Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1900, volume 7).djvu/279

Rh bassador and plenipotentiary at that court, and continued there until his <leath. Ue was an LL. D. of Weslevan university, and also of Rutgers.

RUSSELL, William Eustis, governor, b. at Cambridge, Mass., 6 Jan.. IbUl ; d. near St. Ade- laide de I'abos, yueljec, 16 July, 1«96. He en- tered the Cambridge high-school in 1869, was graduated from Harvard university in 1877, and was secretary of his class for many years. He entered the law-school of Boston university, grad- uating LL. B., " sumina cum laude," in June, 1879. In April, 18S0, he was admitted to the Snflfolk county bar at Boston, entering the law firm of which his father was the senior member. His prominence and activity led to his election as mayor of Cambridge in 1884, and he served by re-election until 1888. He was an active advocate of the election of Grover Cleveland in 1884, and though offered a nomination for congress in 1886 he declined it. In 1888 and again in 1889 he was the Democratic candidate for gubernatorial hon- ors, and was each time defeated. But in 1890, 1891, and 1892 he was again nominated and as often elected. These three successive victories may well be considered the greatest political achieve- ment of any young man in the history of the state. In 1894 he resumed the practice of law, and did not again hold public oirice, though his name was often suggested for presidential honors, lie at- tended the national Democratic convention at Chicago in 1896, where he a<lvocated the gold standard in the currency dispute, and he contrib- uted to this work the article on Grover Cleveland.

RYAN, Henry, clergyman, b. in Connecticut, 22 April, 1775; d. in Ujiiicr Canada, in September, 1832. He was of Irish Konian Catholic parentage, but when about eighteen years of age Ix'came a member of the Methodist Episcopal church, and entered its itinerant ministry. He was admitted to the New York conference m 1800, and preached in Vermont and New York till 1805, when with William Chase he volunteered to carry Methodism into Canada. He was appointed on the Bay Quinte circuit, became presiding elder of Upper Canada district in 1810, and for the subsequent fifteen years devoted himself to planting Methodism in the Dominion, founding societies, preaching, and journeying long distances in that cause. During the second war with Great Britain he did good service in camps, prisons, and hospitals. In 1827 he withdrew from the Methodist Episcopal church in the United States, and organized the Canadian Wesleyan Methodist church, with which he was prominentlv connected until his death.

RYLE, William Thornicroft, manufacturer, b. in Paterson, N. J., 20 Feb., 1858; d. in Cape May, N. J., 21 Sept., 1898. He was educated in this country and in England, leaving college before graduation, owing to the death of his father, Wil- liam liyle. He succeeded to the business of the im- portation of raw silk which his father had founded. In this enterprise he took an aciive part, and his able management has been responsible for its ex- tensive develojmient. In addition to his silk in- terests he had for many years been the president of the Edison electric illuminating company of Paterson. In both of these business enterprises Mr. Ryle became the moving spirit in an incredibly short lime. Part of his fortune he inherited, but the great bulk of it he made himself. He was the principal stockholder in the Sauquoit silk company of Scranton, and had large holdings in several silk- mills in other parts of Pennsylvania and in Con- necticut. Hewasalsoastockholderin spveralbanks, and was a director in the Paterson national bank. He was best known, however, in connection with the silk business, on which he was an authority. His mother, Mrs. Mary E. Kyle, [iresented Paterson with its Free public library building, and is among the most public-spirited women of the city.