Ritter, John. Was born in Exeter Township, Berks County, Pennsylvania, February 6, 1779. He received such education as the country afforded in German, and but three months of English schooling. At eighteen years of age he entered the printing-office of the Readinger Adler, of which his father was half-owner. This was at the issue of the second number of the paper. In 1802 he bought his father out, and continued as an editor and proprietor to conduct the journal to the day of his death. He never sought any office. An election to the Convention to revise the Constitution of Pennsylvania in 1836, and to a seat from Pennsylvania in the Twenty-eighth and Twenty-ninth Congresses, came to him as a spontaneous act of popular confidence and respect. He died at Reading, November 24, 1851.
Lanman, Charles. Biographical Annals of the Civil Government of the United States During Its First Century: From Original and Official Sources. Washington: James Anglim, Publisher, 1876, p. 358.
Contributed by: Nancy.