John Ridge - Marriage and Family

Marriage and Family

While at school in Cornwall, Ridge fell in love with Sarah Bird Northrup, the daughter of the school's steward. After two years, he convinced her parents to allow them to marry, which they did in January 1824. The Cornwall community reacted angrily to the marriage of a Native American man and a white woman. Their hostility decreased Ridge's admiration for European Americans and altered his hopes for future relations between the Cherokee and whites.

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