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MEDIA RELEASE__Sea captain, surveyor and Ohio's last frontiersman James (NMN) Riley will show up on Saturday, July 4 for Bluffton’s America 250 events.  Captain Riley will set his time machine coordinates to arrive at the Presbyterian Church gazebo from 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.  He will discuss little-known facts about his life as a sea captain and a surveyor, and how Riley Creek was named. 

In August 1815, his brig, The Commerce, shipwrecked off the coast of West Africa. Riley and his crew were captured by Arab camel-caravan owners, the Hamet brothers. Riley and crew were held captive and traveled for 36 days in the Sahara Desert. The Chief Officer of the British consulate in Mogadore, William Willshire, personally paid $1,200 and one long rifle to buy them.

As a freed man who returned to his homeland of the USA, Riley authored his book of personal recollections, which became known as "Riley's Narratives.”  His best-selling book was significant during the Antebellum period and was one of young Abraham Lincoln’s favorite books.

In 1819, Surveyor General of the Northwest Territories Edward Tiffin appointed Riley as deputy surveyor. Riley led his company in the newly opened lands of NW Ohio: now Putnam, Van Wert and Mercer counties. Captain Riley platted and established the village of Willshire in 1822, named in honor of his benefactor. Riley was elected for one term as a Representative to the Ohio State House. Later, Riley returned to the sea as a merchant ship captain. He died at sea in 1840. 

"Those who live upstream Riley Creek don't know what has been going on downstream Riley Creek. And, those who live downstream Riley Creek don't know what has been going on upstream Riley Creek."

Captain Riley will discuss little-known facts about the 26 miles of the Big Riley and Little Riley creeks: from Riley Creek Baptist Church in Orange Township Hancock County, past Big Rock, past Joseph DeFord's cabin and grist mill, through Shannon and Bluffton, the rich farmlands of the old German/Swiss Settlement, past Thomas Gray's cabin,  Rileyville and the Schumacher Homestead in Richland Township of Allen County, on past John Stout's grist mill, through Columbia, Pendleton, Pandora, Riley Township Putnam County and downstream past Riley Creek United Methodist Church as it merges with the Blanchard River in Ottawa Township Putnam County.

Captain Riley will be accompanied by Henry Wing. Wing is one of the first settlers of Putnam County and a member of Riley's surveying company.  Wing will show and discuss his extensive collection of surveying instruments.  Riley and Wing will entertain guests' questions.

Riley and Wing will return to The Time Machine by noon or they will morph into Darrell Groman and Keith Sommer, respectively. Captain Riley's friends, Darrell Groman and Keith Sommer, are local historians and members of the  Bluffton Ohio Historical Society. Groman has resided upstream of Riley Creek in Bluffton since 1956 and has practiced optometry downstream of Riley Creek in Pandora since 1986. Sommer is a lifelong resident on a farm in rural Putnam County and is a member of the Swiss Historical Society.

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