Person:Joseph Baily (1)

JOSEPH BAILY, son of Jacob and Elizabeth (Parker) Baily, and a descendant of Joel Baily, was born in Pennsury township, near the Brandywine battle-ground, March 18, 1810. He worked on his father's farm until he was sixteen years of age, when he was bound apprentice to the hatting business. At the expiration of the term of his service he spent a year at the boarding school of John Gummere, in Burlington, N.J., paying for his own schooling. His funds being then exhausted, in the spring of 1832, instead of going home to live on the bounty of others, he packed up a smalll bundle of clothing and started out to seek his fortune among strangers. He soon obtained work at his trade near Plainfield, N. J., and there earned the first money he could lawfully call his own. After traveling over the country and working at many places, he finally started a shop of his own in his native village of Parkerville. Urged on by the force of an indomitable will, he pursued his business successfully for a number of years, when, in the fall of 1839, he was elected a member of the House of Representatives of Pennsylvania from CHester County, and in 1842, was elected to the Senate from the district embracing Chester, Delaware, and Montgomery Counties. His colleagues from the district were Dr. Huddleson of Delaware, and Abraham Brower, of Montgomery. At the expiration of his senatorial term, in the spring of 1845, he purchased a blast-furnace, with a large tract of land attached, on the Juniata, in Perry County. He moved thither, and was soon engaged in the manufacture of iron. He pursued this business with great diligence and success for a number of years, when in 1850, he was again elected to the Senate from Perry and Cumberland Counties. After the expiration of his second term in the Senate he was elected State treasurer by the Legislature, and in 1860 was chosen to represent the Fifteenth District, composed of the counties of Perry, Cumberland and York, in the United States Congress, to which he was re-elected in 1862.

  Up to this time, Mr. Baily had acted with the Democratic party, ans as soon as Congress assembled in 1861 he urged his Democratic colleagues, who had been left in a hopeless minority after the Southern members had treacherously abandoned their posts, to take a determined and bold stand in enacting prompt measures to crush out the Rebellion.
  Guided by his own better judgement, he cordially joined the noble band of patriots who rose up in defense of the country, and the most important act of Congress, the adoption of the thirteenth amendment to the Constitution, declaring slavery to be forever abolished and releasing more than four million people from bondage, received his active and cordial suppport. At the expiration of his second term in Congress, on the 4th of March, 1865, he again retired to private life, but in 1872 he was elected oneof the delegates to represent the counties of Perry, Cnyder, Northumberland,and Union in a convention to amend the State Constitution.
  Mr. Baily has now passed the term of threescore and ten years, yet he still takes a lively interest in everything calculated to promote the welfare and happiness of his fellow-men.

For more information, see the EN Wikipedia article Joseph Bailey (congressman).

1.   Joseph Bailey (congressman), in Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia.