Captain William N Air
Cincinnati Enquirer, 11 March 1865, page 2
NEWPORT NEWS
AN UNSUCCESSFUL ATTEMPT TO COMMIT SUICIDE-Thursday morning, abut 10 o'clock, while Captain Air was collecting fare from passengers on one of the Newport ferry boats, a young man, apparently 23 or 24 years of age, stepped up to him and handing him a five cent postal note, turned quickly around and exclaiming, "Here I go" jumped head foremost into the river.
He remained under water for so long a time that all who witnessed the scene supposed him to be drowned. He finally came up, however, about a hundred yards from the boat, blowing like a porpoise and swimming for dear life. A number of the crew put out after him. He was overtaken at the foot of Main street and pulled into the boat in a very exhausted condition. He refused to give his name or assign any reason for his singular conduct.
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Cincinnati Enquirer, 18 December 1875, page 2
NEWPORT
CAPTAIN WM SR returned from the East night before last. The Captain is bound for Council now.
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Cincinnati Enquirer, 6 January 1879, page 7
NARROW ESCAPE FROM DROWNING
Newport was thrown into a fever of excitement last evening about five o'clock, when a report was started that Captain Wm N Air had fallen overboard from one of his ferry boats and was drowned. It was only to give the report to make large crowds rush to the river to learn the particulars. Arriving at the river it was ascertained that Captain Air was not drowned but had a very narrow escape from drowning.
He had a gang of men at work cutting ice so that his ferry boat might move backward and forward across the river when a cake of ice that Captain Air was standing on, gave way and he sank going under the ice. The men who were at work cutting the ice, at the risk of their own lives jumped in and saved him from his perilous position. The only damage the Captain received was a cold bath.
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Cincinnati Enquirer, 31 August 1880, page 7
NEWPORT
CAPTAIN BILL AIR has gone to Colorado.
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Cincinnati Enquirer, 26 December 1884, page 7
NEWPORT
CAPTAIN WM AIR is home from Virginia.
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Kentucky Post, Saturday, February 2, 1907, page 5
Old River Man Succumbed to Fever
Captain William N Air, Who Operated Newport Ferries Is Dead
Captain William N Air, 75, died at an early hour today at his
residence, 206 East Third-st. Newport. He had been in failing health for
some months, but the immediate cause of his death was typhoid fever.
Captain Air was a prominent river man during the war, and operated the ferry boats between Newport and Cincinnati before the present bridges were built. Of late years he was in the contracting business and secured many big operations in Northern Kentucky. A widow, two sons and two daughters survive him.