The father of Judge Settle was Simon Settle, who was born at Glasgow in Barren County in 1824, grew up there, moved to Green County when a young man, took up farming, and also followed the trade of gunsmith. In 1867 he opened a general sporting goods establishment at Bowling Green, manufacturing guns and also selling firearms, fishing tackle and other goods of that kind. He died at Bowling Green in 1871. He was a democrat and affiliated with the Presbyterian Church. Simon Settle married Mary Barnett, who was born in Green County in 1829 and died there January 21, 1862. Judge Warner E. Settle is their oldest child; Thomas F. Settle, the second in age, was in business at Bowling Green and died at the age of forty years; William A. became a physician and surgeon and died in Green County at the age of sixty; Susan Amanda is the wife of Clinton J. Porter, formerly of Warren County, Kentucky, and now living in Boston, Massachusetts, Mr. Porter being connected with the Walkover Shoe Company; Marshall Settle is a merchant at Collinswood, Tennessee. For his second wife Simon Settle married Miss Sally Fairman, of Harrodsburg, Kentucky.
In the maternal line Judge Settle is a great-great-grandson of William Barnett, a native of Londonderry, Ireland, who on coming to this country settled in South Carolina about 1750. He spent his years as a southern planter. His son, William Barnett, was born in South Carolina, served as a Revolutionary soldier, and at the close of the war removed to Green County, Kentucky, where he was a pioneer farmer. His son, the maternal grandfather of Judge Settle, was Thomas R. Barnett, who was born in Green County in 1797 and spent his life there as a farmer and planter. He died in Green County in 1886. He was a representative to the Legislature two terms, and for twenty-four years was a county judge. Thomas R. Barnett married Susan Ellmore, a native of Amelia County, Virginia, who died in Green County, Kentucky, at the age of sixty-seven. Her father, Thomas Ellmore, was a Revolutionary soldier and spent his last years on a farm in Green County, Kentucky.
