Warrenton is an extinct town in
Warren Township,
Warren County Warren County is the name of fourteen counties in the USA. Some are named after General Joseph Warren, who was killed in the Battle of Bunker Hill in the American Revolutionary War:
* Warren County, Georgia
* Warren County, Illinois
* Warren County ...
, in the
U.S. state
In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its sove ...
of
Indiana
Indiana () is a U.S. state in the Midwestern United States. It is the 38th-largest by area and the 17th-most populous of the 50 States. Its capital and largest city is Indianapolis. Indiana was admitted to the United States as the 19th s ...
. It was the county's original
county seat
A county seat is an administrative center, seat of government, or capital city of a county or civil parish. The term is in use in Canada, China, Hungary, Romania, Taiwan, and the United States. The equivalent term shire town is used in the US st ...
.
History
Warrenton was selected as the Warren County seat in March 1828 by commissioners appointed under the act forming the county. It was laid out "on the east fraction of the southwest quarter of Section 31, Township 22 north, Range 7 west,"
which today is in the extreme southwestern corner of
Warren Township, a little over two miles (3 km) northeast of the current county seat of
Williamsport.
[Warren County Historical Society (2002), ''A History of Warren County, Indiana (175th Anniversary Edition)''] The site overlooks the
confluence of
Big Pine Creek with the
Wabash River
The Wabash River (French: Ouabache) is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map accessed May 13, 2011 river that drains most of the state of Indiana in the United States. It flows from ...
.
The town was surveyed by Perrin Kent and
plat
In the United States, a plat ( or ) (plan) is a cadastral map, drawn to scale, showing the divisions of a piece of land. United States General Land Office surveyors drafted township plats of Public Lands Surveys to show the distance and bea ...
ted by County Agent Luther Tillotson on July 8, 1828, on a tract of land which had been donated to the county by a local landowner named Hollingsworth. Tillotson laid out seven full blocks of eight lots each, four half blocks of four lots each, and a public square of . On August 5, 1828, the lots were sold at
public auction for between $10 and $20 each, during which free whiskey was served at the county's expense, "probably to loosen the tongue of the auctioneer or 'crier' and the generosity of the buyers".
Warrenton's status as county seat was short-lived. An act approved on January 22, 1829, ordered a relocation of the county seat, and in June 1829 it was moved to nearby Williamsport. Not all the reasons for the move are clear, but an 1883 history cites concerns that "donations" to the county from Warrenton landowners were less than expected, and that much better sums had been received from William Harrison (founder of Williamsport) and Thomas Gilbert. Consequently, "this induced the citizens to wish a re-location of the county seat where the county could receive much greater benefit, or a re-establishment of it at Warrenton if the proprietors of that town would come down, in a handsome manner, with satisfactory donations."
Very few improvements were ever made to the lots at Warrenton and it quickly faded away. No evidence of the town remains at the site.
References
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Former populated places in Warren County, Indiana
Populated places established in 1828
Former county seats in Indiana
Ghost towns in Indiana