Ezra Ripley (1 May 1751 – 21 September 1841) was an American minister of

Concord Concord may refer to: Meaning "agreement" * Pact or treaty, frequently between nations (indicating a condition of harmony) * Harmony, in music * Agreement (linguistics), a change in the form of a word depending on grammatical features of other ...

Biography

Ripley graduated from Harvard in 1776 where he taught and subsequently studied theology. In 1778 he was ordained to the ministry in Concord, Massachusetts, where he continued for 63 years, preaching his last sermon the day after his 90th birthday. Harvard gave him the degree of D.D. in 1818. Ripley was a leader in the

temperance movement The temperance movement is a social movement promoting temperance or complete abstinence from consumption of alcoholic beverages. Participants in the movement typically criticize alcohol intoxication or promote teetotalism, and its leaders emph ...

. At the time Ripley settled in Concord the town was divided into two religious factions, but he quickly succeeded in binding them in a union that existed for nearly 50 years. During this period, Ripley was the only minister in town. He married the widow of his predecessor, the reverend William Emerson, Sr. William’s grandson,

Ralph Waldo Emerson Ralph Waldo Emerson (May 25, 1803April 27, 1882), who went by his middle name Waldo, was an American essayist, lecturer, philosopher, abolitionist, and poet who led the transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century. He was seen as a champ ...

, later said of Ripley:

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.

Ripley took up residence in the Old Manse in Concord. In 1836, he gave land for the use of installing a monument to commemorate the battle of Concord, which had been fought on April 19, 1775. For 50 years after the

American Revolution The American Revolution was an ideological and political revolution that occurred in British America between 1765 and 1791. The Americans in the Thirteen Colonies formed independent states that defeated the British in the American Revoluti ...

there was a controversy between Concord and Lexington for the honor of “making the first forcible resistance to British aggression.” Ripley wrote a pamphlet on that subject, entitled a ''History of the Fight at Concord'', in which he argued that, though the British had fired first in the

battle of Lexington The Battles of Lexington and Concord were the first military engagements of the American Revolutionary War. The battles were fought on April 19, 1775, in Middlesex County, Province of Massachusetts Bay, within the towns of Lexington, Concord, ...

early in the morning of April 19, 1775, the Americans fired first at the North Bridge in Concord later that morning (1827). Ripley was not present at either battle, and the consensus among historians (for example the late John Galvin, U.S. Army general and former Supreme Allied Commander of NATO forces) concluded that there is neither conclusive evidence nor agreement about which side fired first in either battle. Ripley also published several sermons and addresses, and a ''Half-Century Discourse'' (1828).

Notes

References

External links

* The sermons of Ezra Ripley are in the Harvard Divinity School Library at

Harvard Divinity School Harvard Divinity School (HDS) is one of the constituent schools of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The school's mission is to educate its students either in the academic study of religion or for leadership roles in religion, gov ...

Cambridge, Massachusetts Cambridge ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. As part of the Boston metropolitan area, the cities population of the 2020 U.S. census was 118,403, making it the fourth most populous city in the state, behind Boston ...

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Sermons from 1800-1837
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Sermons from 1800-1838
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ripley, Ezra 1751 births 1841 deaths American clergy People from Concord, Massachusetts People from Woodstock, Connecticut Ralph Waldo Emerson Harvard University alumni