Daniel Polsley
American politician (1803-1877)
Daniel Haymond Polsley (November 28, 1803 – October 14, 1877) was a nineteenth-century lawyer, judge, editor and politician who helped form the State of West Virginia and served one term in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Early and family life
Born in Palatine near Fairmont, Virginia (now West Virginia) to the former Margaret Haymond (1769–1830) and her husband Jacob Polsley (1763–1823). His Maryland-born maternal grandfather William Haymond (1740–1821) had moved to the Appalachian area and fought the Native Americans, and in 1777 had commanded Pickett's fort on the Monongahela River; his uncle William C. Haymond would represent Randolph County in the Virginia General Assembly session of 1836–7. His father had served as a private in the Berks County, Pennsylvania militia during the American Revolutionary War before moving across the Appalachians. Polsley had one elder brother, John Haymond Polsley (1793–1879) who survived to adulthood and moved to first Indiana then Iowa (and two of whose sons died fighting for the Union during the American Civil War). The Polsley family also included three elder sisters and two younger sisters who survived to marry—Elizabeth P. Polsley Newbrough (1795–1875), Rowena Polsley Graham (1798–1845), Maria Polsley Billings (1800–1829), Amanda Polsley Hughes (1810–1876) and Paulina Olive Polsley Hall (1813–1852). Daniel Polsley attended country schools as a child, completed preparatory studies and read law.
Daniel Polsley married Eliza Villette Brown (1806–1879) on August 14, 1827, in Wellsburg. Her grandfather, Oliver Brown (1753–1846), had likewise fought in the American Revolution, but on the Massachusetts line before moving to the Virginia mountains. The couple had many children, but several died young.
“Daniel Polsley” enters the record as american politician (1803-1877). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Daniel, Polsley and American can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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This entry incorporates text from “Daniel Polsley” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.