Richard H Whiteley
American
Richard H Whiteley was born in the northern part of Ireland in 1830. His family moved to Augusta, Georgia, in 1836 where he attended school until 1839. He then apprenticed to learn the trade of cotton and wool manufacturing and engaged in that business until 1860.
In 1860 he was admitted to the bar and in 1861 took an active part in the issue of secession, which he opposed. He entered the Confederate Army when war was declared and surrendered in 1865 at Durham Station in North Carolina. When it came to the question of reconstruction, he favored the policy of Congress, maintaining that the first duty of Southerners was to unconditionally accept the results of the war.
In February 1870, he was elected United States Senator by the General Assembly of Georgia, but in a contest before the Senate, the election was declared to be illegal. He was a delegate to the National Republican Convention in 1872 and during the same year was again elected to Congress; a contest succeeded in an attempt again to count him out. In 1874 and 1876 he was again elected to Congress by large majorities but both times defrauded by false counts. In March 1877, being fully satisfied that there was no hope of change of policy in the South, he moved to Colorado. He came to Boulder and engaged in the practice of law. He purchased the Arnett-Fullen house in 1885 and lived there until his death in 1886. After his death, his wife Margret E. Devine continued to reside in the house until 1899.
Their son, Richard Whiteley, was born in Bainbridge, Georgia, in 1861. He came to Boulder with his father and family when he was 16. He entered the University of Colorado's first class in 1877 and graduated in 1882. Three years later he finished his law school training at Harvard University. In 1888 he established his law practice in Boulder and was elected to the Colorado State Senate. - NRHP, 24 November 2008