Pilot William Reiley
Cincinnati Enquirer, 27 June 1874, page 7
NEWPORT
SOME REMINISCENCES-The venerable William Reiley, of Alexandria,
is now in his eighty-eighth year. He has been a resident of Kentucky since 1789
and remembers when nearly all the salt used in Northern Kentucky and Southern
Ohio was made at Grant's Lick, about ten mile above Alexandria. The salt
works were operated by General Grant, one of the pioneers of this section.
Mr. Reiley was at New Orleans when the first steamboat arrived there from Cincinnati about the year 1809. He was a flat boat pilot and with his boat was at New Madrid at the time of the great earthquake at that place in 1811, and saw an island dissolved in the river from the shock caused by that memorable convulsion.
The heavy timber used in constructing the first Catholic Church in Cincinnati was out of the vicinity of where he now lives, brought to Cincinnati and framed by Mr. Reiley. This little point in the early history of the "Queen City" was overlooked by historical writers. This church stood upon the present site of St Xavier's Church on Sycamore street, above sixth. Mr. Reiley was twice elected to the Legislature, the last time being in 1855,when he was nominated by the "Old Democracy" in opposition to Colonel T L Jones, who was the champion of the opposing party.
He was married to Miss Elizabeth Morin in 1812 at Flagg Springs in Campbell County. She with her brother, Edward Morin, a Minute man from Virginia in the Revolutionary War, who emigrated to Kentucky in 1789. The venerable couple are much respected by the good people of Alexandria and vicinity.