The following information was assembled from numerous sources and cannot be used directly as proof of Qualifying Service or Lineage.
It is considered a research aid and is intended to assist in locating sources that can be used as proof.
State of Service: VA
Qualifying Service: Ensign / Civil Service
Author: James Williamson
John Rucker was born in 1720 to Huguenot immigrants in Orange County, Virginia. They settled on the border of the frontier and his father established himself as a farmer and tavern keeper. John would have grown up well versed in wood craft and the ever present danger of Indian attack. We can imagine him listening with rapt fascination to the tales of over mountain rifle men, vagabonds and wilderness explorers and military envoys around the hearth of his father’s tavern.
John’s father, John Senior’s, holdings grew at a rapid pace, amounting to over 6000 acres by 1739 and he was appointed by Parliament to a Captaincy of Militia of Orange County in 1740. He was killed by Indians in 1742.
Little is known of John’s life after his father’s death. The family estate was under the stewardship of his older brother, Ambrose. He undoubtedly served in the local militia as required of all young men. As conditions with the mother country worsened Ambrose was appointed to the committee of Safety and to the Virginia House of Delegates where he narrowly avoided capture by the dreaded Dragoons of Major Tarleton.
John, now well to do in his own right, is known to have supplied beef and other supplies to the Revolutionary cause in 1776. After 1776 Old John served as a Revolutionary soldier. First in the Virginia Company of Minute Men and was commissioned an Ensign in the Amherst County Militia by March, 1780. Now in his sixtieth year, he served as a dispatch rider attached to General Gate’s campaign culminating in the Battle of Camden.
Old John wrote his will late in 1779 as those facing battle are wont to do. In September 1780 he gave his last full measure of devotion to the Patriot cause, killed in action while riding dispatches. One can only wonder as to what these missives said, who wrote them, and to whom they were directed.
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