WHELAN, John W.

History of Northern Wisconsin. Chicago: Western Historical, 1881, p 169

John W. WHELAN, lawyer, Mondovi [Naples Township (per 1878 Atlas), Buffalo 
County, Wisconsin], was born 01 November 1845 in Waukesha County [Wisconsin]. 
Here he received a common school education, and in 1866 entered upon a 
collegiate course in the State University [at Madison, Dane County, 
Wisconsin]. He was a graduate of that institution in the class of 1871. In 
1872 he went to New Orleans [counties in Louisiana called parishes; New 
Orleans in New Orleans Parish], where he remained one year, after which he 
went to Fort Worth [Tarrant County], Texas, where he read law with Judge 
BARKLEY for one and a half years. He then returned to the North, in the 
winter of 1874, teaching school at Cedar Creek [Washington County, 
Wisconsin]. In the spring of 1875 he went to Eau Claire [Eau Claire County, 
Wisconsin], where he studied law with Ellis & Davis, and was admitted to the 
Bar in the Circuit Court on 05 April 1876. He opened his first office at 
Mondovi in the fall of 1876, where he has practiced ever since.

In April 1878 at Mondovi [Buffalo County, Wisconsin], John W. WHELAN was 
married to Miss Anna ALLEN, who was born in Saratoga County, New York. [Mr. 
WHELAN's wife being (according to the biography) born in Saratoga County, New 
York, raises an interesting question about John W. WHELAN's connections with 
that county. A place in Saratoga County known as Spier's Corners was in 
early times known as Whalen's Corners. The surname WHALEN also appears in 
records as WHELEN. Submitter did not seek the marriage record of John W. 
WHELAN. The family was enumerated in the 1880 census of Mondovi: John W. 
WHELAN, thirty-one, lawyer, born in Wisconsin (about 1849 by his age) to 
parents both born in New York; his wife, Anna, twenty-five, born (about 1855) 
in New York to parents also born there; and their one-year-old son, born in 
Wisconsin.]

Submitted by Cathy Kubly