Will County IL Archives Biographies.....ROWLEY, WALTER 
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Paula Winke-Martisek wranglerjack@comcast.net September 18, 2007, 12:54 am

Author: GENEALOGICAL AND  BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD

WALTER H. ROWLEY, assessor of Homer Township, was born in 1860 on the farm 

where he now lives.  His father, Alfred G., a native of Ontario County, N. Y., 

accompanied his parents to Will County at nine years of age and spent the 

remainder of his life in Homer Township.  From the time he became of age until 

his death he served as justice of the peace; for some years was supervisor and 

assessor, also held other local offices.  He was active in the Baptist 

Church.  He died in 1887, at the age of sixty-three.  His father, Capt. Jairah 

Rowley, was the son of an Englishman and was born in New York in 1777.  During 

the war of 1812 he was a captain.  He was a large contractor in the building 

of the Erie canal.  In 1833 he came to Will County and settled near Lockport, 

on a farm now occupied by Frank Rowley, buying land from the government at 

$1.25 an acre.  Afterward he bought a large tract in Homer Township.  He was 

one of the first settlers at what was known as Big Yankee settlement.  The 

mother of our subject bore the name of Lydia Hall Lanfear and was born in New 

York; she is now living at the old homestead with our subject.  Her father, 

Asa Lanfear, was born in New York and came to Illinois in 1835, settling in 

Homer Township and buying land at the first land sale in Chicago.  Calvin 

Rowley, the eldest son of Captain Rowley, came to Will County about 1830 and 

engaged in trading with the Indians, having a store near what is now 

Lockport.  After some years he went to Rockford, Ill., where he died at 

seventy-eight years.  He had made several trips to California, the first being 

in 1849, after which he returned east with considerable gold.  The education 

of our subject was obtained in the Englewood high school and the Metropolitan 

business college of Chicago.  For two years he was employed in a grocery in 

Joliet.  In 1880 he returned to the homestead and has since carried on general 

farming and stock-raising.  After his father died, the office of justice of 

the peace being thus rendered vacant, he was commissioned to the office, which 

he has since held.  For five years he was secretary and treasurer of the Homer 

Mutual Fire Insurance Company. In 1897 and 1899 he was elected township 

assessor. 

Additional comments:
Genealogical and Biographical Record of Will County Illinois Containing 
Biographies of Well Known Citizens of the Past and Present, Biographical 
Publishing Company, Chicago, 1900


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