Norton J. Warner

Norton J. Warner was born at Medina, Orleans Co., N.Y., April 15, 1830, and there obtained his education. His parents, Charles and Adeline (Jerome) Warner, came from Hartford, Conn., and the father was a millwright by trade. The mother was an own cousin of Leonard Jerome, of Jerome Park fame, whose daughter married recently into the English nobility.

Mr. Warner, the subject of this sketch, worked about seven years during his early life in various machine shops previous to the fall of 1853, when he shipped as second engineer of the steamer Portsmouth. The seasons of 1855-56 he was second of the Adriatic and in 1857 fitted out the side-wheel steamer Empire, but she did not leave port because of the hard times. During that season he made trips as second engineer respectively on the side- wheel steamer Minnesota, propeller Ontonagon, Equator and Potomac, and toward the end was made chief of the Eclipse and later of the Marquette. After a couple of seasons in her he was chief of the Hunter for a season and then followed with seven years in the Government service, during which time he was first assistant engineer of the revenue cutters Commodore Perry, Fessenden and John A. Dix. His next employment was as chief engineer of the Thomas A. Scott, in which he remained for a couple of seasons, and finished his career upon the Great Lakes as chief engineer of the Winslow, continuing on her for seventeen consecutive seasons beginning with that of 1872. He left the lakes in October, 1889, and was variously employed as engineer from that time until July, 1894, when he was made chief engineer of the Fornes building, on the corner of Pearl and Swan streets, Buffalo.

Mr. Warner was married, February 12, 1858, to Margaret Ahren, and they have the following children: Charles J., Walter D., Mary Adeline, Thomas C., Ella Augusta and Margaret Letitia. Charles J. Warner has for seven years been deputy collector of internal revenue at Buffalo, still holding that position; Walter D. is an architect; Mary Adeline is the wife of John Emig, a commercial traveler for the Henry Huber Company of New York; Thomas C. is a ranchman in the northwestern part of Texas; Ella Augusta is the wife of Albert P. Scheu, whose father was an ex-mayer of Buffalo; Margaret Letitia is the wife of Oscar O. Cosack, a lithographic artist, who is a son of Newman Cosack, the founder of lithography in Buffalo.

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Volume I

This version of Volume II is based, with permission, on the work of the great volunteers at the Marine Captains Biographies site. To them goes the credit for reorganizing the content into some coherent order. The biographies in the original volume are in essentially random order.

Some of the transcription work was also done by Brendon Baillod, who maintains an excellent guide to Great Lakes Shipwreck Research.