Grundy County IL Archives Biographies.....Ramsay, Richard 
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Author: Bio/Gen Record LaSalle/Grundy 1900

RICHARD RAMSAY.

It is good to write of the deeds of good and true men, and it is good to read 
of them, however unskillfully they may be presented. "It is not all of life to 
live," and, having lived and died, Richard Ramsay's influence remains and his 
family do not mourn him in solitude, for with their grief is mingled the 
sympathy of the entire community. Humanity is the poorer by the passing away 
of a noble man, and Braceville, Grundy county, Illinois, and all of its 
surrounding country suffered an irreparable loss, January 16, 1898, when 
Richard Ramsay died.

Richard Ramsay was born in Durham, England, November 22, 1842. He attended 
school until his eleventh year, when by the death of his father he was thrown 
on his own resources. His father before him was a mine manager, and Richard 
naturally gravitated toward the mines, where he became not only a practical 
but a more than ordinarily thoughtful and observant workman, and was 
noticeable for his skill and good judgment. He was the second born of seven 
children and had four brothers and two sisters, and his brothers all became 
mine owners or operators, or both. The eldest, William Taylor Ramsay, resides 
at Whatcheer, Iowa. He was the first of the family who came to America. George 
H. is a resident of Oskaloosa, Iowa. Joseph H. lives at Des Moines. John also 
resides at Oskaloosa and is both mine owner and superintendent. The sisters 
are Margaret, who became the wife of Richard Watters, and Mary Ann, who 
married Newrick Longstaff; and they are both deceased.

Mr. Ramsay came to America in 1863, with his widowed mother and other members 
of his family. His thorough familiarity with coal-mining led him to turn his 
attention to the coal fields of Illinois. He stopped for a short time at 
Morris, but soon went to Pekin, Illinois, where he was employed in the mines. 
In 1870 he took charge of a mine in Streator, but in 1873, during the big 
strike, was removed by the same company to Braidwood, to take charge of their 
mine there, his good judgment and wise methods of management having been 
already in evidence with his employers.

In 1881 Mr. Ramsay accepted the position of superintendent of the large mines 
of the Milwaukee and St. Paul Railway Company, at Braceville, Illinois, which 
position he held with honor to himself and profit to the company from that 
time until he died. These mines under his management advanced to first place 
in the state for hoisting capacity and daily output.

This condition was made possible by inventions of Mr. Ramsay's, which made 
some radical changes in hoisting and loading coal into cars. One of these was 
the self-dumping hoisting buckets, by the use of which all mining cars remain 
at the bottom of the shaft, instead of being hoisted to the surface to be 
unloaded. The Hungarian steam shovel is another, which will unload a ton of 
coal, in the extreme ends of a box car, as fast as it can be run down the 
chutes. Still another is the high dump for dirt, all of which, with many 
others, were the productions of his fertile brain. Mr. Ramsay was a safe and 
thoughtful superintendent, who had at heart not only the welfare of the 
company but also of the men,—such a man as neither employer nor employe could 
afford to part company with.

At the time of his death, Mr. Ramsay was the president of the Illinois State 
Board of Examiners for Mine Inspectors and Mine Managers, which position he 
was filling for the second term of appointment. He was requested to accept 
this position in 1891 by the state board organized to inquire into the 
character and pass on the qualifications of candidates for appointment as 
state inspectors of mines. His work in this capacity was ever governed by a 
strong sense of justice. He began as a coal-miner and had been for twenty-
seven years actively engaged in the management and development of coal 
properties, and he fully understood all questions affecting the mutual 
relations of owners, operators and laborers in that field of enterprise; and 
when he died the coal operators of Illinois lost a safe counselor and the 
miners of Illinois a true friend. He was the president, also, of the Illinois 
Mining Institute and of the Braceville Bank. He took an abiding interest in 
everything pertaining to the growth of Braceville and the welfare of its 
people, and was in many ways a reliable friend of the town.

Richard Ramsay was married August 15, 1867, to Miss Mary Ann Bailey, of 
Morris, Illinois. Mrs. Ramsay, who still resides at her home in Braceville, 
was born in Staffordshire, England, February 13, 1850, and came to America 
when but seven and a half years old with her parents, Zethan and Sarah (Evans) 
Bailey, the first mentioned of whom is dead. Mrs. Ramsay was one of fourteen 
children, six of whom, named as follows, are living: Mrs. Ramsay, Mrs. Sarah 
Fox, William H., Zethan, Richard L., and Mrs. Laura L. Lewis. Among those who 
have passed away were George, James and Mrs. Clara Stewart, who died at the 
age of eighteen years. Others died in early childhood. Richard Ramsay and his 
wife became the parents of ten children, six sons and four daughters, named as 
follows in the order of their nativity: Zethan B., William, Sarah Ann (the 
wife of Richard W. Varley), Jerome, Laura (the wife of James H. Cumings, of 
Aurora, Illinois), Clara M. (the wife of Wade Eversole, of Joliet, Illinois),. 
Richard, John B., George H. and Elsie E.

Mr. Ramsay was not a member of any church, but he was a liberal contributor to 
the support of more than one. As a citizen he was public-spirited and 
benevolent, as a friend he was cheerful, warm-hearted and true; and as a 
husband and father he was loving and indulgent. In his political preferences 
he was a Republican.

Such in brief is the story of the busy and useful life of Richard Ramsay, 
whose name was known and respected everywhere in the coal fields of America. 
The universal esteem in which he was held was evidenced not more by the one 
thousand and five hundred to two thousand people who attended his funeral than 
by the sadness of his townsmen as they went silently about the streets of the 
town while the man who had done so much for its development lay dead. His 
burial service was in charge of the blue lodge of the Masonic fraternity, of 
which he had been a member, assisted by the commandery of Knights Templar of 
Joliet, and the Modern Woodmen of Braceville. The Miners' Union also attended 
in a body. The floral offerings were not only beautiful and abundant, but very 
suggestive, that of the Modern Woodmen having been a large shield, betokening 
the sheltering protection of their order; from the four remaining brothers a 
wheel with five spokes, one of which was broken; from his children, a bleeding 
heart; and others brought many fully as suggestive. The service was not only 
beautiful but also simple and impressive.

Additional Comments:
Source:  Biographical and Genealogical Record of La Salle and Grundy County, 
Illinois, Volume 11, Chicago, 1900, p656-659

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