* Henry L Warner and the Warner Free Lecture at Harvard Historical Society

Henry L Warner and the Warner Free Lecture
"For many ages good public lectures have ranked among the most useful and interesting methods of combined entertainment and instruction."

January 22, 2016 7:30 p.m. Volunteers Hall
The Franklin Expedition and Northwest Passage--Then and Now

About Henry L. Warner


Henry as an older man, in Sioux City

Henry was born on East Bare Hill Road in 1834. The farm was opposite159 E. Bare Hill Road-- the house is no longer there.

His parents died before he was 10; he was brought up by his grandfather Noah Warner, a graduate of Brown University. His grandfather may have taught him the value of education by sending him out to work at a young age. After graduating from Union College, he taught school, studied law, moved west, went overland to Montana with an ox team in 1866, and ended up in Sioux City Iowa as rancher, publisher, mayor, and bank president.  Although he suffered losses in the great collapse of 1893, he remained a wealthy man.

In 1891 he donated $10,000 for to found Harvard's Public Lecture Fund, with the only restriction to avoid controversial matters such as religion and politics.
He also gave the money to buy the land for Bellevue Cemetery in 1893, and was buried there in 1904.  Three of his five children died as babies, one as a teenager, and one did not marry, so he had no descendants.

Noah Warner's bill from Brown University 1827