RIPON

city, Fond du Lac county, east-central Wisconsin, U.S. It lies 20 miles (32 km) west-northwest of Fond du Lac. In 1844 a group of Fourierites, followers of the 19th-century French socialist philosopher Charles Fourier, organized a communal settlement there known as Ceresco (for Ceres, Roman goddess of agriculture). It was disbanded in 1850 and absorbed by the adjacent (later) settlement of Ripon. The latter, named for Ripon in Yorkshire, Eng., was incorporated in 1858 and became a stronghold of the abolitionist movement. In a frame schoolhouse on the campus of Ripon Academy (founded in 1851 and reorganized as a college in 1863), a meeting of Whigs, anti-Nebraska Democrats, and Free-Soilers was held on March 20, 1854, at which was proposed the formation of a great Northern party, which came to power six years later as the Republican Party under Abraham Lincoln. The so-called Little White Schoolhouse is maintained as a shrine and claimed as the birthplace of the Republican Party (although the convention that actually launched the party took place in Jackson, Mich., on July 6, 1854). Ripon's economy depends on the manufacture of washing machines and dryers, advertising specialties, and microscope slides, as well as on food processing. Pop. (1990) 7,241. cathedral city, Harrogate borough, administrative county of North Yorkshire, historic county of Yorkshire, England. It lies in the upper valley of the River Ure, 27 miles (43 km) north of Leeds. St. Eata, abbot of Melrose, founded a Celtic monastery there about 651. About 10 years later St. Wilfrid founded a Benedictine monastery and became its abbot, and he also built a famous church, whose crypt may still be seen under the present-day cathedral; Wilfrid's church and monastery were destroyed by the Danes in the 9th century. The principal attraction of modern Ripon is its cathedral, which was constructed between 1154 and 1520 and displays styles from late Norman to Perpendicular Gothic. The city also has a spacious market square and is a local service and tourist centre for Yorkshire Dales National Park. The impressive ruins of Fountains Abbey, a Cistercian monastery, stand 3 miles (5 km) southwest of Ripon. Pop. (1991) 13,806.