Timothy Ruggles

Timothy Dwight Ruggles
Speaker of the Massachusetts House of Representatives
In office
1762–1764
Preceded by James Otis, Sr.
Succeeded by Samuel White
Member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives
for Hardwick[1]
In office
1754, 1757, 1761 – 1755, 1759, 1770
Chief Justice of the
Court of Common Pleas[2]
of the Province of Massachusetts Bay
In office
January 21,[3] 1762[2] – 1774[3]
Judge of the
Court of Common Pleas[2]
of the Province of Massachusetts Bay
In office
April 19, 1757[2][3] – 1774[3]
Personal details
Born October 20, 1711
Rochester, Massachusetts[4]
Died August 4, 1795
Resting place Wilmot, Nova Scotia[5]
Spouse(s) Bathsheba Newcomb née Bourne
Children Martha Ruggles (b. August 10, 1736),[6]
Timthy Ruggles (b. January 7, 1738-39),[6]
Bathsheba Ruggles,[6]
John Ruggles,[5]
Timothy Ruggles,[5]
Richard Ruggles.[5]
Residence Wilmot, Nova Scotia[7]
Alma mater Harvard
Occupation Lawyer
Military service
Allegiance Province of Massachusetts Bay
Service/branch Massachusetts militia

Timothy Dwight Ruggles[8] (October 20, 1711 – August 4, 1795) was an American military leader, jurist and politician. He was a delegate to the Stamp Act Congress of 1765.

Early life

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.

Stamp Act

After serving as Speaker of the Massachusetts House of Representatives in 1763, he was selected as a delegate to the first colonial (or Stamp Act) congress of 1765 meeting in New York on October 7, Ruggles was elected its president. After he refused to sanction the addresses sent by that body to Great Britain he was publicly censured by the General Court of Massachusetts.

He 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 to: - Not submit to rebellious assembly. - Enforce obedience to the King. - Defend each other if imperiled by unlawful assembly. - Repel force with force. - Use retaliation if any member or their property were injured.

Nova Scotia

Monument to Timothy Ruggles, Middleton Park, Middleton, Nova Scotia

In 1775, he became a Loyalist and left Boston for Nova Scotia with the British troops and accompanied Lord Howe to Staten Island. His estates were confiscated and he was named in the Massachusetts Banishment Act. In 1779 he received a grant of 10,000 acres (40 km²) of land in Wilmot, Nova Scotia, where he settled.

Family

Ruggles left his daughter, Bathsheba Ruggles 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 5 months pregnant for the crime of plotting, with a 17 year old Continental Army soldier with whom she was having an affair with (and we presume she was carrying his child), and two British soldiers (who had deserted the British Army) the death of her husband Joshua Spooner who was savagely beaten and dumped in a well.

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ Paige, Lucius Robinson (1883), History of Hardwick, Massachusetts: With a Genealogical Register, Boston, MA: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, p. 312.
  2. 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.
  3. 1 2 3 4 Paige, Lucius Robinson (1883), History of Hardwick, Massachusetts: With a Genealogical Register, Boston, MA: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, p. 313.
  4. ↑ Stark, James Henry (1910), The Loyalists of Massachusetts and the Other Side of the American Revolution, Boston, MA: James H. Stark), p. 226.
  5. 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.
  6. 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.
  7. ↑ 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.
  8. ↑ Wetmore, Donald (1983), Loyalists in Nova Scotia, Hantsport, Nova Scotia: Lancelot Press, p. 38.

Further reading

Political offices
Preceded by
James Otis, Sr.		 Speaker of the Massachusetts House of Representatives
1762–1764 		Succeeded by
Samuel White
Preceded by
 Member of the Massachusetts House
for Hardwick 		Succeeded by
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