Charles Loney Biography - Grant County Wisconsin

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Submitted by David W. Taft, dtaft@cowtown.net

Commemorative Biographical Record of Rock, Green, Grant, Iowa, and Lafayette 
Counties, Wisconsin
J. H. Beers, 1901
Pg. 134-5

CHARLES W. LONEY, a well-known and esteemed old settler of Grant county, was born Aug. 
21, 1808, in Franklin township, Ross Co., Ohio, a son of James A. and Nancy (Warren) 
Loney, both of North Carolina.

James A. Loney was a shoemaker by trade.  Before the birth of our subject he moved to 
Ross county, Ohio, settling twelve miles south of Chillicothe, on the Scioto river.  To 
him and his wife were born five sons and seven daughters, namely: John D., Esther C., 
Charles W., Rhea M., Sarah S., Alfred H., Enos J., Nancy A., Miranda P., James H., Eliza 
J. and Mary W.  All lived to mature years and married except one son, who died at the age 
of fourteen. The father of James A. Loney, a native of Ireland, settled in North 
Carolina, and reared a family of three children, John, James A., and Mary.  The maternal 
grandfather of our subject lived in Tennessee; he had a family of four sons and three 
daughters, Tilghman, John, Charles, William, Rhoda, Nancy and Rebecca.

Charles W. Loney was reared upon a farm.  When twenty-two years of age he left his native 
State and migrated to Mound township, Warren Co., Ind., where he taught common school, 
for two years. He engaged in farming during the summer, and continued teaching in the 
winter season for thirteen years, until 1846, at which time he went north to the home of 
John Switzer, in Fennimore, Grant Co., Wis., bought land and commenced farming, 
alternating with teaching short terms.  When Wisconsin was admitted to the Union Mr. 
Loney was elected superintendent of schools and justice of the peace, which latter office 
he held for twenty years; during that time he married one hundred couples, and decided 
some very complicated points of law.  In the spring of 1866, Mr. Loney commenced in a 
mercantile career, on a small scale, on the public highway from Lancaster to Boscobel, 
within the limits of the present village of Fennimore.  As time went on he increased his 
business until he had a very desirable establishment, but for the last ten or twelve 
years he has retired from active life.

About 1832 Mr. Loney married Miss Mary Switzer, of Ohio, and to this union have been
born two sons and two daughters; Mary Ann, July 14, 1833; Charles Wesley, Jan. 30, 1836; 
Nancy Jane, July 8. 1838; and William H.	Harrison, July 16, 1840.  All of these children 
lived to maturity, and three are still alive; one died in 1863, during the Civil War.

Charles W. Loney is one of the landmarks of Grant county, and, although he has reached 
the advanced age of ninety-two, he is still in possession of all his faculties, and is a 
very remarkable old gentleman.