Jump to content

Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1900, volume 5).djvu/284

From Wikisource
This page needs to be proofread.
258
RIONS
RIPLEY

the protection of industrial arts in London a gold medal for his chemical discoveries. He was one of the principal members of the commission for pre- paring the new Mexican pharmacopceia (1874). His works include Introduccion al estudio de la Qui- mifa " (Mexieo. 1S4!),; Estudio sobre el estafiate " (1850) : " Sobre los pozos artesianos y las aguas nafurales de mas uso en la ciudad de Mexico " (1854); " Un vistazo al lago deTexcoco; su influ- encia en la salubridad de Mexico; sus aguas; y procedencia de las sales que contiene " and " El Ahuautli " (1864); " El liquido tintoreo de la Baja California " and " Dictamen sobre el aerolite de la Descubridora" (1873); and scientific pamphlets.


RIONS, Francois Charles Hector d'Albert, Count de (re-ong), French naval officer, b. in Avignon, 10 Feb., 1728; d. in Paris, 3 Oct., 1802. He entered the navy in 1743, served in Canada during the war of 1756-'63, and was placed in charge of the station of Santo Domingo in 1769. where he made a survey of the coast of the Leeward islands. He served under D'Estaing at Newport, in tin 1 campaign of the Antilles in 1778-'81, and under Vaudreuil in the engagement with Admiral Arbuthnot in Chesapeake bay. He continued to serve under De Grasse in the following campaign, assisted in the battles off St. Christopher and Do- rniniea in April, 1782, and joined Vaudreuil at ];<inn. He emigrated in 1792, .-ervingin Ger- many in the army of Conde, returned to France in 1800, and was pensioned in 1802. His works in- clude " Resume des operations de 1'armee navale du Comte de Grasse pendant les annees 1781-1782" (Toulon, 1786).


RIORIUN. Patrick William, R. C. archbish- op, b. in Chatham, X. B., 27 Aug., 1841. He was taken by his parents to Chicago, 111., in 1848. and was educated at the University of St. Mary's of the Lake in that city. He was then sent to the Ameri- can college at Rome, but, being attacked by malaria, he completed his studies in Paris and Louvain. He was ordained a priest in Belgium in 1865 by Cardinal Sterckx, and on his return to the L T nited States was appointed professor of ecclesiastical history and canon law in the theological seminary of St. Mary's of the Lake. In 1867 he was trans- ferred to the chair of dogmatic theology. From 1868 till 1871 he was engaged in missionary work at Joliet, 111., after which he became rector of St. James's church, Chicago. There he devoted him- self to sustaining and extending the parochial schools under the charge of the Sisters of Mercy. While he was thus engaged he received notice of his appointment as titular bishop of Cabasa, and coadjutor, with the right of succession, to Arch- bishop Joseph S. Alemany, of San Francisco. He was consecrated at St. James's, 16 Sept.. 1883, ar- rived in San Francisco in the following November, and at once, by visitations and in other ways, re- lieved his superior of many of the heavier burdens of the episcopate. After taking part with I>r. Alemany in the 3d plenary council of Baltimore, he succeeded to the archbishopric on the resigna- tion of the former in IMS I.


RIPLEY, Eleazar Wheelnrk, soldier, b. in Hanover, N. H., 15 April, 1 782 : d. in West Feliciana, La., 2 March, 1839. His father, Sylvanus, was pro- fessor of divinity for many years in Dartmouth, where the son was graduated in 1800. He then began the practice of law, settled in Portland. Me., was a member of the Massachusetts legislature in 1810-'12, its speaker, and state senator the latter year. At the beginning of the second war with Great Britain he- WHS appointed lieutenant in the 21st infantry, became colonel in March, 1813, and as iinded in the attack on York ( now Toronto), Canada, 13 April, 1813. He was actively engaged on the frontier till 14 April, 1814, when he was ap- pointed brigadier-general, commanded the second brigade of Gen. Jacob Brown's army in July fol- lowing, and led it with gallantry in the battles of Chippewa and Niagara, winning the brevet of major-general, for his conduct, and receiving se- vere wounds in the latter engagement. In the de- fence of Fort Erie, 15 Aug., and the sortie of 17 Sept.. 1814, in which he was shot through the neck, he bore a gallant part, and for his services during that campaign he received a gold medal from con- gress, on which was inscribed " Niagara. Chippewa, Erie." At the reduction of the army in 1815 he was retained in the service, but he resigned in 1820 and removed to Louisiana, where he practised law, and was a member of the state senate. He was elected to congress as a Jackson Democrat in 1834, and served until his death, which was the result of his old wounds. He published a Fourth-of-July oration (1805).


RIPLEY, Ezra, clergyman, b. in Woodstock, Conn., 1 May, 1751; d. in Concord, Mass., 21 Sept., 1841. He was graduated at Harvard in 1776, taught, and subsequently studied theology, and in 1778 was ordained to the ministry in Concord, Mass., where he continued for sixty-three years, preaching his last sermon the day after his ninetieth birthday. Harvard gave him the degree of D. D, in 1818. Dr. Ripley was a leader in the temperance cause. At the time of his settlement in Concord the town was divided into two religious factions, but he quickly succeeded in binding them in a union that existed for nearly fifty years. He married the widow of the Rev. William Emerson, and his stepson, Ralph Waldo Emerson, said of him: “With a limited acquaintance with books, his knowledge was an external experience, an Indian wisdom. In him perished more personal and local anecdote of Concord and its vicinity than is possessed by any survivor, and in his constitutional leaning to their religion he was one of the rear-guard of the great camp and army of the Puritans.” He gave the land in 1836 upon which the monument is built to commemorate the battle of Concord, 19 April, 1775. From the Revolution for fifty years there was a controversy between Concord and Lexington for the honor of “making the first forcible resistance to British aggression.” Dr. Ripley wrote an interesting pamphlet on that subject, entitled a “History of the Fight at Concord,” in which he proved that, though the enemy had fired first in Lexington, the Americans fired first in his own town (Concord, 1827). He also published several sermons and addresses, and a “Half-Century Discourse” (1828).


RIPLEY, George, scholar, b. in Greenfield, Mass., 3 Oct., 1802; d. in New York city, 4 July, 1880. He was the youngest but one of ten children, four boys and six girls, all of whom he survived. His father, Jerome Ripley, was a merchant, a justice of the peace for nearly half a century, a representative in the legislature, and one of the justices of the court of sessions. His mother was a formal, precise, stately, but kind-hearted woman, a connection of Benjamin Franklin. She was orthodox in religion, and her husband was a Unitarian, which accounts for the singular mingling of conservative feeling with radical tendencies in their child. George loved to hear the old tunes at Brook Farm, and always had on his table a copy of Dr. Watts's hymns, even when he was writing philosophical articles for the “Tribune,” and worshipping in New York with an independent society of