Webster Edgerly

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Webster Edgerly (1852-1926) was a 19th and 20th century American social reform activist. He believed in a healthy diet and the power of personal magnetism, and began the Ralstonism movement as a way to live out this lifestyle.

Born in Massachusetts to Rhoda Lucinda Stone and John Foss Edgerly. He graduated from the Boston University School of Law in 1876. That same year he founded the Ralston Health Club. He married Edna Reed Boyts 5 Jul 1892 in McConnellsville, Pennsylvania. He practiced law in Boston, Kansas, and Washington D.C. In 1896 he began living eight months of the year at Ralston Heights, New Jersey, now known as Hopewell.

Using the pseudonym Edmund Shaftesbury, Edgerly was a prolific author of self-help and utopian religious texts, producing over 100 books, most of them "official" books to buy as a member of the Ralston Health Club. Although several of these books go into extraordinary, almost supernatural claims of self control and body/mind mastery, it's obvious that he spent a lot of time researching and studying how both the human mind and body work and thus are still valuable as a reference.

His Ralston breakfast cereal venture merged with Purina Mills founded by William Danforth. Together in 1902 they became Ralston-Purina.

He died 5 Nov 1926 in Trenton, New Jersey and his wife sold the property the following year.