Here we go again, with the Warner lineage. My plan is to detail the children of prominent Washington Parish resident Col. Thomas Cargill Warner (1772-1833). To this end, my sole source is Dr. E. Russ Williams, Jr.'s book "Kinsmen All Descendants of Wettenhall Warner and Related Families" which is a comprehensive treatise on the Warner ancestry.
The firstborn son of Col. Warner and his wife Tabitha Warner (1776-1854) was Daniel Cargill Warner born in 1795 in the Orangeburg District of South Carolina. He came to Louisiana with his father in 1802. And he wed Matilda Bickham, the daughter of Captain Abner Bickham and wife Dicey Elizabeth Young Bickham, in 1816 in St. Tammany Parish. It is worth nothing that Capt. Bickham, then living in Burke County, Georgia, served in the American Revolution, participating in key battles and campaigns with Cowpens, Long Lane, and the siege of Augusta among them. His Militia Captain's Commission came in 1779, and Bickham faithfully saw service as a Captain until the war's end. It was in 1780 that he married Dicey Elizabeth Young (1757-1840), staying in Georgia until he moved his family to the Natchez District of Mississippi in 1797. Once the Natchez area became an American possession that same year, Capt. Bickham "signed the Oath of Allegiance to the United States." The Bickham family lived in Adams County, Mississippi for ten years before settling in Washington Parish, near the Bogue Chitto River, where Capt. Bickham succumbed in early 1834.
The poignant depiction of Daniel Warner in "A Complete History of Methodism as Connected with the Mississippi Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South Volume 1 (page 98)" a book on my shelf, by John Griffling Jones bears repeating verbatim:
"Daniel C. Warner, one of the sons of the old patriarch, and his wife were converted and united with the Church in 1825. A very touching incident was connected with the conversion of Daniel. With most of his father's family, perhaps, he entered a camp-meeting at what was called Bickham's Camp-ground, on Hay's Creek, a tributary of Bogue Chitto. He was a penitent and earnest seeker of the forgiveness of his sins; but he was what we sometimes call a hard case. Many others were brought to rejoice with an assurance of sins forgiven, but no blessing came to the sin-burdened and disconsolate soul of poor Daniel. The days and hours of the meeting wore away till all were gone. The last exhortation had been given, the last song died away, the last prayer offered up, and the final benediction pronounced, and the tenters were swiftly retiring to strike their tents and hurry home. Daniel was inexpressively sad. A sense of unutterable disappointment was settling down upon his soul, when with tearful eyes he turned to his brother Cornelius and asked him to remain a while and pray for him. In the midst of the surrounding hurry to get away the brothers knelt in prayer. Cornelius had 'power with God.' The blessing came on Daniel clear, distinct, powerful, and unmistakable. He was filled unutterably full of glory and of God, and was now ready to go home one of the happiest souls that left Bickham's Camp-ground that day. Yes, Daniel C. Warner was converted. We knew him between thirty and forty years later in life, and he still joyfully adhered to the belief that he was converted just at the close of the camp-meeting on Hays's Creek, in 1825, while his brother Cornelius was praying for him."
Daniel and Matilda Bickham had the following children: Tabitha Emily Warner (1819-1840) who married Ralph Regan; Thomas Edward Warner (1820-1892) who married Sarah Ann Regan first, Ms. Cutrer second, and Mary Rowan Bowie third; William Wettenhall Cornelius Warner (1823-1885) who married Sara Slocum; George Washington Warner (1825-1906) who married Nancy Renfro (Renfroe) ; Daniel John Haney Warner (1826-1832); Henrietta Statham Warner (1822/24-__) who married William Scott; Richard James Warner (1828-1872) who married Nancy Loving; Sarah Jane Harriet Warner (1830-1854) who married William Bickham; Holly Francis Marion Warner (1836-1886) who married Louisa Slocum; and Matilda Warner (1840-__) who married William Bickham (the widower of her sister Sarah Jane).
Suffice to say, the offspring of Daniel and Matilda Bickham were prolific, producing an abundance of Warner descendants in Louisiana and Texas.
Next, in 1843 Daniel Cargill Warner married Stacy Ann Erwin who had been born in 1800/1801 in Franklin County, Mississippi. She was the widow of James M. Slocum with whom she had three children. She died in 1876 in Rapides Parish, Louisiana at the home of her son. Her husband Daniel Warner had preceded her in death by almost a decade, dying in 1868, also in Rapides Parish. I like to think that at that time he continued to joyfully remember the camp meeting and his conversion on Hay's Creek in 1825, some four decades prior.
•Stayed tuned for Part 4 of this series which will continue with the children of Thomas Cargill Warner and wife Tabitha Cargill Warner. Wettenhall Cornelius Warner (1796-1827) is next in line.
Credit for this column: Dr. E. Russ Williams, Jr., and his book "Kinsmen All Descendants of Wettenhall Warner and Related Families"
