Background
Calvin H. Wiley was born on February 3, 1819 in Guilford County, North Carolina.
Calvin H. Wiley was born on February 3, 1819 in Guilford County, North Carolina.
He graduated from the University of North Carolina in 1840 and was admitted to the bar in 1841.
He was the first superintendent of public schools in the state, as well as a novelist. After serving two years in the North Carolina legislature he became superintendent of common schools on January 1, 1853, and served in that office until the end of the Civil War in 1865, when along with all other state officials he was removed from office.
During his term as superintendent he founded and edited the North Carolina Common School Journal in 1856, which lasted only one year but was subsequently put on a firmer footing as the North Carolina Journal of Education.
Wiley died at his home in Salem, North Carolina in 1887.