Quintus Quincy Quigley

Colonel Quintus Quincy Quigley (1828–1910) was an American lawyer based in Kentucky.

He was born to James and Martha Quigley in Paris, Tennessee on July 17, 1828 and grew up in Milburn, Kentucky.^[1][2] He was educated at Cumberland College and studied law under Judge Crockett in Paducah, Kentucky, starting in 1848.^[2][3]

He practised as an attorney in Ballard and McCracken counties.^[1] He was instrumental in establishing Paducah as a city, serving on its board of trustees and framing the charter which incorporated it in 1856. He became the first city attorney for Paducah. He formed a law firm, Quigley and Quigley, with his son Isaac who was also a lawyer and who became Chief Justice of the Kentucky Court of Appeals. They represented the Illinois Central Railroad for some time. Isaac died before him and Quintus then stopped practising law and retired to the country.^[2]

In 1868, he built the house "Angles", named after the sharp angles of its three tracts of land.^[4] The land cost $1,000 which had been allocated to buy a ring for his wife Mary. They couldn't find a ring she liked in Chicago but they fell in love with the farmland and so bought it with the money instead. Construction of the house then cost $8,000 more which caused some financial difficulty.^[2] The house was subsequently owned by Vice President Alben W. Barkley who took possession from the Quigley family in 1938.^[4]

He kept a detailed journal from 1859 to 1908. This was handwritten but was transcribed and published in a limited edition in 2000 as The Life and Times of Quintus Quincy Quigley.^[5]

He and his wife had two children and, in his final years, he wintered with his daughter in Paducah where he died from a congestive chill on December 19, 1910.^[3]