Oliver W. Shibley was born on January 4, 1830, in St. Johnsville, New York, to Christian and Mary Ann Shibley. His father was a farmer and mechanic. The family moved to Little Rock, Illinois, in the late 1840s, and by 1850, he was working as a farmer. He married Mary Coryell on January 1, 1857, and they had at least two children: Lillian, born around 1858; and Clarence, born around 1861.
He enlisted in the Union army on August 22, 1862, and he mustered in as a private in Company G of the 31st Iowa Infantry on August 30. The regiment took part in the siege of Vicksburg, the Battle of Missionary Ridge, the Atlanta campaign, the March to the Sea, and the Carolinas campaign. He served as a regimental musician. He supported Abraham Lincoln in the election of 1864, explaining in September 1864 that he “once was a [George] McClelen man, but I am far from it now. Mc is dead dead, politicaly dead for ever…I am a Lincon man to the backbone & will go my whole length for him & so will every true union man.” He mustered out on June 27, 1865.
He settled in Wyoming, Iowa, after the war and resumed his work as a farmer. By 1870, he owned $400 of real estate and $200 of personal property. By 1880, he was working as a butcher. His wife died in 1895, and by 1910, he was living in his daughter Lillian’s household in Beaver, Iowa. He died there of chronic endocarditis on December 28, 1925.