From HISTORY OF THE PAN-HANDLE, West Virginia, 1879, by J. H. Newton, 
G. G. Nichols, and A. G. Sprankle. Page 268  

Contributed by Linda Cunningham Fluharty.


REV. WM. E. RIPPEY, pastor of the Wesley M. E. Church, South Wheeling, is a 
native of Ontario county, New York, and is a son of Wm. Rippey, a farmer of the 
same section, born in 1793. The Rev. Wm. E., whose family is of Scotch Irish 
descent, was born in 1837, and after receiving a plain education, entered the 
University at Parkersburg, where he graduated in 1870. He has since officiated 
at Middlebourne, Tyler county; Bellville, Wood county, and Knottsville, Taylor 
county, coming to Wheeling in March, 1877, where he has held his present charge 
ever since. He was married in 1860, to Elizabeth, second daughter of Gaius 
Truesdell, farmer, Yates county, New York, and by her has one daughter. Mrs. 
Rippey's father was of German descent, and her grandfather was one of the first 
travelers, by foot, to Kentucky and back, from New York state, during pioneer 
days.