Ancestors

Dr. Ephraim Warner

Ephraim Warner was a son of John Warner of Farmington and Waterbury in Connecticut. His grandfather, another John Warner, had been a soldier in the Pequot War and an original proprietor of Farmington. Ephraim's age at death puts his birth about 1670, the same time as his brother John, who was born on 1 March 1670. Henry Bronson, the historian of Waterbury, supposed they were not twins and that Ephraim was the younger.

He had his first grant of land at Waterbury on 21 January 1689/90, at the northeast corner of Willow and Grove streets, on the usual condition that he build a house and "coinhabit four years." On 16 August 1692 he married Esther, daughter of Obadiah Richards, one of the town's original proprietors. Their first child, Margaret, was born in February 1693 and died the next month. Ephraim followed in 1695, Benjamin in 1698, John in 1700 and Obadiah in February 1702/3, and later Esther, a second Ephraim and Ebenezer.

He sold the Willow Street place to Stephen Welton about September 1701. In February 1703/4 he exchanged land on Buckshill with Benjamin Warner for a house and four acres on Cook Street. Once his 40 pound right in the town was secured, he moved to Woodbury, where his brother Ebenezer practised medicine. Ephraim appears to have practised there too. He is first called Doctor on the record in December 1706. His son Obadiah was baptised at Woodbury in May 1703, and his son Ephraim, who was nine, died on 28 December 1704.

His father died early in 1707. The will left Ephraim eight acres in the Old Town Platt at Waterbury and half an acre at the end of the house lot, "this with what I have formerly given to and don for him, Shall be his whole portion."

Waterbury wanted him back. In April 1714 the town meeting voted: "The town to encourage Dr. Ephraim Warner to come and live with us grant him the use of the school land for three years." It also voted him ten acres in the sequester if he stayed four years. He came. In the deeds he is the town's "physician" or "practitioner," while Dr. Porter was the surgeon, "or more properly 'bonesetter.'" Bronson says he became one of the "notabilities" of the town. He bought and sold land on a large scale. He was townsman, on the school committee and town collector. He sat as Waterbury's deputy to the General Court in May 1717, May 1719, May and October 1720 and May 1722, and was moderator of the town meeting in 1730. By 1722 he was captain of the train band, the town's militia company, the second man in Waterbury to hold that rank. He was still "Cap. Ephraim Warner" in a land description of 1770.

He settled his sons around him on Buckshill. In December 1724 he gave John twenty acres and a house there, valued "at £60 money." In August 1733 he gave his "beloved son Ebenezer" the north end of his own house, twenty acres, half the barn, and "the smith's shop and the tools for smith work." In April 1738 he moved down into the village, to the corner of Cook and Grove streets, and deeded that place to his son Ephraim "as his part or portion," keeping the use of half of it for his own life and his wife's. In January 1742/3 he gave Ephraim the whole.

He died on 1 August 1753 "in the eighty-fourth year of his age," by the town record. His brownstone in Library Park Cemetery gives the 30th of August. When his estate was settled in 1762 it came to 14 pounds 19 shillings, "much having been given away to the children during the lifetime of the deceased."

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Cite: Heirology, "Dr. Ephraim Warner (1670-1753)", https://heirology.com/ancestors/dr-ephraim-warner-1670-1753-00f025.