William R. Chaney, born October 24, 1840, in Greene County, Illinois, was a well-known citizen of Adams, Gage County, Nebraska. An Irish descendant, his parents, James and Sarah Chaney, were pioneers in Greene County. William was raised in Mason County, Illinois, and enlisted in the Civil War in 1864, serving in the 133rd Illinois Infantry. He moved to Gage County, Nebraska, in 1880, becoming a prosperous resident. Chaney married Pamelia Finley in 1864, and they shared a life for forty years. A Democrat, he was active in the G.A.R., the Baptist church, and the Independent Order of Odd Fellows.
William R. Chaney is a well-known citizen of Adams, Gage County, Nebraska, where he has resided for a number of years and become identified with the best progress and material, intellectual, and religious development of the town and vicinity. He is a man of recognized integrity and uprightness, capable in the performance of every duty devolving upon him, and in every way worthy of being classed with the foremost men of southeastern Nebraska. He has been satisfactorily successful in his life work, and, having come to his present circumstances through industry and perseverance, knows the value of toil and diligence in this workaday world. He is also honored as a veteran of the Civil War.
Mr. Chaney was born in Greene County, Illinois, October 24, 1840, of a family which settled in that county in pioneer times. The ancestry is Irish, and Mr. Chaney’s father, James Chaney, was a native of Kentucky, whence he came to Greene County. His wife, Sarah Smith, was a native of Tennessee, and came of an old southern family, resident in that state for several generations. Both James and Sarah Chaney are now deceased, having spent most of their lives in Greene County, where they had a home noted for its generous hospitality and wholesome companionship.
William R. Chaney was reared and educated in Mason County, Illinois, and perhaps the most valuable lessons of his youth were the result not of precept line on line, but by actual experience in practical labor in the field and the hundred and one details of farm life. In April 1864, he enlisted from his native county in Company C, One Hundred and Thirty-third Illinois Infantry, under Captain Collins. The regiment was rendezvoused at Camp Butler, Springfield, Illinois, and was later put on duty at Rock Island and along the Mississippi, and later at Camp Butler, where Mr. Chaney received his honorable discharge in October 1864. He then lived in Mason County three years and Morgan County, Illinois, for some years, and in 1880 came to Gage County, Nebraska, where he has been one of the prosperous residents ever since. He owns thirteen acres in the town of Adams, and this land is so finely improved and so productive that it makes an ideal and valuable suburban estate. He has a nice house, good barn, fruit and shade trees in abundance, and all the complements and accessories of a model Nebraska home.
Mr. Chaney was married in Greene County, Illinois, in 1864, to Miss Pamelia Finley, who has traveled life’s way with him for forty years, and they are co-partners in all its successes and joys. She is a native of Greene County, was reared and educated there. She was a daughter of Zuriah and Matilda (Mace) Finley, the former of whom was born in Greene County and was a son of an early Kentucky settler; the latter was a native of Kentucky, and was eighty-two years old when she died. Mr. Chaney is a Democrat in politics, but does not desire or aspire to office. He affiliates with the Sergeant Cox Post, G. A. R., at Adams, and both he and his wife are members of the Baptist church. He has been a member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows for over twenty-five years and passed through all the chairs, also the grand lodge degree, and was representative to the same on several occasions.
Source: Lewis Publishing Company, A Biographical and Genealogical History of Southeastern Nebraska, 2 volumes, Lewis Publishing Company, 1904.