The Warren family headed west from New York in 1833 to create the community that would become Warrenville. In shaping the layout of our town and overseeing the early growth of the community, the only son of the family Julius Warren is also the reason Warrenville had to wait 69 years to get a railroad road.

In our latest Cemetery Walk, we told the family’s story in connection to the railroads through the eyes of their mother. Mother Nancy Morton Warren was born on February 9, 1785, in Orange, Massachusetts, to her parents Abner Morton and Sophia Goddard. Nancy’s father’s family had immigrated from England aboard the ship Anne in 1623 three years after the Mayflower crossed the Atlantic Ocean. The Mortons and the Goddards were both prominent families in the New England Colonies and the early United States.

After prominent marriages for many of Nancy’s siblings, her family was frustrated that she had chosen to marry Daniel Warren. Although the Warren family was also a longstanding New England family, Daniel had tried and failed with many business ventures. Despite the family’s struggles, Nancy and Daniel created a happy home for their family; the couple had eight children, seven girls and one boy.

In the early 1830s as the oldest children began to marry and start families of their own, Nancy’s husband Daniel sought a new start out west in the hopes of bringing prosperity to their family. The Warrens resolved to head to the prairie land of Illinois in 1832. At the time Nancy was not in good health at the age of 48, an older age for those days. Members of her family, the Mortons, asked her not to make the dangerous trip west. Nancy, however, stood by her husband and saw the opportunity the move would give to her children and resolved to go.

The Warren family made two journeys from New York to their new settlement that would become Warrenville in 1833 and 1834. Their son, Julius came into his own in this new community. He built a home in 1834 that still stands on the northwest corner of Main Street and Batavia Road; it is the oldest wood framed structure still standing in DuPage County. Julius and the Warren family would help grow the settlement and form the foundation of Warrenville. Julius never married and put all his time and energy into making himself and his new settlement successful. As a leader Julius made many decisions in those early days of Warrenville that not only shaped this community but all Southern DuPage.

One important financial decision that Julius made was to put his money and power behind the plank road. In the 1830s and early 1840s Warrenville was a prominent village and Julius held political power in the area. The growing number of settlers arriving from the east needed better modes of transportation across the land and as farms became numerous, farmers needed reliable way to get their grain into the growing hub of Chicago. Julius and Captain Joseph Naper of Naperville thought plank roads were the answer, but industry in Chicago had other thoughts. Trains were becoming a dominate mode of transportation in Europe and in the eastern United States, and although the technology was relatively new, Chicago leaders were making a huge gamble to become the rail capital of the expanding United States. Chicago thought the railroads could finally help them out-compete St. Louis and its economic dominance along the Mississippi River. When railroad men from Chicago came to Warrenville in the 1840s, Julius Warren told them railroads had no place in this area. For him personally, it was a financial decision, but it was also a power move as DuPage County looked to compete with Cook County, something that might seem hard to imagine today, but Warren and Captain Naper, not to mention Wheaton, all saw great opportunity in becoming seats of power. It would take decades for Julius Warren to regret his decision to say no to the railroads. At first the impact of the train going north through Wheaton and West Chicago wasn’t huge on Warrenville, but railroads became the backbone of the post-Civil War economy and communities with the train greatly benefited from increased growth. Even though we didn’t have the railroad, Warrenville did continue to thrive throughout the 1870s, a self-sustaining small community, where residents valued the insular nature of the town. But as growth plateaued Julius knew his decision long ago had forever altered the fate of Warrenville. Julius Warren tried to attract other railroads, even having test track laid near the DuPage River, but he died unsuccessful in that goal in 1893.

Although her son had kept the railroads out of Warrenville and then failed to bring them here during his lifetime, Nancy watched her son prosper as a stagecoach inn keeper, mill owner and legislator. Her daughters married prominent men throughout northern Illinois and Warrenville grew to be a close-knit community. Some today might even thank Julius for not letting the railroad alter the fate of Warrenville, how different would our town be if the hustle and bustle that came with the trains had been here since the 1850s?

The Warrens western travel and Nancy’s gamble to support her husband’s dream to head west paid off; the lasting contributions of her family continue to impact us today. Nancy passed away in February of 1873, seven years after her husband, and was laid to rest next to him in the Warrenville Cemetery, surrounded by the community her family shaped.