BIOGRAPHY: Bailey, Joel
From the A.T. Andreas Illustrated Historical Atlas of the State of Iowa, 1875

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     Honorable JOEL BAILEY.  --  Probably the oldest settler now living 
in Delaware County, and who for forty years has been closely identified 
with its growth, development and present prosperity, is a native of 
Middlefield, Otsego County, New York.  He was born January 6, 1814, and 
is consequently now sixty-one years of age.  By the death of his last 
surviving parent he was left an orphan at the age of nine years.  Five 
years later, when in his fifteenth year, he went to live with an older 
brother, who taught him the trade of making gun barrels.  About this 
time he had an opportunity of studying surveying, which he gladly 
embraced, thus early securing a thorough knowledge of this valuable 
profession, which has been of great service to him through life.  In 
the Fall of 1835 he left the scenes of his childhood's joys and 
sorrows, the dingy, smoky shop, where with blackened hands he had 
toiled many a weary hour, and traveling towards the sunset, landed in 
Milwaukee, when that now flourishing city was scarcely a respectable 
hamlet, and boarded during the Winter at the first hotel, which was the 
first frame house built in that place, and was kept by a half breed and 
his squaw wife.  In the Spring of 1836 he attached himself to a party 
of Government engineers, and spent six months surveying on Rock River 
without seeing a single cabin, white settler or other sign of 
civilization.  In the Spring of 1837 he came to Iowa with a party of 
Government engineers, and assisted in surveying the south half of 
Delaware County and parts of Dubuque and Buchanan, and in January, 
1838, returned to Milwaukee.  The following Spring, in company w8ith 
John and Cyrus Keeler, who were from Delaware County, New York, he 
returned to Iowa, where they made claims and built a cabin on the banks 
of the Maquoketa River, near what is now known as Bailey's Ford.  They 
"batched it," as it was then called, and broke some twenty acres of 
prairie, the first breaking of any considerable amount ever done in the 
county. Their only neighbor within ten miles was J. W. Penn, who had 
made a claim some four or five miles east of them.
     Judge Bailey was active in the organization of Delaware County, 
was one of the committee who selected the location for the county seat 
and the present town of Delhi, and was the first county surveyor, which 
position he has repeatedly filled.  In April, 1844, he married Miss 
Arabella Coffin, daughter of Judge Clement Coffin, of Coffin's Grove.  
This union was blessed with several children, their oldest, Clement 
James, being the first white child born in Milo township.  In 1849, he 
was employed in the Government survey on the Shellrock and Cedar Rivers 
in Iowa.  Becoming infected with the California fever in 1850, he made 
the overland trip with a four-horse team from Council Bluffs to the 
coast in seventy-five days.  He remained in California about one year, 
and experienced the pleasures, privations, and various vicissitudes of 
changing fortune, which were the common experience of all who in those 
early days visited that fabulous land of gold.  He returned to Iowa in 
1851 by the way of Panama, Kingston, and New York.  The next year he 
was elected School Fund Commissioner for Delaware County, and during 
his term of office sold most of the school lands in the county. In the 
Summer of 1845 he was engaged in the Government survey on Root and 
Canon Rivers in Minnesota, and in 1846 in the northern part of 
Wisconsin on the head waters of the Chippewa River.  That same Spring 
he was commissioned postmaster at Bailey's Ford, then a stopping place 
on the stage line from Dubuque to Independence.  Since then he has held 
the office of County Treasurer, Recorder, and County Judge, and has 
been twice elected Mayor of Manchester, where he now resides.
     Judge Bailey is one of those genial, warm-hearted, noble men who 
are loved and respected by all who know them intimately and well.   
Two-thirds of his somewhat eventful life has been spent here, and could 
a more extended and minute account of his life struggle be written it 
would reveal many interesting incidents, and a pretty accurate history 
of the progress and growth of the county which has so long been his 
home, and where he has freely given the vigorous strength of his 
youthful manhood, and the more matured wisdom of advanced year in 
accelerating its development and securing its future prosperity.