Chester County PA Archives Biographies.....John P. BAILY, 1805-1874
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Sandra Ferguson [ferg@ntelos.net]


from Futhey and Cope's History of Chester County (1881)

   HON. JOHN P. BAILY, son of Jacob and Elizabeth, was born 1, 
17, 1805. He attended the common pay-school of his neighborhood 
and assisted on his father's farm until he was sixteen years of 
age, when he was apprenticed to the saddler's trade. This did 
not suit his taste, and at the end of a year, he gave it up. 
He again resumed his studies, teaching school at intervals, and 
ending his academic education with Samuel Gummere, at Burlington, 
N. J.  His taste was mathematical. While engaged in teaching a 
select school in West Philadelphia in 1826, he was selected, with 
John Edgar Thomson and other young men, to assist Maj. John Wilson, 
of the United States Topographical Corps, to locate and construct 
a railroad from Philadelphia to Columbia, but before it was 
completed he was appointed by the Mine Hill and Schuylkill Haven 
Railroad Company to locate and contruct their coal road in 
Schuylkill County, remaining in their service until it was 
completed. He was then appointed to locate and construct a railroad 
from West Chester to intersect the Columbia Railroad at a point near 
Paoli, which he did satisfactorily. He was then appointed as a civil 
engineer in the United States Topographical Corps, and performed 
important service in the Western country in the location of a 
national road from Toledo (Ohio) to the Mississippi River, and the 
survey of the Cumberland River in Kentucky and Tennesee. In 1836, he 
was appointed by the Pennsylvania Legislature as chief engineer of 
the public works, which he held until the law creating the office was 
repealed. He was subsequently appointed, and for a year or so served 
as chief engineer to the Fredericksburg and Richmond Railroad, in 
Virginia.
   In the winter of 1840 he commenced to read law with Henry S. Van 
Amringe, of Pittsburgh, formerly of the West Chester bar. After his 
admission to the bar, Mr. Baily removed to West Chester, where he 
opened a law-offiice in 1843. In the winter of 1858 he was appointed 
by Governor Packer as associate judge of Chester county, vice Judge 
Srickland resigned. When the Rebellion broke out he,with many other 
Democrats, became a supporter of the Administration in the 
prosecution of the war. At the next vacancy of associate judge he 
was nominated and elected by the Republican party to that position,
and was re-elected the following term, --ten successive years of 
incumbancy. He subsequently visited Europe, and made a trip across 
the continent by the Pacific Railroad. Soon after he took up his 
residence at his native place, Parkerville, with his brother Abram. 
He died at the residence of Isaac B. Webb, in Pennsbury on 12, 13, 
1874, in the seventieth year of his age.


This file is located at:
http://files.usgwarchives.net/pa/chester/wills/b/baily-jp.txt