Born at Cohoes, New York, on the 2nd of November, 1837, and in 1840 he came with his parents to Cedar county, Iowa, and was a graduate of Cornell (Iowa) College with the class of 1859. Early in his boyhood he displayed a predilection for books and was thus early prepared for college, graduating from Cornell with full classical honors. At the opening of the war between the North and the South, he enlisted as a private in Company K., Eleventh Iowa Volunteers. On the 1st of January 1865, he was made the captain of Company I., same regiment and served until the close of the war. Returning from the war, Captain Safley went to Ann Arbor, Michigan, to prepare for the law, and in 1867 he left the enter actively upon the practice of his chosen profession at Toledo. But previous to entering the Ann Arbor Law School he was nominated and elected by the Cedar county Republicans, in 1866, to the state legislature, where he served with credit and fidelity. On locating at Toledo, Captain Safley formed a partnership with W. H. Stivers, one of the ablest lawyers of the county at that time, and a year later, in October of 1868, he married ,Miss Jennie Fraseur, a native of Cedar county. Captain Safely was a member of the Presbyterian Church.