My Genealogy Hound

Judge Allen Warden, public administrator for Barton County, was born in Auburn, New York, April 8, 1821, and is the son of Bucklin and Anna (Francisco) Warden, natives of Vermont and New Jersey, respectively. They were married in New York, and here the father followed farming and blacksmithing. He was a lieutenant in the War of 1812, and was of Scotch descent. He passed his last days in New York, as did also the mother, who was of Spanish origin. They were the parents of five children, two sons and three daughters. The paternal grandfather was one of the immortal eighty-three who captured Ticonderoga under Ethan Allen, hence the name Allen is a favorite in the Warden family. While growing to manhood Judge Allen Warden acquired an academic education, and, after finishing the same (1842), he went to Lafayette County, Wis., where he opened a farm, but soon turned his attention to merchandising and milling. In 1846 he married Miss Lucinda Miller, a native of Indiana, and to them were born seven children, five sons and two daughters. Mr. Warden was the first presiding judge of Lafayette County, and that before he was twenty-four years of age. He was a member of the constitutional convention of Wisconsin, in 1848, was presidential elector in 1864, and again in 1868, and, when the late war broke out, he used all his eloquence and influence for the Union cause. He raised two companies, and was elected captain of each, but, his family not consenting to his going, another led them to the field. In recognition of the services rendered by him, Governor J. T. Lewis tendered him the colonelcy of the Thirty-first Wisconsin Infantry, but the consideration that deterred him from becoming captain, also influenced him in this matter. To induce young men to enlist that a draft might not come on the county, he got the county to offer $300 bounty to those who would enlist, and, being presiding judge of the court, he issued county warrants that soon dropped to a few cents on the dollar, thus foreboding financial ruin to the county. Seeing how the government credit was strengthened by issuing United States bonds, he made a personal appeal to the Wisconsin Legislature to permit him to issue county bonds and exchange them for warrants. The result was that the bonds kept almost at par, and thus saved the county. In 1875 Judge Warden came to Barton County, Mo., and in 1882 was chosen presiding judge of Barton County Court. Two years later he was made probate judge. He is a Democrat in politics, and is a Knight Templar in Masonry.