Richard Warner (Yale, 1817), son of Selden Warner, of Hadlyme, studied medicine with Dr. Thomas Miner, of Middletown, and attended lectures at Yale College, where he graduated in 1821. He practiced several years in his native place and adjoining towns. He removed to Middletown Upper Houses in 1832, and died October, 1853, after a brief illness, about fifty-nine years of age. He succeeded his brother as clerk of County Medical Society, and was president of the Connecticut Medical Society at the time of his death. He had a large practice and was popular with his medical brethren. His power of observation was strong; he was fond of botany and mineralogy; his name is mentioned several times in Silliman’s Scientific Publications, as a discoverer of the localities of different minerals.
As a citizen he was first in every good work, a leading member of church and society, with strong convictions of right and wrong, standing firm for the right often to the sacrifice of his own interest. He was popular with the masses.
With the anti-slavery and temperance movements he was early and warmly engaged. One of the first to banish liquors from his sideboard, and to stand firm for total abstinence.
He was born at least a quarter of a century too early for his own comfort. He gained nothing but ridicule and the title of a visionary fanatic for pushing innovations which have since become established successes. He was prime mover in setting the town of Cromwell off from Middletown. He selected the name of the new town. He held successively all the offices of the church society and town. In the improvements of the village he was earnestly engaged, as many of the fine elms bear testimony. In the movement for an academy and a new church edifice, he was foremost and persistently successful.
Source
Whittemore, Henry, History of Middlesex county, Connecticut, with biographical sketches of its prominent men, New York : J. B. Beers & Co., 1884.
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