WHALEY, Kellian Van Rensalear

WHALEY, Kellian Van Rensalear
Collection of the U.S. House of Representatives
About this object
1821–1876

Concise Biography

WHALEY, Kellian Van Rensalear, A Representative from Virginia and from West Virginia; born in Onondaga County, Utica, N.Y., May 6, 1821; lumber business; recruiter, Union Army; elected as a Unionist from Virginia to the Thirty-seventh Congress (March 4, 1861-March 3, 1863); elected as an Unconditional Unionist from West Virginia to the Thirty-eighth and to the succeeding Congress (December 7, 1863-March 3, 1867); chairman, Committee on Invalid Pensions (Thirty-eighth Congress), Committee on Revolutionary Claims (Thirty-ninth Congress); was not a candidate for renomination in 1866; delegate to the Republican National Convention, 1864; collector of customs at Brazos de Santiago, Tex., 1868; died on May 20, 1876, Point Pleasant, W. Va.; interment in Lone Oak Cemetery, Point Pleasant, W. Va.

View Record in the Biographical Directory of the U.S. Congress

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External Research Collections

Virginia Historical Society

Richmond, VA
Papers: 1861-1979, 40 items. Letters, 1861-1865, written to U.S. Representative Kellian Van Rensalear Whaley of Wayne County, W. Va., by friends and constituents. Correspondents include Schuyler Colfax (asking for support for his bid to become Speaker of the House of Representatives), Daniel Duane Tompkins Farnsworth (discussing West Virginia politics), William Dinly Rollyson (concerning the appointment of Gen. Franz Sigel as commander of the Department of West Virginia), Gen. Franz Sigel (concerning his appointment and military operations in West Virginia), John S. Witcher, and A.L. Wylie (enclosing a formula for invisible writing as a form of communication after he crosses into enemy territory). Many other letters are from Union soldiers requesting Whaley's assistance with discharges or transfers. Post-war items include a copy of an act authorizing the citizens of Jefferson and Berkeley counties, Virginia, to decide on annexation to West Virginia, and a letter to Warren Whaley appointing him a lieutenant in the Mason County Riflemen.

West Virginia Department of Culture and History

Charleston, WV
Papers: 1863-1879. Less than 1 foot. Personal and political correspondence and papers, largely about Civil War in West Virginia. Finding aid in repository.
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Bibliography / Further Reading

Winston, Sheldon. "West Virginia's First Delegation to Congress." West Virginia History 29 (July 1968): 274-77.

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