Washington Irving Warrey (August 23, 1855 – June 5, 1933) was an

American pioneer American pioneers were European American and African American settlers who migrated westward from the Thirteen Colonies and later United States to settle in and develop areas of North America that had previously been inhabited or used by Nati ...

settler and county official in Steele County in the U.S. state of North Dakota. He operated a hotel in

Sherbrooke, North Dakota Sherbrooke is a ghost town in Steele County in the U.S. state of North Dakota. It was the county seat from 1885 to 1919, when the government moved to the current county seat of Finley. It is located in Sherbrooke Township. History Sherbrooke w ...

and served as county judge from 1894 to 1905.

Early life

Washington I. Warrey was born in Columbia County,

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, August 25, 1855. He and his younger sister were the only two children born to Robert and Hannah (Carver) Warrey. His father had three children from a previous marriage as did his mother, for a total of eight children. When Warrey was a child, the family moved to

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, where his father worked at contracting and building. Robert Warrey was an architect and designer, and also worked as a carpenter. During the U.S. Civil War, his father was in charge of a force of pontoon and bridge builders.

College

Robert died when Washington was nine years old, and Washington then went to live on a farm for two years. When his mother died in 1867, he moved in with an uncle, who was appointed his guardian. At the age of 17, he became an apprentice

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, but eventual sought a more liberal education. At age 19, he enrolled in the Delaware Literary Institute at Franklin, New York, where he studied for four years. He studies are frequently interrupted by several terms where he taught school in the village and countryside. Education was a part of his family history, as a number of his mother's relatives had been leading professors in

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and other universities in the east. Mr. Warrey eventually wanted to pursue law practice. In 1880 he moved to Wyandotte County in Kansas where he worked as a carpenter and as a member of the local police force, and studied law in his spare time. This added strain caused his health to deteriorate, so he began carpentry work full-time and later became foreman of a crew for the Kansas City, Fort Scott and Memphis Railway Company. Warrey was a member of the

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, the

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, and the

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North Dakota

Washington I. Warrey's health never did improve, so in August 1884 he moved to

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, then part of Dakota Territory. He taught school for several winters in Steele and Cass Counties. He married Rose L. Wallace, a resident of Page, in 1888. They had four children, Victor I., Edward R., Lillian E., and Washington I. In the spring of 1895, he filed a land claim in Broadlawn Township in Steele County. He performed contract work out of Hope, North Dakota, until 1893 when he moved to

. In June of that year, he purchased the Sherbrooke House Hotel in Sherbrooke, and worked as a hotel and livery barn operator. Warrey, a Republican was elected as Steele County's

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in 1890, and elected Steele County

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in 1894. He served in that position until 1905. He also twice served as the county's deputy sheriff. Warrey died in 1933 and is buried in the family plot in the Page Cemetery.

References

''This article incorporates text from the Compendium of History and Biography of North Dakota (1900), a publication now in the public domain.'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Warrey, Washington Irving 1933 deaths 1855 births People from Cass County, North Dakota People from Steele County, North Dakota People from Columbia County, New York Politicians from Binghamton, New York People from Wyandotte County, Kansas North Dakota Republicans People from Dakota Territory