APPLETONS' CYCLOPAEDIA OF AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY

edited by James Grant Wilson
President New York Genealogical and Biographical Society
Volume VII: ABBETT-YOUNG

New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1901
Republished by Gale Reasearch Company, Book Tower, Detroit, 1968.

Page 234

RUGGLES, WILLIAM BENJAMIN
educator, b. in Bath, Steuben co., N.Y., 14 May 1827. He was graduated at Hamilton College in 1849, settled in Georgia, and in 1854 established there the "Daily Intelligencer," the first daily newspaper in Atlanta. Returning to Bath, N.Y., he was a member of the assembly in 1876-7, 1st deputy attorney-general of New York state in 1878-81, was a member of the state senate in 1883, and the same year became state superintendent of public instruction, holding office three years, and resigning to become deputy superintendent and legal counsel of the New York state insurance department. He was a delegate to the national Democratic convention in 1876. Mr. Ruggles is a trustee of Cornell and the State idiot asylum, and chairman of the executive committee of the New York state normal school. He has published several reports as superintendent of public instruction and educational addresses.