Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 05.djvu/500

This page needs to be proofread.

INGERSOLL


IXGERSOLL


periods, and district attorney of the United States for the district of Pennsylvania. He de- clined the position of chief justice of the U.S. circuit court for the eastern district of Pennsylvania in 1801. In 1813 lie was the candidate of the Fed- eralist party for vice- president of the Uni- ted States on the tick- et with De Witt Clin- ton for President, and J^M^^lJ^ '- i^^/^ received 86 electoral votes against 131 for Elbridge Gerry. He was president judge of the district court of Philadelphia coun- ty at tiie time of his death. He received the degree of LL.D from the College of New Jersey, 1821. He died in Philadelphia, Pa., Oct. 31,1823.

INGERSOLL, Joseph Reed, representative, was born in Philadelpliia. Pa., June 14,1786; son of Jared (q. v.) and Elizabeth (Pettit) Ingersoll. He was graduated at the College of New Jersey, A.B., 1804, A.M., 1807, and was admitted to the Pliiladelphia bar. He was a representative in the 24th congress, 1835-37, and in the 27th, 38th, 29tli and 30th congresses, 1841-49. He served as chairman of the judiciary committee, favored protection and defended the Clay tariff measure of 1843. President Fillmore appointed him U.S. minister to England in 1853, to succeed Abbot Lawrence, and in 1853 he was succeeded by James Buchanan, Democrat. He then retired from public life, devoting liimself to literature. He received the honorary degree of LL.D. from Lafayette in 1836, and from Bowdoin in 1845, and that of D.C.L. from Oxford, England, in 1845. Besides translations of the Latin tracts, he is the author of: De Navihus et Naulo and De Asse- curntione (1809); Secession a Folly and a Crime (1861 ); Memoir of Samuel Breck (1863). He died in Pliiladflphia, Pa.. Feb. 20, 1868.

INGERSOLL, Ralph Isaacs, representative, was born in New Haven, Conn., Feb. 8, 1789; son of Jonathan and Grace (Isaacs) Ingersoll; grand- son of the Rev. Jonathan Ingersoll, of Ridgefield, Conn., and a descendant of Jolin Webster, an early colonial governor of Connecticut. His grand-uncle was Judge Jared Ingersoll, agent of the colony in England, and his father, Jonathan, was for many years a judge of the liighest courts of Connecticut. He was graduated at Yale in 1808. was admitted to the bar in isil, and prac- tised in New Haven. He represented his native city in the state legislature, 1820-25, and his con-


gressional district in the 19th. 20th, 21st and 23d congresses, 1825-33. He declined re-election iu 1833 and an appointment as U.S. senator by the governor, and in 1846 was appointed by President Polk U.S. minister to Russia. He resigned the office in 1848, leaving his son, Colin Macrae, as charge d'affaires to the close of his official term, and tliereafter continued iu the practice of his profession at New Haven. He was married to Margaret Van den Heuvel, of New York city. He died in New Haven, Conn.. Aug. 26, 1873.

INGERSOLL, Robert Green, lawyer and lec- turer, was born in Dresden. N.Y.. Aug. 11, 1833; son of John and Mary (Livingston) Ingersoll, and grandson of Eben and ^Margaret (Whitcomb) Ingersoll, and of Robert and Agues Oceanica (Adams) Livingston. His father was a Con- gregational minister with liberal views, and the son was edu- cated in his native town, and after 1843 in Wisconsin and Illi- nois. He tauglit school for a time in Tennessee; studied law; was admitted to the bar in 1854. and with his elder broth- er. Ebon Clark Ing- ersoll, opened an of- fice in Shawneetown,

111. In 1857 they removed to Peoria, and in 1860 Robert was the Democratic candidate for representative in the 37th congress, but was de- feated. He was married in 1863 to Eva A., daughter of Benjamin Parker, and they had two daughters. He was elected colonel of the 11th Illinois volunteer cavalry in 1863, and served in the 1st brigade. Gen. N. B. Buford, 3d division, Gen. C. S. Hamilton, Army of the Mississippi, and was present at the battle of Corinth, Oct. 3 and 4, 1863. He was at Lexington when that place was captured by Forrest, Dec. 16, 1863, and with Major Kerr, of his regiment, he was captured and afterward paroled, but he did not resume militar}- service, returning to the practice of law. In the fall of 1863 he changed his political faith and joined the Republican party. In 1866 he was appointed l^y Governor Oglesby attorney- general for Illinois, and in 1868 he was promi- nently spoken of for governor of the state. He declined an appointment as U.S. minister to Ger- many offered by President Hayes in 1877. In the Republican national convention of 1876 he presented the name of James G. Blaine as a can- didate for President of the United States, in an eloquent si^eech that attracted wide attention.