have kept a school—intelligent, capable, trustworthy in office or in any other way.”

When Greene County was organized in 1821, one of the first acts of the Board of County Commissioners was to appoint members to the responsible office of Fence Viewers. The County Commissioners appointed as Fence Viewers for Richland Township Peter C. VanSlyke, Solomon Dixon, and James Warnick. Later James Warnick became the first supervisor of the roads for Richland Township. And in 1829 James Warnick was elected as County Commissioner.

James Warnick married Peggy Bradford, and they had 4 children: Thomas Warnick, Sally Anne Warnick, William P. Warnick, and James G. Warnick. But his oldest son, Thomas Warnick left the most prominent mark in Greene County history.

At the first session of the Greene Circuit Court in 1821, at the cabin of Thomas Bradford, one mile south of Bloomfield, Thomas Warnick was commissioned as Clerk of the Greene Circuit Court for seven years. The President Judge of the Greene Circuit Court was J. Doty, and the Associate Judge of the Greene Circuit Court was John L. Buskirk. The two Judges had so much confidence in the fidelity and honesty of their Clerk that they did not require any security on his official bond. For several years Thomas Warnick lived with his father James where he was not very far from Burlington, which was then the county seat. The first two or three courts were held at Thomas Bradford’s cabin, located a mile south of Bloomfield.

A year later, when the Town of Burlington had been surveyed, and lots had been sold, the County Commissioners authorized the payment of $5.67 ½ cents to be paid to Thomas Warnick as payment for “crying a sale of lots and for whiskey furnished.” As the author of the History of Greene and Sullivan Counties, Indiana, explains: “It was customary then, all over the West, at sales of that character, to furnish free whiskey to ‘sweeten the bid,’ as it was termed. The whiskey was procured by order of the County Board and paid for from the county funds.”

On Aprill 26, 1824, Thomas Warnick as Clerk issued a marriage license to himself so he could be married to Lydia, daughter of Edward Gillam, another earlier settler of the county. Edward Gillam had come from South Carolina but settled two miles east of Bloomfield.

When Bloomfield was surveyed and lots sold, Thomas Warnick bought a lot and built his house: a hewed log, two-story, with an “L” for a kitchen. It was one of the finest houses in Bloomfield. But Thomas insisted it have a brick chimney. One very active young man was then working his way through college in Bloomington. He could lay brick. He walked to Bloomfield and got the job of building the chimney. In later years, the young man never made a speech in Bloomfield while running for congress and governor without speaking of his brick chimney. The young man was elected both to Congress and then as Governor. He was Governor Joseph A. Wright who Abraham Lincoln appointed as ambassador to Prussia.

Near the end of his fourteen years as Clerk of the Greene Circuit Court, Thomas Warnick bought a farm on the south edge of Bloomfield and moved to it. Thomas Warnick ended his service as Clerk of the Greene Circuit Court in 1835. In his history of The Early History of Greene County, Uncle Jack Baber writes: “Up to this time, he held the office of Clerk continuously from the first election to that office. Next to Judge Bradford, he was perhaps the leading man in the organization of the county. In the earliest days of the county, when no money could be collected on taxes, he advanced money from his own private funds, to purchase the necessary books for keeping records.”

And the house that he had built with the brick chimney? In the 1840s, the upper story of the home was used as the Bloomfield High School. Grammar schools and other select schools were kept in the old house for several years, open at night as well as day.

At that time, the State of Indiana had a militia law. Under the militia law each county had a Colonel. Thomas Warnick for some of these years was Colonel of Greene County. The fashion then was that officers, as part of their uniform, wore on parade a Suarrow hat with a plume in the top. This was one of the showiest hats ever worn. It was flat from front to rear, stuck out wide at the corners and high up where the plume was attached; in front, very prominently, there was a silver eagle. No one bore himself on parade with more pride than Thomas Warnick.

James Warnick died on February 4, 1858, and he is buried in the Walnut Grove Cemetery at Park. Thomas Warnick died in 1844, and he is buried in an old sand hill cemetery, then known as the Gillam Cemetery, two miles east of Bloomfield.

“Footprints” is a series of stories about the people, places and circumstances that make up the history of the Town of Bloomfield on the occasion of Bloomfield’s coming bicentennial. David Holt has researched extensively to write these stories we share with you, and we thank him for that.