Will County IL Archives Biographies.....Conley, Edward D 1844 - 
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Deb Haines ddhaines@gmail.com May 8, 2007, 11:43 pm

Author: Portrait & Bio Album, 1890

EDWARD D. CONLEY, editor and proprietor of the Joliet Signal, is conducting a 
journal which under his management has attained no small degree of influence 
in this part of the State. He is a native of the city of Toronto, Canada, and 
was born August 11, 1844. He was but an infant when his parents removed to 
Buffalo, N. Y., and in 1849, to Wilmington, this State, where Edward was 
reared to mature years, and which remained his home until 1889. In the 
meantime, during the progress of the Civil War and when a youth of nineteen 
years, Mr. Conley entered the Union service, enlisting in Company A, Thirty-
ninth Illinois Infantiy, which was assigned to the Army of the James. He 
participated in many of the important battles which followed, including 
several engagements in front of Richmond and Petersburg, remaining in the 
service until December, 1865, when he received an honorable discharge on the 
mustering out of his regiment. In the meantime he had the satisfaction of 
witnessing the surrender of Lee at Appomattox and he saw many of the prominent 
men who were conspicuous at that time, viz.: Jefferson Davis, President 
Lincoln, Gen. Grant, Secretary Stanton, Gen. Sheridan and others. He 
discharged his duties faithfully as a soldier and at the close of the war 
returned home. After a brief term spent in school, Mr. Conley engaged in the 
furniture business one year at Wilmington, and subsequently filled various 
municipal and township offices. In 1871, he became interested in journalism 
and purchased the Wilmington Advocate which he still owns and controls. In 
December, 1886, he purchased a half interest in the Joliet Signal, and three 
years later became sole proprietor. In 1889, he removed to the city and put up 
a residence at the intersection of Western and Buell Avenues, where he now 
resides. For many years he has been the correspondent of the Chicago Times and 
Herald, sending in the local news from Wilmington, Braidwood and vicinity. 
About April, 1879, he established the Braidwood Reporter which he published 
six years. He belongs to Bowen Post, No. 17, G. A. R., at Wilmington. While a 
resident of Wilmington, Mr. Conley was married December 28, 1874, to Miss Mary 
A. O'Connell. This lady was born in 1846, in Ireland, and is the daughter of 
Mrs. Hannah Burke, now residing near Braidwood. There have been born of this 
union a son and daughter: Edward J., and May. Mr. Conley was reared in the 
Catholic faith and is a member in good standing of St. Patrick's Church.

Additional Comments:
Portrait and Biographical Album of Will County, Illinois, Containing Full Page 
Portraits and Biographical Sketches of Prominent and Representative Citizens 
of the County; Chicago: Chapman Bros., 1890

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