E. G. Ridgley, editor and proprietor of the Tennessee Republican, was born near Olney, Ill, September 7, 1848, son of Daniel and Sarah (Ingman) Ridgley, and is of German-English lineage. His father was born in Maryland, and his mother in Ohio; the former died in Illinois in 1882 and the latter in 1861. At the age of eleven our subject began learning the printing business in the Olney Times office. In 1864 he enlisted in Company F, Forty-eighth Illinois Infantry and served twenty-one months; was discharged in Springfield, Ill., in 1865. He was wounded at the battle of New Hope Church in 1864, and after the war resumed the printing business in Olney, Ill.
April, 1868, he came to Huntingdon, and in March, 1870, he established the Tennessee Republican. November 28, 1869, he married Mollie Denman, a native of Hamilton County Ohio, born July 7, 1848, and by this union had one child—John D. Mr. Ridgley is a Republican in politics, a member of the I. O. O. F. and he and wife are members of the Methodist Church. In 1878 he was elected register of Carroll County, and held the office one term. March, 1885, he engaged in the grocery, book and stationery business. He is one of the leaders of the Republican party in this part of Tennessee, and was one of the famous “306” at the Chicago convention. He was a member of the National Republican Convention in 1876 and in 1880.
Transcribed by David Donahue
Source: History of Tennessee from the Earliest Time to the Present: Together with an Historical and a Biographical Sketch of Carroll, Henry and Benton Counties, Besides a Valuable Fund of Notes, Original Observations, Reminiscences, Etc., Etc. Easley, S.C.: Southern Historical Press, 1978.