Miami Union
July 22, 1865
RILEY, Z. - In Troy,
on Sunday last, after an illness of several months' duration, Z. Riley, Esq., an
old and respected citizen, in the 67th year of his age.
Miami Union
July 29, 1865
RILEY, ZACARIAH - OBITUARY -
Zacariah Riley, Esq., was born in North Carolina, September 1, 1798. When
three years old his father moved to Winchester, Kentucky, where the subject of
this sketch grew up and lived until he was twenty-two years old, at which age he
removed to Xenia, O., and entered the law office of his uncle, William Ellsbury,
Esq. He studied and practiced law in Xenia for three and a half years.
In June 1824, he removed to Troy, where he lived until the time of his
death--having been a resident of this place forty-one years. He practiced
his profession until 1838, when he received the appointment of Recorder of Miami
Co. The following year he was elected to the office, and thus continued to
occupy the position for seventeen years. On the 5th of September, 1826, he
was married.--There were five children in his family and his was the first
death--his wife and all his children surviving him. Mr. Riley was one of
the originators of the Troy Union School -- one of the first schools organized
under the existing school laws of Ohio. He was first a member of the
School Committee; that giving place to the Board of Education, he was elected a
member thereof, filling the place for five years--being on the Building
Committee and remaining a member of the Board long enough to see the "Troy
Union School," a success, and to the last cherishing a deep interest in its
welfare. As a politician he was a Whig of the Henry Clay school, and was
an ardent advocate of the principles of that party until it ceased to be an
organization.--From that time he was a firm Republican, and during the last four
years of dreadful war, was a cordial supporter of the Administration, and in all
respects truly loyal and hopeful as to the final issue of the struggle. On
the 15th of February 1840, with ten others, he united with the Franklin st.
Presbyterian Church, of which he remained an honored member until the day of his
death--twenty-five years. The last ten months of his life was an epoch of
great suffering to him. But during all that period of protracted pain
never once did a complaining word escape him. Heroically enduring his
affliction--with Christian resignation submitting to the will of his Heavenly
Father--he illustrated, as few have done, the beauty of patience and the
blessedness of a calm and unwavering trust in God. In the full exercise of
his reason, with all his family around him, with a tender and appropriate word
for each, he quietly fell asleep in Jesus, at the first hour of the morning of
Sabbath, July 16, 1865, in the 67th year of his age.
C.
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