EDWARD SAMUEL RITCHIE. 359 



EDWARD SAMUEL RITCHIE. 



Edward Samuel Ritchie, son of John and Eliza (Eliot) Ritchie, 

 was born in Dorchester, Massachusetts, August 18, 1814. After liv- 

 ing some years in Dorchester, his father moved to North Bridgewater. 

 During the years 1827 and 1828 he attended school at the Friends 

 Academy in New Bedford. In 1829 he was taught by Rev. John 

 Goldsbury, in North Bridgewater, studying mornings and working for 

 a furniture maker in the afternoons, as he had mechanical aptitudes, 

 and wished to learn the use of tools. 



Early in life he showed great interest in art and in science. He 

 was the only surviving child of a family of six, and his father gave him 

 every advantage to help him in studies in which he was particularly 

 interested. His health was extremely delicate in youth, and that added 

 to a very sensitive nature prevented him from taking a collegiate educa- 

 tion, which his father was anxious he should have. He had a labora- 

 tory to work out experimentally what interested him, and was a very 

 close student. Having great power of concentration, he was entirely 

 oblivious to everything around him when he was particularly interested 

 in any subject. 



He had also a great love for music, and was a good musician, giving 

 his services as an organist for several years to the Episcopal Church 

 in New Bedford, in which he was senior warden. 



While living in New Bedford he constructed a telescope for his 

 own use, which he afterwards sold to the Friends Academy, where he 

 had formerly been a scholar. 



He was much interested in sculpture, and has left very creditable 

 work in several cameos and a nude figure, two thirds life-size, of a 

 nymph of his own posing. He made the clay figure, plaster cast, and 

 cutting in marble, doing all the work from the beginning. He thought 

 seriously of going to Rome to make that art a life study, but, being a 

 devoted son, was unwilling to be separated from his aged mother. 



In 1850 he entered into partnership with N. B. Chamberlain, a 

 philosophical instrument maker. His business previous to this had 

 never been pleasant to him, but this was quite to his taste. After a 

 short time the partnership was dissolved, and Mr. Ritchie continued 

 the business alone. 



His improvement in the induction coil brought him into public notice. 

 In 1851 Ruhmkorff of Paris constructed the coil which yet bears his 

 name. He succeeded in producing sparks about two inches in length. 

 Ritchie perceived that the defect of the Ruhmkorflf coil was insuflSicient 



