Obit: Ring, E.F. (29 Aug 1830 - 23 Sep 1899)

Contact: stan@wiclarkcountyhistory.org

Surnames: RING PRESCOTT

----Source: Clark County Republican Press (Neillsville, Wis.) 09/28/1899

Ring, E. F. (29 Aug 1830 - 23 Sep 1899)

E. F. Ring, an early settler and well-known character in Western Wisconsin, the father of M. C. Ring, of this city (Neillsville, Clark County), died Saturday in his 80th year, after an illness of about two months. He was born at North Chester, Mass. Aug. 29, 1830. At the age of 7 years he removed with his parents to the Western Reserve and settled near Conneaut, Ashtabula County, Ohio, where he was educated and continued to live until he came to Wisconsin. In 1849 he graduated from the Kingsville Academy at Laingsville, Ashtabula County, and upon finishing entered the ministry of the Free Will Baptist Church, and for some years occupied pulpits of that denomination in Northeastern Ohio, and gained considerable distinction as an evangelist.

He soon disagreed with the elders and older ministers of the church upon the slavery question, asserting that neither the Bible nor the doctrines of the church gave any warrant or sanction to the institution of human slavery.

In a convention of ministers he introduced a resolution declaring that nothing in the Bible or doctrines of the church could be found to justify human slavery and spoke earnestly in favor of the resolution, but upon a vote being taken the resolution was almost unanimously defeated, whereupon he withdrew from the convention and later from the church. Soon thereafter he became an agnostic, and for fifty years before his death had been constantly identified with the liberal religious movement, having written much in antagonism to the dogmas and doctrines of the church.

After coming to Wisconsin in 1846, he first settled on a farm near Second Lake in Rock County, hauling his crops of wheat with oxen to Milwaukee. Later he moved to Cooksville in the same county, and, after studying law at Madison, in June 1857, he removed to Sparta, Wis., where his family was reared and where the greater part of his active life was spent. His children surviving are Merrit C. Ring, a lawyer Lewellyn B. Ring of the Neillsville Times and Postmaster here, and Mrs. Gertrude Ring Prescott of London, Eng.

Funeral services, conducted by Rev. Owen, of Arcadia, were held from the home of M. C. Ring Monday afternoon and in accordance with his expressed wishes the remains were taken to Chicago and incinerated in Graceland Cemetery. Messrs. M. C. Ring and L. B. Ring accompanied the remains thither and after the incineration took the ashes to Sparta for interment.