Warren Chase (January 5, 1813 – February 25, 1891) was an American pioneer, farmer, reformer and politician. He served in the state senates of Wisconsin and California, and was a candidate for Governor of Wisconsin in the election of 1849.
Early life and education
Chase was born in Pittsfield, New Hampshire, on January 5, 1813. He was the son of Susanna Durgin, who was unmarried at the time. His mother was maligned by the community and expelled from the church for giving birth out of wedlock, making it difficult to provide for herself and Warren. Warren's father was Simon Chase, who was married to Huldah Peaslee. Simon Chase fought in the War of 1812 and died at Plattsburgh in the fall of 1814, when Warren was not yet two years old. His mother died only a few years later, when Warren was five.[1]
As a child, Warren lived briefly with a Quaker family near Catamount Mountain. But after his mother's death, he became a ward of David Fogg and his family. Warren later described this time as a miserable experience and compared his servitude to slavery. He did not receive an education with the Fogg family, and at age fourteen was still not able to read or write. It was at that age he ran away to his grandmother's home in Pittsfield. Warren's grandmother and other members of the community interceded on his behalf and he was transferred to the care of his paternal grandfather, Nathaniel Chase, where he received a proper education and upbringing.[1]
In the fall of 1843 the Franklin Lyceum of Southport began discussing the ideas of the French philosopher Charles Fourier and his American popularizer Albert Brisbane.[2] Convinced of the applicability of Fourier's "Associationist" prescription, Chase committed himself to the emerging movement without reservation, organizing a series of preliminary meetings to draft a constitution for a local "phalanx."[2]: 192–193
On March 23, 1844, a formal meeting of phalanx supporters was held at the Southport village schoolhouse, officers were elected, and a group of three, including Warren Chase, were tapped as trustees of the phalanx.[2]: 193 A bond sale of $10,000 was approved and stock in the new enterprise began to be sold.[2]: 193 On May 8, 1844, they decided to purchase 1.25 sections (800 acres) of government land,[2]: 193–194 located in a valley between two gentle hills. By that fall a total of 1.5 sections (960 acres) were purchased[2]: 194 which would become Ceresco, Wisconsin (later merged into Ripon).
"He has in knowledge of American and European history no superior in this State. He is a man who can be an honor to the State and nation and to the United States Senate, and an honor to himself; a man whose heart beats in sympathy with the great body of the people; a man who is eminently like unto that greatest of modern men—Abraham Lincoln; a man who, if the people were to select, would be selected as the champion of their rights; a man—a man who has already gained a national reputation as the ablest political economist of America, standing the peer of John Stuart Mill, Ricardo and Adam Smith, and all the writers of history on political economy."[10]
George only received two votes out of 40 cast in the State Senate; one from Chase, and the other from fellow Workingmen's Senator Joseph C. Gorman.[11]
