Warren, Peter

Born: 1791 Virginia

Died: 1858

As a boy, Warren moved as a boy with his parents from Virginia to Tennessee. In Tennessee, he married his first wife, Elizabeth. They had fifteen children. While living in Tennessee, Warren served as a colonel in the state militia. In 1831, he moved his family to Illinois, becoming one of the early settlers in Shebly County. When the Black Hawk War broke out in 1832, he was a captain of a company in Samuel D. Whitesides' Brigade. After the war, Shelby County voters elected Warren, a Democrat, to the Illinois Senate for four consecutive terms, 1836 to 1838, 1838 to 1840, 1840 to 1842, and 1842 to 1844. From 1844 to 1848, he represented Shebly and Moultrie counties in the Senate. In 1850, he owned $1,000 in real estate. His wife Elizabeth passed away in 1853. and in 1855, he married Mary E. Means.

Gravestone, Root Cemetery, Windsor, Illinois; Combined History of Shelby and Moultrie Counties, Illinois (Philadelphia: Brink & McDonough, 1881), 237; Isaac H. Elliott, Record of the Services of Illinois Soldiers in the Black Hawk War, 1831-32, and in the Mexican War, 1846-8 (Springfield, IL: H. W. Rokker, 1882), 111; Newton D. Bateman and Paul Selby, eds., Historical Encyclopedia of Illinois and History of Shelby County, ed. by George D. Chafee, (Chicago: Munsell, 1910), 2:1007, 1009; John Clayton, comp., The Illinois Fact Book and Historical Almanac, 1673-1968 (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1970), 205, 207-208, 210, 212, 214; U.S. Census Office, Seventh Census of the United States (1850), Sand Creek, Shelby County, IL, 98; Illinois Statewide Marriage Index, Shelby County, 12 September 1855, Illinois State Archives, Springfield, IL.