Obit: Ring, Eleazar F. #2 (1820 - 1899)

Contact:  Stan
Email: stan@wiclarkcountyhistory.org

Surnames: RING PRESCOTT

----Sources: NEILLSVILLE TIMES (Neillsville, Clark County, Wis.) 09/28/1899

Ring, Eleazar F. #2 (29 AUG 1820 - 23 SEP 1899)

With admirable calmness and perfect willingness to submit to the natural law of dissolution, Eleazar F. Ring, father of M.C. and L.B. Ring and Mrs. G.L. Prescott, died at the home of the former on Saturday, Sept. 23rd, at the age of 79 years. He was conscious until about 8 o’clock that morning, realized that death was near, met it courageously and philosophically, and died holding steadfastly to the views that he had so often expressed during the last half century.

It was his special request that his body be cremated, and in compliance with this wish it was taken to Chicago Monday by the two sons and incinerated at the Graceland crematory, the inurned ashes being then buried in the family lot at Sparta.

Private funeral services were held at the house shortly before train time Monday afternoon, T.G. Owen speaking.

Father Ring was born in North Chester, Mass., Aug. 29, 1820, went with his parents to Ohio when a lad of seven years, and grew to maturity on a farm four miles south of Conneaut, in the Western Reserve. He was educated in country school sand Kingsville Academy, became a Free Will Baptist Minister, and won distinction as an evangelist. Later he differed with the church on the slavery question, left the pulpit and did much with tongue and pen to aid in abolishing slavery, contemporaneously with Garrison and the early abolitionists. He voted for Fremont and was an active Republican from that time on. With Platt R. Spencer, originator of the Spencerian system of penmanship, he taught writing, possessing rare skill in that line. He came to Wisconsin Territory in 1846, living at Milton, Cooksville and near Second Lake, studied law at Madison, and located at Sparta in 1857, where the balance of his years were mainly spent, and the children reared.

He was of an intense mental and nervous make up, eager to promote whatever cause he became interested in, and for over fifty years was identified with the liberal religious movement, writing and publishing many pamphlets, lecturing, and contributing to the press. In controversy quick and witty, with a most reliable memory, he delighted in off hand combat with those who wished to meet him, but never took unfair advantage, and possessed an inexhaustible fund of anecdote, with which to "point a moral." His expert handling of the Brick Pomeroy at La Crosse was a noted instance of power with pen. In the field of politics he was ever ready to aid a friend or sustain a principle, but never sought or would accept when tendered personal preferment. A high sense of honor and faithful allegiance to the cause of truth and detestation of shams dominated his life and carried him forward, seemingly without fear or considerations of prudence, along the course he thought right, for it was in him, as his forefathers had fought for liberty and right in the Revolution. He was always abreast of the times, and in many things ahead of the age. He belonged to the school of Spencer, Huxley, Darwin, and did his share, sacrificing physical comfort and worldly success, in the work of human emancipation.