Ohio Historical Society

RUGGLES, Benjamin, a Senator from Ohio; born in Abington, Windham County, Conn., February 21, 1783; completed preparatory studies; studied law; admitted to the bar and began practice in Marietta, Ohio, in 1807; moved to St. Clairsville, Ohio; presiding judge of the court of common pleas for the third judicial circuit 1810-1815; elected as a Democratic Republican (later Crawford Republican, Adams Republican and Anti-Jacksonian) to the United States Senate in 1815; reelected in 1821 and again in 1827 and served from March 4, 1815, to March 3, 1833; was not a candidate for renomination in 1832; chairman, Committee on the Militia (Fifteenth Congress), Committee on Claims (Seventeenth, Eighteenth, and Twentieth through Twenty-second Congresses); presidential elector on the Whig ticket in 1836; resumed the practice of law and was also interested in agricultural pursuits; died in St. Clairsville, Belmont County, Ohio, September 2, 1857; interment in Union Cemetery.