Douglas County IL Archives Biographies.....Niles, Henry 
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Norma Hass http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00013.html#0003021 February 24, 2017, 12:16 pm

Source: Source: Historical and Biographical Record of Douglas County, Illinois, pages 174-175
Author: Gresham, John M

Henry Clay Niles, master in chancery, local historian and an old and well-known
resident, is a native of Baltimore, Maryland, and a son of Hezekiah and Sally
Ann (Warner) Niles, the former was born near Wilmington, Delaware and the later
being of Quaker extraction and the daughter of John Warner, one of the leading
Quakers of that state. Hezekiah Niles was an intimate friend of Henry Clay, and
prominent in Whig politics of his day; in 1811 he was editor and proprietor of
the Niles Register, which was a strong Whig and pro-slavery paper and always
supported the candidacy of Clay. It was one of the most influential newspapers
in the eastern country, being one of the acknowledged organs of the Whig party.
The International Cyclopedia says of him that he was born in 1777, in
Pennsylvania, received an ordinary education and became a member of Bonsal &
Niles in the newspaper business at Wilmington, Delaware, which was not a
success. He then became a newspaper correspondent and in 1811 founded Niles
Register at Baltimore, and died in 1839.

H.C. Niles was reared to manhood in the city of Baltimore, where he attended
school up to the age of fourteen years. He then became a clerk in the Baltimore
post-office for seven years. He was then engaged in the drug business up to
1850, when he came to what is now Douglas county and located at Bourbon, where
he became a salesman for his brother-in-law, L.C. Rust, who was one of the early
merchants of this county, and with whom he remained for two years. After Douglas
county was formed in 1859, he was elected to the office of county surveyor,
since which time he has served several terms in this office, and is one of the
best known surveyors in central Illinois. He is still actively engaged in the
business. Various acts of the legislature making any correct survey by a
competent surveyor perfectly legal (thus destroying all inducements to hold the
office), he, like many other experienced surveyors in the state, has since
refused the position. In 1881, he was appointed master in chancery of the
Douglas county circuit court, which position he has continuously held thus
attesting his popularity with all classes of people who have business in his court.

In 1858 he married Miss Rebecca Brown of DeWitt county, Illinois. They have five
children, four of whom are living. Mr. Niles was made a Mason, in Baltimore, in
1854, and is one of the oldest members of that craft in the county. He has
materially assisted in the making of both county atlases and is the author of
the old Douglas county history, published in 1884, and in this completion this
volume, I am under permanent obligations to Mr. Niles for his unselfish help.

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