Family History, Chapter I

The first Warnack in the New World was Lieutenant Colonel Frederick Christian Warnack of Prussia and Princess Anne County, Virginia. He served in the Virginia line. He was captured by Benedict Arnold because he was too drunk to flee from the armory he was guarding and was held prisoner for some time. Following the war, he married in Princess Anne County and died about 1786. LTC Warnack was granted bounty lands in Barren County, Kentucky, and the administrator of his estate, his nephew and namesake FC Warnack, II, sold the land in about 1801. At the time, Frederick II was living in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania.

By 1804, Frederick II and his wife Elisabeth, together with their son Isaac Edward (1800) and daughter Hellene Christiana (1798), had settled in Greene County, Tennessee, then the frontier. Three other children were born there: Heinrich Daniel (1804) and Wilhelm Christian (1807) and Elizabeth (1810). By 1817, the family had moved to Knoxville, Tennessee, the principal city of East Tennessee. Frederick II owned and operated Eagle Paper, a company which manufactured, among other things, newsprint, until his death in 1821.

Hellene, who married John Chapman, Isaac Edward, who married Nancy Lonas, and Henry Daniel, who married Asena Chapman, all moved around 1835 to Madison County, Illinois, just across the Mississippi River from St Louis. The family became involved in the production of earthenware. The fate of Elizabeth is not known. William Christian, who married Nancy Morrow in 1829, remained in Knoxville. Nancy died in 1835 from consumption. Her father was William Morrow of Ulster and her mother was Isabella Mebane, among the earliest inhabitants of Knoxville. William died between 1835 and 1840 and left his two children, William Carl (1831) and Ann Eliza (1832) in the care of their uncle Samuel Morrow (1812-1864). Wm Carl was apprenticed out to a tailor and established a tailor shop in Marysville, Blount County, Tennessee by 1850. In 1849, he married Elizabeth Barnes in Blount County.

Wm Carl and Elizabeth had five children: Samuel B. (1851-1927), James L. (1854-1923), Walter A. (1856-about 1925), Wm Mortimer (1858-1929) and Elizabeth Harriet (1862-?). Wm Carl served in the Confederate Army with the rank of sergeant and participated in the battle of Chickamauga. Following the war, the family moved to Jacksboro, Campbell County, Tennessee on the Cumberland Plateau where the Morrows had substantial holdings. Wm Carl served as Justice of the Peace. By 1880, Wm Carl and Elizabeth had returned to Knoxville where they died c1899 and c1910, respectively.

Samuel moved to Kentucky where he was a constable, a mining manager, and a restauranteur. He died there without issue. Walter stayed in Knoxville where he was a road superintendent and a grocer. He also died without issue. James settled in Monroe County, Tennessee and worked as a bootmaker and a farmer. He and his wife Louisa had ten sons and a daughter. James's entire family moved to Los Angeles by way of New Orleans by about 1910. Two of his sons, Henry Christian and John Houston were silent movie screenwriters. Another son, James Marshall, was religion editor of the LA Times. Three others were druggists. Elizabeth married Arthur Merriman, and her susbsequent fate is not known.

Wm Mortimer married Elizabeth Waller of the Chesapeaker Wallers and settled in Rhea County, Tennessee and then Whitfield County, Georgia. He is the founder of the Warnack family of Northwest Georgia, about whom more will be written in a later chapter.

I have no idea whether any of the East Tennessee Warnacks owned slaves, but none are listed in the slave censuses of 1850 and 1860. Moreover, this part of Tennessee was never marked by slaveholding on the scale seen in lowland areas, including West Tennessee.

It does not appear that any of these Warnacks participated directly in attacks on or swindles of Cherokee Indians; however, like every white settler in the region, they would have benefited from increased white population and diminishing tribal holdings.

The Warnacks do not appear to have been particularly influential in Tennessee politics, and it is not know whether they were aligned with any of the factions active in the area.