Warinner, Richard O.

Born: 1805 Virginia

Died: 1871-10-20 Bloomington, Illinois

Alternate name: Warriner

Warinner moved to Illinois in 1835, and married Laura L. Majors on January 26, 1836, in McLean County. In 1850, he and Laura lived in Bloomington, where he was a dry goods merchant. He was active in the local Christian Church, where he sometimes served as a preacher. For a time, he was in partnership with Asahel Gridley in the firm of R. O. Warriner and Company. Warinner likely met Abraham Lincoln through Lincoln’s involvement in two cases to which Warinner was a party. One of those cases came about due to Warinner's position on the McLean County Board of Education. In October 1854, he served as part of a delegation from McLean county to a Republican state convention in Springfield. Abraham Lincoln commissioned Warinner as a paymaster in the Army with the rank of Major, and he served from August 5, 1861, until December 17, 1862, when he mustered out.

Illinois Statewide Marriage Index, McLean County, 26 January 1836, Illinois State Archives, Springfield, IL; U.S. Census Office, Seventh Census of the United States (1850), McLean County, IL, 11; The History of McLean County, Illinois (Chicago: Wm. Le Baron, Jr., 1879), 170; “McLean County in the War of the Rebellion, 1861-65,” Transactions of the McLean County Historical Society, vol. 1: War Record of McLean County with Other Papers (1899), 32; “Convention of May 29, 1856, That Organized the Republican Party in the State of Illinois,” Transactions of the McLean County Historical Society vol. 3 (1906), 16; Bloomington Pantagraph (IL), 23 October 1871, 4:3; Lands v. Hawks, Martha L. Benner and Cullom Davis et al., eds., The Law Practice of Abraham Lincoln: Complete Documentary Edition, 2d edition (Springfield: Illinois Historic Preservation Agency, 2009), http://www.lawpracticeofabrahamlincoln.org/Details.aspx?case=136862; People ex rel. Board of Education of Bloomington, IL v. Bloomington, IL, Martha L. Benner and Cullom Davis et al., eds., The Law Practice of Abraham Lincoln: Complete Documentary Edition, http://www.lawpracticeofabrahamlincoln.org/Details.aspx?case=141652.