Massey, George Valentine, II, 1903-1984

Walraven Jansen de Vos married Christina Thorsson ca. 1656.

The Warner family began mercantile operations in Wilmington, Del., in the late 18th century. The brothers John and William Warner established a partnership and engaged in a number of interrelated activities. In the early years of the 19th century they discontinued overseas trading and began a line of vessels plying the Delaware River between Wilmington and Philadelphia, which later evolved into a steamboat line.

In the 1820s the partners began shipping anthracite coal brought down from the Lehigh Region. In 1829 they helped to form the Delaware Coal Company which opened mines near Pottsville in the Schuylkill Region. The Warners also operated a large retail coal business in Wilmington. The firm was reorganized in the mid-19th century by William's son as Charles Warner & Co. It was incorporated as the Charles Warner Company on January 15, 1885.

The company had begun to deal in sand, lime and cement during the 19th century, and it had imported Portland cement from Europe as early as 1865. In 1899 it purchased the Cedar Hollow Lime Company of Devault, Pa., which operated a large dolomite quarry in Chester County. With the great increase in the construction of paved roads and concrete buildings, this became the company's main business. The steamboat line was sold in 1909 and the retail coal yards in 1913. Warner purchased the American Lime & Stone Company of Bellefonte, Centre County, Pa., in 1920 and the Penn Sand & Gravel Company of Tullytown in 1922. In 1929 they merged with a major competitor, the Van Sciver Corporation of Tullytown, and the firm was reincorporated as the Warner Company on March 25, 1929.

Eventually, one of the company's best known products was ready-mixed concrete, delivered in revolving drum trucks. It was the first firm in the Philadelphia area to provide this service. It was likewise first in the East to produce and market a hydrated lime, and the first to store quicklime in air-tight bunkers.