William Marion Ramsey

William Marion Ramsay (December 25, 1846 – September 15, 1937) was an American politician and judge in Oregon. He was the 43rd person to service as one of the justices of the Oregon Supreme Court (since the Court's founding in 1848) serving from 1913 to 1915. He was also the first dean of Willamette University College of Law and a mayor of Salem, Oregon, and McMinnville, Oregon.

Early life William Ramsay was born on Christmas Day 1846 in Monroe County, Iowa. The next year the family traveled the Oregon Trail and settled near the town of Newberg in Oregon Country. William was the youngest of five children in the family when they moved to Oregon, although his parents later had nine more children. While in Salem he also served as mayor before moving to east to Pendleton, Oregon, and La Grande, Oregon, (1902–1911) and then settling again in McMinnville, Oregon, where he served two terms as mayor. Ramsey, a Democrat, ran for re-election in 1914, but lost to Lawrence T. Harris. Both McNary and Ramsey left the court at the end of the term on January 4, 1915.

Family William's son Frederick served as a sergeant in the US Marine Corps aboard the Battleship Oregon during the Spanish–American War. After his first wife died William married Julia A. Snyder in 1896, and they had one daughter. William Marion Ramsey died on September 15, 1937, at the age of 91 and was buried in McMinnville at a funeral attended by several Oregon Supreme Court justices including Henry J. Bean, John O. Bailey, John L. Rand, and Percy R. Kelly.

Willamette University's law school holds an annual lecture in his honor.