John Riley

RILEY, MORGAN, DONLAN, AUSTIN, HUTCHINSON, LIVINGSTON

Posted By: Clay County IAGenWeb Coordinator (email)
Date: 1/15/2011 at 05:05:46

John Riley, a respected and worthy resident of Spencer, now living retired after former close connection with farming interests, was born in New York city, June 26, 1832. He is the youngest of a family of four children, the others being James, Katharine and Margaret Riley. Their parents were Peter and Katharine (Morgan) Riley, both natives of Dublin, Ireland, and the former was a son of James Riley, a farmer, who spent his last years in county Dublin, Ireland. Peter Riley devoted much of his life to shipping stock. He came to America more than a century ago and established his home in New York city, making shipments of stock from adjoining states to the eastern metropolis. There he died in November, 1848, when he was sixty years of age.

John Riley lived in New York city until seventeen years of age and acquired his early education there. He afterward took up farm work in Massachusetts, being thus engaged in Berkshire county until after the outbreak of the Civil war, when he joined Company C, Twelfth Illinois Cavalry, and served with the army until the cessation of hostilities, holding the rank of sergeant.

The fact that he was a member of an Illinois regiment indicates that he had previously removed to the west. The year 1857 witnessed his arrival in the Mississippi valley, at which time he took up his abode in DuPage county, Illinois, and when his country no longer needed his aid, he returned to that county and worked for the Northwestern Railroad Company in its rolling mills for four or five years. In 1878 he removed to Clay county, Iowa, and invested his earnings in two acres of land in Meadow township. He devoted his attention to farming there for some years and also bought eighty acres in Summit township, but after ten years given to general agricultural pursuits he retired from farm life about 1888.

In 1856 Mr. Riley wedded Miss Ellen Donlan, who was born in county Galway, Ireland. Mr. and Mrs. Riley had a family of two sons and two daughters. James, who is now living on the old homestead, married Ella Austin and has two sons, Claude and Clayton. Frank, residing in Fostoria, where he is engaged in buying cattle and hogs, married Sarah Hutchinson and has two children, Wilfred and Ellen. Kate is the wife of A. J. Livingston of Spencer. Mary, who completes the family, is the present county superintendent of schools. The wife and mother died on Christmas day of 1889. She was a communicant of the Roman Catholic Church, to which Mr. Riley also belongs. He is also a member of the Grand Army of the Republic. He served as school director while living in the country, and the cause of education has found in him a warm and sincere champion. He is well known in the county and also in Spencer, where for more than twenty-one years he has made his home, being on of the respected and valued residents of the community.

Contributed by: Susan Gregory. Source: History of Clay County Iowa – Steele – 1909, page 625.