Will County IL Archives Biographies.....Whitley, Noah ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/il/ilfiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Deb Haines ddhaines@gmail.com November 9, 2007, 11:59 pm Author: Genealogical and Biographical Record of Will County NOAH WHITLEY, county surveyor, was born in Wakefield, Yorkshire, England, August 10, 1852, a son of Robert and Sarah (Lorryman) Whitley, natives of the same town. His grandfather, John Whitley, descended from a family who as far back as the sixteenth century, resided near Whitley bridge, in Yorkshire, and by whom the family name was variously spelled Whitily, Whytely, Whitley, etc. Whitley Castle, in Northumberlandsbire, was probably owned by a branch of the family, and is quoted by historians of the Roman period. Robert, who was a miller by trade, came to America in 1853 and settled at Plainfield, Will County, Ill., where the family joined him two years later. For a time he was employed in a mill at Oswego, Kendall County, but in 1864 returned to Plainfield, where he resumed milling. In 1866 he embarked in the milling business at Lockport, Ill., where he has since been foreman for a company. By his marriage to a daughter of Nathan Lorryman, of an old Yorkshire family, he had seven children, of whom Noah and Robert, Jr., of Lockport, and two daughters survive, our subject being the eldest of the family. He was three years of age at the time his mother brought him to the United States, joining his father in Will County. Subsequently the family went to Kendall County, but returned to Plainfield in 1864, and in 1866 settled in Lockport, where he completed the high school course. He then took up civil engineering and surveying and attended a private school in Chicago. The first engineering done by Mr. Whitley was in 1872, when he was employed on the Pittsburg & Fort Wayne Railroad in Ohio. Two years later he came to Joliet, where he assisted the county surveyor, A. J. Mathewson, in his surveys. In 1877 he went to California, where he engaged in surveying. He was also assistant superintendent of a large fishing company, and, being in and about the water much of the time, he contracted rheumatism in his arms. Hoping a change of climate might enable him to get rid of the disease, he went to the Society Islands, twenty-five hundred miles south of the Sandwich Islands, in the Pacific, and spent almost a year in that region of the world, being for a few months on the island of Tahiti, whose inhabitants were mostly natives, with a very few Americans, Germans and Scotchmen. The trip proved successful in permanently relieving him of the disease. Returning to Joliet in 1883, Mr. Whitley has since engaged in work as a civil engineer. From 1885 to 1888 he served as city engineer. To fill a vacancy the board of supervisors appointed him county supervisor in 1895. The following year he was regularly elected to the office of county surveyor and civil engineer for a term of four years. He has had almost all the work connected with the laying out of additions and subdividing of property, and his work has always proved reliable and trustworthy. In 1892, as a member of the sanitary survey, he located section and half-section corners in Will County for the sanitary district. In 1897 and 1898 he had harge of the party locating land corners through the city of Joliet for the sanitary district, and was called upon to give testimony in the condemnation cases that came up for settlement. He is a member of the Western Society of Engineers. In national politics he is a Republican. During 1887, within six months, he made two trips to England and Scotland, where he visited relatives and acquaintances of the family. He was married in Joliet to Miss Jane E. Clark, who was born in Scotland, and died in that country, leaving a daughter, Sarah Barbara. 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 File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/il/will/bios/whitley1017gbs.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.org/ilfiles/ File size: 4.4 Kb