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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