Author: Ripley, Dorothy
Biography:
RIPLEY, Dorothy (1767-1831: ODNB)
She was born in Whitby in Yorkshire, daughter of Dorothy (Johnson) and William Ripley. Her father (d 1784) was a follower and friend of John Wesley, who encouraged women ministers. As a child, Dorothy Ripley felt called to preach the gospel to the unconverted. She never married but dedicated her life to missionary work, especially but not exclusively among the black slaves and indigenous tribes of America. She was a powerful preacher. Though raised a Methodist and attracted by Quaker practice, she avoided identification with a particular creed and funded her work by selling her writings, mainly autobiographical accounts of her conversion and mission--some of them including verse--but also her father's memoirs from manuscript, with an elegy (1827). She crossed the Atlantic nine times, generally by herself. With Jefferson's permission she preached to slaves and to slave-owners, and founded schools for black children. She was the first woman (the second was Harriet Livermore, q.v.) to preach inside the Capitol building in Washington DC. She died in Mecklenburgh VA. (ODNB 1 Aug. 2020; findmypast.com 1 Aug. 2020; Blain)