RUTTAN, Captain Wm: 1759 - 1843
Tile ordered and paid for by A. Ruttan, Napanee, Ontario, July 1888
William Ruttan was the brother of Associated Loyalist Captain Peter Ruttan (Tile # 34). Of French heritage, the Ruttans trace their family history back to an early period when French Protestants, or Huguenots, to escape persecution first travelled to Holland, later sought refuge in England, and eventually emigrated to America. The Ruttans settled in Westchester County, New York, probably about 1730. They owned a large farm of 10,000 acres on Manhattan Island, on which a part of the city of New York now stands.(1) William Ruttan, memorialized on this tile, born on April 2, 1759, at New Rochelle, New York was the eleventh of twelve children born to William Ruttan and Maria Demarest.(2)
When the American Revolution began, both William and his brother Peter became active volunteers for the British cause. After returning to British-occupied Manhattan Island, William was appointed a lieutenant and Peter a captain with the Associated Loyalists. William’s rank of Captain on this tile may relate to later service in the militia. William married Margaret Steel in 1782 in New York. The brothers and their families sailed together from New York in 1783 and spent the winter in a refugee camp in Sorel, Quebec. William and Margaret had a child with them in Sorel but not on arrival at Adolphustown, June 16, 1784. A notation on the muster roll at Adolphustown states that the child had died in the preceding year. William and Margaret had eight more children, all born in Adolphustown: Peter 1787, Daniel 1790, Henry 1792, Abraham 1798, Elizabeth 1800, Matthew 1802, Jacob 1806, and Charles Stuart 1808. William and Mary’s son, Henry, became Speaker of the Provincial House and later, Sheriff and Judge of Northumberland County.
William and his brother Peter were active in the community and both contributed to the building of the Hay Bay Methodist church in 1792. William and Margaret joined the congregation of St. Paul’s Church (now St. Alban’s) on its formation in Adolphustown in 1822 when the Reverend Job Deacon was the first rector.
William and Margaret raised their family on William’s land grant, lot 18 township 4 (Adolphustown) along the Bay of Quinte. His children, as the sons and daughters of Loyalists, were also entitled to land grants; there are many records of petitions submitted between 1797 and 1831 by Ruttans for land in the areas of Addington, Prince Edward, Peterborough, York and Northumberland. Descendants went on to settle in many regions of present-day Ontario.
William died on October 11, 1843 and his wife Margaret soon after in February 1844. They are both interred in the cemetery adjacent to St. Alban’s.
1. Thos. W. Casey, “Old-Time Records” (Napanee Beaver, Sept. 21, 1901).
2. Henry N. Ruttan, UE, A Part of The Family of Ruttan 1590-1986 (Ottawa: Emery Publishing, 1986).