Martha Ruggles (b. August 10,1736),[6] Timthy Ruggles (b. January 7,1738–39),[6] Bathsheba Ruggles (1746–1778),[6] John Ruggles,[5] Timothy Ruggles,[5] Richard Ruggles.[5]
Timothy Dwight Ruggles[8] (October 20,1711 –August 4,1795) was an American colonial military leader,jurist,and politician. He was a delegate to the Stamp Act Congress of 1765 and later a Loyalist during the American Revolutionary War.
Ruggles was born on October 20,1711,to Rev. Timothy Ruggles.[2] He was grandson of Capt. Samuel Ruggles of Roxbury and Martha Woodbridge,who was a granddaughter of Governor Thomas Dudley.
He graduated from Harvard in 1732;studied law,and established himself in practice in Rochester.[2] In 1735 he married Mrs. Bathsheba Newcomb,widow of William Newcomb and the daughter of the Hon. Melatiah Bourne of Sandwich,Massachusetts. He was a military officer during the French and Indian War,rising to the rank of brigadier general in 1758.
He subsequently became one of the leading Tories of New England. He commanded the Loyal American Association and was a Mandamus Councillor appointed by General Gage in Boston. The Loyal American Association vowed the following:
Avoid submitting to rebellious assembly.
Enforce obedience to the King.
Defend one another if imperiled by unlawful assembly.
Repel force with force.
Use retaliation if any member or property was injured.
Ruggles left his daughter,Bathsheba Spooner,behind in Massachusetts. On July 2,1778,she became the first woman executed in the newly independent United States of America. She was hanged while five months pregnant for the crime of plotting,with a 17-year-old Continental Army soldier with whom she was having an affair and whose child she can be presumed to have been carrying,and two British soldiers,who had deserted the British Army,after the death of her husband Joshua Spooner,who was savagely beaten and dumped in a well.
Three of Ruggles' sons,Timothy,John,and Richard,followed him into exile and settled in Annapolis County,Nova Scotia,unlike his three daughters and his wife. A grandson,also named Timothy Ruggles,was a political figure in Nova Scotia.[9]
Ruggles was bothered by a hernia in later years and in August 1795,on the occasion of a visit by guests while he was taking them on a tour of his garden,he aggravated his poor health. Four days later,he died. He was buried on the eastward side of the Old Trinity Church of which he had been a major financial contributor in Middleton,Nova Scotia. A monument was later erected to his memory by his great-granddaughter,Eliza Bayard West.[9]
Ruggles has been described as a vegetarian for most of his life.[10] It was noted that "he drank nothing stronger than a small beer &was almost a vegetarian in a society in which gluttony was the one universal excess."[11]
↑ Paige, Lucius Robinson (1883), History of Hardwick, Massachusetts: With a Genealogical Register, Boston, MA: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, p.312
1 2 3 4 5 6 Stark, James Henry (1910), The Loyalists of Massachusetts and the Other Side of the American Revolution, Boston, MA: James H. Stark, p.226
1 2 3 4 Paige, Lucius Robinson (1883), History of Hardwick, Massachusetts: With a Genealogical Register, Boston, MA: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, p.313
↑ Stark, James Henry (1910), The Loyalists of Massachusetts and the Other Side of the American Revolution, Boston, MA: James H. Stark), p.226
1 2 3 4 Stark, James Henry (1910), The Loyalists of Massachusetts and the Other Side of the American Revolution, Boston, MA: James H. Stark, p.229
1 2 3 Calnek, William Arthur (1897), History of the county of Annapolis: Including old Port Royal and Acadia including: with memoirs of its representatives in the provincial parliament, and biographical and genealogical sketches of its early English settlers and their families, Toronto, ON: William Briggs, p.592
↑ Calnek, William Arthur (1897), History of the county of Annapolis: Including old Port Royal and Acadia including: with memoirs of its representatives in the provincial parliament, and biographical and genealogical sketches of its early English settlers and their families, Toronto, ON: William Briggs, p.590
↑ Wetmore, Donald (1983), Loyalists in Nova Scotia, Hantsport, Nova Scotia: Lancelot Press, p.38
The Sons of Liberty was a loosely organized, clandestine, sometimes violent, political organization active in the Thirteen American Colonies founded to advance the rights of the colonists and to fight taxation by the British government. It played a major role in most colonies in battling the Stamp Act in 1765 and throughout the entire period of the American Revolution.
The Stamp Act Congress, also known as the Continental Congress of 1765, was a meeting held in New York City in the colonial Province of New York. It included representatives from some of the British colonies in North America. It was the second gathering of elected representatives from British American colonies after the Albany Convention of 1754. The Congress sought to devise a unified protest against new British taxes by the British Parliament, which passed the Stamp Act, requiring the use of specialty stamped British paper for legal documents, playing cards, calendars, newspapers, and dice for virtually all business in the colonies starting on November 1, 1765.
Annapolis Royal, formerly known as Port Royal, is a town located in the western part of Annapolis County, Nova Scotia, Canada.
Bathsheba Ruggles Spooner was the first woman in American history to be executed following the Declaration of Independence.
The Old Burying Ground is a historic cemetery in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. It is located at the intersection of Barrington Street and Spring Garden Road in Downtown Halifax.
Murray Dodd was a lawyer, judge and political figure in Nova Scotia, Canada. He represented Cape Breton in the House of Commons of Canada from 1882 to 1887 as a Conservative member.
Joseph Winniett (1726–1789) was a public official, judge and political figure in Nova Scotia. He was the first Acadian elected to the Nova Scotia House of Assembly. He represented Annapolis Township from 1761 to 1765 and Annapolis County from 1765 to 1770 in the Nova Scotia House of Assembly.
Stephen Sneden Thorne was a businessman and political figure in Nova Scotia. He represented Granville township in the Nova Scotia House of Assembly from 1836 to 1857.
Timothy Ruggles was a merchant, farmer and political figure in Nova Scotia. He represented Granville township in the Nova Scotia House of Assembly from 1818 to 1831.
Stephen De Lancey was a lawyer and political figure in New York state and Nova Scotia. He represented Annapolis Township in the Nova Scotia House of Assembly from 1784 to 1789.
Charles Budd was a merchant and political figure in Nova Scotia. He represented Digby township in the Nova Scotia House of Assembly from 1830 to 1836 and 1840 to 1851.
Edward Thorne was a political figure in Nova Scotia. He represented Granville Township in the Nova Scotia House of Assembly from 1799 to 1806.
John Warwick was an English-born farmer and political figure in Nova Scotia. He represented Digby Township from 1806 to 1820 in the Nova Scotia House of Assembly.
John Steele was a surgeon and political figure in Nova Scotia.
Benjamin James was a farmer and political figure in Nova Scotia.
James Bourne Holdsworth was a merchant, farmer and political figure in Nova Scotia. He represented the township of Digby from 1836 to 1843 and Digby County from 1840 to 1843 in the Nova Scotia House of Assembly as a Reformer.
Wilmot is an unincorporated community located in Annapolis County in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia.
The Raid on Charlottetown of 17–18 November 1775, early in the American Revolutionary War, involved two American privateers of the Marblehead Regiment attacking and pillaging Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, then known as St. John's Island. The raid motivated Nova Scotia Governor Francis Legge to declare martial law. Despite the raid's success, George Washington immediately freed senior colonial officials the privateers had brought back as prisoners to Cambridge, Massachusetts.
The Province of Nova Scotia was heavily involved in the American Revolutionary War (1776–1783). At that time, Nova Scotia also included present-day New Brunswick until that colony was created in 1784. The Revolution had a significant impact on shaping Nova Scotia, "almost the 14th American Colony". At the beginning, there was ambivalence in Nova Scotia over whether the colony should join the Americans in the war against Britain. Largely as a result of American privateer raids on Nova Scotia villages, as the war continued, the population of Nova Scotia solidified their support for the British. Nova Scotians were also influenced to remain loyal to Britain by the presence of British military units, judicial prosecution by the Nova Scotia Governors and the efforts of Reverend Henry Alline.
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