A. Warren Phelps

Phelps served on the Milwaukee Common Council in 1871–1872, and was elected in 1873 to represent the 4th Milwaukee County Assembly district (the Fourth Ward of the City of Milwaukee) as a candidate of the Liberal Reform Party, a short-lived coalition of Democrats, reform and Liberal Republicans, and Grangers formed in 1873 in the U.S. state of Wisconsin, which secured the election for two years of William Robert Taylor as Governor of Wisconsin,^[3] as well as electing a number of state legislators. Phelps polled 706 votes to 602 for Republican L. A. Proctor; Democratic incumbent Gottlob E. Weiss, who had won the seat the year before by one vote, was not a candidate for re-election. He was assigned to, and chaired, the standing committee on internal improvements.^[4]

He sought re-election in 1874 as a Democrat, but came in third, behind Republican Stephen A. Harrison and independent Julius Wechselberg.^[5]

In 1882, he was appointed to the Board of School Directors from the 4th Ward.^[6]

At the time of his death, he was an active Democrat, and had been slated to be appointed Postmaster of Milwaukee,^[7] a hope later dashed.^[8]

In 1855, Phelps married Delight Bartlett, with whom he had four children (two still living as of 1877), who died while the children were still young. In 1869 he married Carrie Sumner of Southbridge, Massachusetts.

In October 1885, Phelps died from injuries sustained in a runaway horse accident.^[9] The day before Phelps' funeral, Milwaukee Police Chief Ries issued an order to arrest the owners of all horses left unhitched.^[10] On December 24 of that same year, Carrie Phelps and their son A. W. Phelps Jr. were injured in another runaway horse incident, when a horse hitched to the same buggy which Warren Sr. had been driving at the time of his fatal accident panicked and careened down Grand Avenue, eventually overturning the buggy and throwing both of them from the carriage.^[11][12]