WILLIAM B. RUGGLBS. 



William B. Buggies was the only son of Dr. William B. and Mary 

 Ruggle», and was born in Bath, N. Y., May 14, 1827. His mother, by the 

 death of Dr. Buggies, in 1830, was left a widow in indigent circumstances. 

 Her son, however, was kept at school in Bath most of the time until 1840, 

 when he entered the ofl&ce of The GofistitutionaUst, then published in Bath 

 by Charles Adams, to learn the printer's trade. From this time he was 

 thrown upon his own resources. He continued working in printing-offices 

 in Bath, Corning, and Canandaigua until 1846. During this period, con- 

 ceiving an ardent desire to acquire a thorough education, he adopted the 

 plan of combining work and study in the printing-office, and by devoting 

 mornings and nights, after the day's work was done, to his books, he was 

 enabled to enter Hamilton College, in the sophomore class, in September, 

 1846. 



During his college course, by working at his trade during vacations, and 

 teaching school one winter, at the same time keeping along with his class 

 in his studies, he was able to earn enough to defray his college expenses, 

 and graduated in July, 1849. 



In October, 1849, he went to Atlanta, Ga., where he immediately secured 

 a situation as editor of the Atlanta Intelligencer, a weekly paper, which 

 had been started a few weeks before. By the end of the first year he pur- 

 chased a half interest in the paper, and in the course of another year pur- 

 chased the remaining half. In the spring of 1854, the city having increased 

 in population largely, he commenced the publication of a daily paper, The 

 Daily Intelligencer, it being the first daily paper over published in Atlanta. 

 In August, of the same year, he married Caroline, daughter of Col. Lester 

 Barker, of Clinton, Oneida Co., N. Y., a young lady whose acquaintance 

 he had made during his college days. He continued the publication of 

 'The Intelligencer until 1857, which became, under his management, the 

 leading Democratic newspaper of Upper Georgia, his daily when started, 

 and for some time after, being the only daily paper in Georgia outside of 

 the cities of Savannah and Augusta. While a resident of Atlanta, Mr. 

 Buggies was, during several years, a member of the board of aldermen of 

 that city. 



In September, 1857, having sold out his property in Atlanta, Mr. Bug- 

 gies returned to the North, and commenced the study of law at Clinton, 

 Oneida Co., N. Y., under Prof. Theodore W. Dwight, then in charge of the 

 law school of Hamilton College. For some years before leaving Atlanta, 

 having applied himself closely to legal studies in connection with his edi- 

 torial duties, he was able to make rapid progress in the law school, and 

 was admitted to practice in July, 1858. On his admission to the bar, with 

 the idea of perfecting himself in practice, he at once entered the law office 

 of the late Judge Charles H. Doolittle, at Utica, N. Y., where he remained 

 until the spring of 1859, when he returned to Bath, and opened a law 

 office, where he has since remained in active practice. 



From 1859 to 1875, while always acting and voting with the Democratic 

 party, he persistently declined to be drawn into politics as a candidate, 

 preferring to give his undivided attention to the more congenial business of 



the law, although in each of the presidential campaigns from 1864 to 1876, 

 at the request of his political friends, he was induced to " take the stump," 

 and make a series of political speeches in Steuben and some of the adjoining 

 counties. 



In 1868, Mr. Buggies and a few other citizens of Bath organized the 

 " Bath Library Association," of which he was chairman of the Board of 

 Managers for several years. Under his chairmanship the library grew from 

 a few hundred to over five thousand volumes. 



He was for several years an active member of the Board of Education of 

 the Union Free School at Bath, until his duties at Albany induced him to 

 resign the position as well as the chairmanship of the Library Association. 



During the two years, 1876 and 1877, he was a member of the New York 

 Legislature, representing the First Assembly District of Steuben County. 



In 1876 he was chosen by the Democratic State Convention at Utica as 

 a delegate to represent the Twenty-ninth Congressional District of New 

 York in the National Democratic Convention at St. Louis. In the National 

 Convention he was an active and zealous advocate of the nomination of Mr. 

 Tilden for the Presidency. 



In December, 1877, Mr. Buggies was tendered and accepted the office of 

 deputy attorney-general of the State for the term of two years, from Jan. 

 1, 1878, in which capacity he is at the present time engaged at Albany. 



Bef erring to this appointment, the Steuben Farmers* Advocate, of Deo. 

 28, 1877, among other observations, made the following editorial comments: 



" Not only is Mr. Buggies greatly honored by this appointment, which 

 came to him entirely unsolicited, but the village of Bath as well. And not' 

 only our town and county, but the young Democracy of the State, who are 

 proud to acknowledge Mr. Buggies as a leader and a representative man. 

 Mr, Buggies is fully competent for the distinguished and responsible posi- 

 tion which he has accepted. He is not unknown to the leading men of the 

 State. His position as a leader in the Assembly for two winters, a promi- 

 nent member of the judiciary committee, and the bold stand he took as 

 the opponent of rings and State jobbery of every kind, gave him that 

 deserved prominence now accorded to him. We rejoice over this appoint- 

 ment, also, because it is a tribute to political integrity, and a recognition 

 of a self-made man, who has worked his way up from the printer's case and 

 the office boy of a country printing-office. Mr. Buggies is a native of 

 Steuben County, and at the age of thirteen years entered a Bath printing- 

 office, and while pursuing this honorable calling resolved to become an 

 educated man. We remember him when a boy as a studious youth, and 

 call to mind the hours when we found him stretched out evenings on the 

 old ' bank' of the printing-office, studying his books by the aid of a tallow 

 dip, fitting himself for entrance to Hamilton College. He entered that 

 college in 1846 in the sophomore class, a poor printer, with but thirty 

 dollars in his pocket, and was compelled to set type vacations and at other 

 hours to obtain the funds necessary to carr^ him through college. He 

 accomplished the purpose and desire of his heart, and graduated in 1849 

 with the highest honors of his class." 



