Whaley Genealogy & History. Whaley is a British locational surname, from the villages of Whalley in Lancashire and Whaley in Derbyshire. Both likely come from the Old English hwealf, which means vault, arch or hill, and leah, for a clearing in a forest or a meadow.haley family history starts in 1185 with the recording of Adam de Walleg in the Pipe Rolls of Lancashire. Whaley genealogy lays claim to several notable persons, such as actor Michael Whaley and St. Louis Browns outfielder Bill Whaley.
1 America's first professional forester, and founder of the U.S. Forest Service. 2  Gifford Pinchot was the leader of the utiliatarian wing of the early conservation movement, who served under President Theodore Roosevelt and later as governor of Pennsylvania.  John Muir first met Gifford Pinchot in New York in 1893. Muir traveled with Pinchot and others with the National Forestry Commission surveying the problems of the western forest reserves. At that time, they became good friends.
The existing Locust Grove was founded on May 12, 1912, by O. W. Killam, as a direct result of the construction of the Kansas, Oklahoma and Gulf (KO&G) Railroad. Killam, lawyer, merchant, realtor, and promoter, purchased Elzina Ross's Cherokee allotment for the purpose of establishing a townsite.