1925 Biography - George J. Reiley

George Jenkin Reiley is not only one of the prominent and successful exponents of plantation industry in Louisiana but is also giving specially efficient service as registrar of the United States Land Office in the City of Baton Rouge.

Mr. Reiley was born at Blairstown, Warren County, New Jersey, March 16, 1854, and is a son of Rev. John A. Reiley, who was born at Durham, Bucks County, Pennsylvania, May 3, 1816, and who died of yellow fever, on his plantation ten miles south of Clinton, East Feliciana Parish, Louisiana, September 30, 1878.

Rev. John Arndt Reiley passed the period of his youth in Warren County, New Jersey. He secured his education at private schools, at Lafayette College, Easton, Pennsylvania, at Miami University, Ohio, having followed Rev. George Junkin, D. D., the president of Lafayette College, when he went to Miami University as president, and at Princeton Theological Seminary.

In September, 1845, Rev. John A. Reiley was ordained and installed pastor of the Presbyterian churches of Blairstown and Knowlton by the Newton Presbytery, he having preached at the Presbyterian Church in Port Carbon, Pennsylvania, for over a year prior thereto. For about nine years he served the Congregations of Blairstown and Knowlton as their pastor, and thereafter for twelve years, the Presbyterian Church of Blairstown as its pastor.

His eyes having become impaired in the fall of 1866, he resigned his pastorate at Blairstown. Continuing to retain his connection with the Newton Presbytery, Mr. Reiley removed with his family to Oak Grove Plantation, East Feliciana Parish, Louisiana, and engaged in missionary work for the uplift of the negroes, and as a planter. He eventually became one of the extensive and successful planters of East Feliciana Parish, and was a citizen honored for his gracious personality, his civic loyalty, and his constructive influence in community affairs.

In politics he was a Republican, served as president of the police jury in his parish for several years, and also gave effective service as a member of the Parish School Board.

As a young man, while in Miami University, Ohio, he was commissioned a captain in the State Militia of Ohio by the Hon. Thomas Corwin, governor.

The maiden name of his wife was Anna Carroll whom he married at Port Carbon, Pennsylvania, November 5, 1845. She was born in New York City, May 28th, 1823. She survived her husband by many years, passing the closing years of her life at Phillipsburg, New Jersey, where she died October 18th, 1910, in her eighty-eighth year.

Of the children, four succumbed to yellow fever in the month of October, 1878; Amy Carroll, who was born December 10, 1847, and died October 15, l878; Elizabeth, Mary Trimble, and William Marshall, who was born June 17, 1861, and died October 22, 1878; Elizabeth (Mrs. James T. Neasom), born January 25, 1832, and died October 23, 1878, left a daughter surviving. Ann Reiley Neasom, now general secretary of the Young Women's Christian Association of St. Joseph, Missouri; George Junkin, of this review, was next in order of birth after Elizabeth; John I. Blair, who was born February 3, 1856, is a lawyer and ex- prosecutor of the Picas of Warren County, New Jersey, and ex-judge of the Court of Common Pleas of Warren County, New Jersey; Abraham Lincoln, familiarly known as "Lynn," who was born October 4, 1864, and is secretary and assistant treasurer of the Warren Foundry & Pipe Company of Phillipsburg, New Jersey; Mary Trimble, born May 17th, 1858, was twenty years of age when her death was caused by yellow fever October 16 in the scourge of 1878, as well as the death of other members of the family circle as already noted. She was graduated from the State Normal School at Trenton, New Jersey, in June of the year of her death with the highest standing of any graduate of the institution up to that time. She was not only a student of marked ability, but was a poet of unusual promise, a number of her poems having been published in the New York Independent prior to her death. After her death a volume of her poems containing 276 pages compiled by Miss Mathews, her teacher and intimate friend, was published. Three children died in infancy: Edward Carroll, born September 17, 1846, died September 24, 1846; Joseph Carroll, born February 18, 1850, died September 11, 1851; and James Carroll, born August 13, 1869, died November 29, 1870.

George Junkin Reiley was afforded the advantages of an excellent private school at Blairstown, New Jersey, and thereafter, at Tuscarora Academy, at Academia, Juniata County, Pennsylvania, until the summer of 1872, and at Blairstown Presbyterian Academy, Blair Hall, at Blairstown, New Jersey, until the summer 0f 1873. His father having been one of the founders of the said Blair Presbyterian Academy.

He remained on the old home plantation in East Feliciana Parish for the ensuing twenty years, and then, in 1898, engaged in conducting a brick yard at Clinton, the judicial center of the old home parish, where also he operated a planing mill and where he held for a number of years the position of postmaster. In 1920 he established his residence at Baton Rouge, and after here living retired two years, he became receiver in 1922 in the local United States Land Office. On the 1st of July, 1923, he was advanced to his present important post, that of registrar of this Government office, the while he continues also his service as receiver, the two offices having been consolidated July 1, 1923. His official headquarters are in the Roumain Building.

Mr. Reiley is aligned in the ranks of the republican party, and in his old home parish he served four years as a member of the police jury. He was mayor of Clinton for four years, and in 1910 he was United States census supervisor for the Fourth District of Louisiana. He was a delegate to the national republican conventions that nominated McKinley, Roosevelt, Hughes and Harding, and was also the candidate of the republican party for Congress in the Sixth Congressional District of the State of Louisiana in the year of 1910. He is a zealous member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, as was also his wife, whose death occurred September 6, 1906. Mr. Reiley is a past master of Olive Lodge No. 52, Free and Accepted Masons, at Clinton, and he is affiliated also with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, the Knights of Pythias and Knights of Honor. He is a director of the Bank of Clinton, and has made many and judicious real estate investments, including his beautiful home place, 810 Golden Rod Avenue, Baton Rouge, Louisiana. He retains the old home plantation, improved with a fine house and other modern buildings, the estate comprising 8,000 acres, and being in active charge of his sons, John A. and Henry Dunn. On the plantation special attention is given to the breeding of fine cattle. At Clinton Mr. Reiley owns a valuable residence property; at Scotland, East Baton Rouge Parish, he is the owner of twenty dwellings; and in the capital city he owns twelve residence properties, including his home place.

In the World war period Mr. Reiley was instant in patriotic service, and he did much to advance the sale of Government War Bonds, Savings Stamps, Red Cross work, etc., in East Feliciana Parish.

November 7, 1877, recorded the marriage of Mr. Reiley to Miss Mary S. Dunn, daughter of the late Veleria H. and Mary S. (Bostwick) Dunn, the father having been one of the extensive planters in East Feliciana Parish. Mrs. Reiley attended Silliman College, at Clinton, was a woman of culture and gracious personality, and her death brought sorrow to a host of her appreciative friends. Of the children, the eldest is John A., who was for four years a student in Blair Hall, an academy at Blairstown, New Jersey, and who is now associated in the management of the old home plantation, as is also Henry, who was for a similar period a student at Blair Hall; Amy Carroll is the widow of Joseph S. Jones, D. D. S., who died in Baton Rouge, and she is now the chatelaine of the beautiful home of her father; Edward C. is here in the employ of the Standard Oil Company of Louisiana; Mary T. is the wife of T. Spec Jones, M. D., who is engaged in the practice of his profession in Baton Rouge; Elizabeth is the wife of Jesse McClendon, M. D., a representative physician at Amite, Tangipahoa Parish; Lillian is the wife of E. Reeves Waller, who is district manager at Baton Rouge for the Mutual Life Insurance Company; George J., D. D. S., is engaged in the practice of dentistry at Baton Rouge, he having been commissioned a first lieutenant in the medical corps of the United States Army at the time of the World war and having been stationed in New Orleans during the eighteen months of his service.

Contributed 2021 Nov 04 by Mike Miller, from A History of Louisiana, by Henry E. Chambers, published in 1925, volume 2, pages 291-292.