Martha & Henry Ripley 1856
1 book in the catalogue, published 2008.
Martha and Henry Ripley were Colorado pioneers who settled on the Western Slope and wrote a family record of life there. We carry one book under their names, Hand-Clasp of the East and West. Henry was born in England in 1847 and died in Montrose, Colorado, in 1914. Martha was born in 1856 and saw the book through to publication after his death.
About Martha & Henry Ripley
The Mary Baker Eddy Papers project, which keeps a biographical entry on Henry, says he was born in Dunham, Nottinghamshire, England, and was living in Canon City, Colorado, by 1870, working as a job printer. He and Martha Pedley married in 1874. In 1877 they moved with their printing equipment to Ouray, where Henry and his brother William started the Ouray Times, with Henry as editor and publisher.
Henry sold the paper in mid-1886, and the couple moved to Montrose to farm and ranch. The same entry says Henry died in Montrose in 1914 and that Martha finished and published their book that year. Both belonged to The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, which they joined in 1895.
Books
What the books share
The one book we hold under the Ripleys' names is a pioneer family record of Colorado's Western Slope. Its description says they used fictional, third-person names to give an impersonal view of the whole region, while still setting down their own family life. The places in their documented lives, Canon City, Ouray and Montrose, give a sense of the ground a reader might expect: a printing press moved to a mining town, then a farm and ranch. The theme is settlement told by settlers.
The subjects this author is catalogued under. Open Library record.
Next steps for readers of this author
Following a newspaper family
Henry's work with the Ouray Times is the thread to pull. Contact the Ouray archive with a question about local newspapers of the 1870s and 1880s, and ask what it holds before you travel.
Finding the right edition
The edition we list is a 2008 reprint of a book first published in 1914. If you want a particular edition for a library or a family, ask us through /contact-us/ and we will tell you what we have on record.
Go deeper
The documented lives of Henry and Martha Ripley run through Canon City, Ouray and Montrose. These sources are for readers who want to follow a pioneer printer's trail or the surrounding country.
Mary Baker Eddy Papers: Henry Ripley
A biographical entry that gives Henry's dates, his work as a job printer, and the Ouray Times, and that is the main outside source for the Ripleys' timeline.
Ouray County Historical Society: paper archive
The society's paper archive page says it holds family memorabilia, maps, rare newspapers, manuscripts and government and school records for Ouray County.
Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park
The National Park Service page for a canyon park near Montrose, in the area where the Ripleys later farmed and ranched.
Good to know
Did Henry and Martha Ripley write other books?
Who finished the book?
Writers like this one are how the list was built
We have published Colorado and Western writers since 1996, and every submission is still read by a person. Send yours, finished or half written.