Person:John Baily (6)

HON. JOHN P. BAILY, son of Jacob and Elizabeth, was born 1, 17, 1805. He attended the common pay-school of his neighborhood and assisted on his father's farm until he was sixteen years of age, when he was apprenticed to the saddler's trade. This did not suit his taste, and at the end of a year, he gave it up. He again resumed his studies, teaching school at intervals, and ending his academic education with Samuel Gummere, at Burlington, N. J. His taste was mathematical. While engaged in teaching a select school in West Philadelphia in 1826, he was selected, with John Edgar Thomson and other young men, to assist Maj. John Wilson, of the United States Topographical Corps, to locate and construct a railroad from Philadelphia to Columbia, but before it was completed he was appointed by the Mine Hill and Schuylkill Haven Railroad Company to locate and construct their coal road in Schuylkill County, remaining in their service until it was completed. He was then appointed to locate and construct a railroad from West Chester to intersect the Columbia Railroad at a point near Paoli, which he did satisfactorily. He was then appointed as a civil engineer in the United States Topographical Corps, and performed important service in the Western country in the location of a national road from Toledo (Ohio) to the Mississippi River, and the survey of the Cumberland River in Kentucky and Tennessee. In 1836, he was appointed by the Pennsylvania Legislature as chief engineer of the public works, which he held until the law creating the office was repealed. He was subsequently appointed, and for a year or so served as chief engineer to the Fredericksburg and Richmond Railroad, in Virginia.

  In the winter of 1840 he commenced to read law with Henry S. Van Amringe, of Pittsburgh, formerly of the West Chester bar. After his admission to the bar, Mr. Baily removed to West Chester, where he opened a law-office in 1843. In the winter of 1858 he was appointed by Governor Packer as associate judge of Chester county, vice Judge Srickland resigned. When the Rebellion broke out he,with many other Democrats, became a supporter of the Administration in the prosecution of the war. At the next vacancy of associate judge he was nominated and elected by the Republican party to that position,and was re-elected the following term, --ten successive years of incumbancy. He subsequently visited Europe, and made a trip across the continent by the Pacific Railroad. Soon after he took up his residence at his native place, Parkerville, with his brother Abram. He died at the residence of Isaac B. Webb, in Pennsbury on 12, 13, 1874, in the seventieth year of his age.