Robert Ruthven, Jr.

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Robert Ruthven, Jr.

Also Known As: "First Pioneer Family of Elderslie Township", "Bruce County", "Ontario"
Birthdate:
Birthplace: Glasgow, Glasgow City, Scotland, United Kingdom
Death: November 21, 1879 (72-80)
Essa, New Tecumseth or Alliston, Simcoe County, Ontario, Canada
Place of Burial: Essa, Simcoe County, Ontario, Canada
Immediate Family:

Son of Robert Ruthven and Margaret Thompson - Ruthven
Husband of Mary Ruthven
Father of Robert Ruthven, Jr.; William Ruthven; George Ruthven; John Ruthven; Adam Ruthven and 9 others
Brother of Alexander Ruthven; John Ruthven; George Ruthven and William Ruthven

Managed by: Susan Lynne Schwenger
Last Updated:

About Robert Ruthven, Jr.

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/181373782/robert-ruthven


WIFE'S real last name is Rennie, however, it has also been recorded as Rannie and Reaney

He had a lot of children - 15 William Rennie Ruthven, this might be the same one William Robert Ruthven, Robert Ruthven, George Ruthven,

John Ruthven,
Alexander Ruthven,  Adam Ruthven,  Margaret Paddison (born Ruthven),
Agness  Agnes  Harriott (born Ruthven), , Edwin Rannie Ruthven
Charles Ruthven,  Edwen Ruthven,  James Ruthven,  Gaughan or gavin aka ROY  Bryce Ruthven,  Mary Paddison (born Ruthven),  Samuel Ruthven

First Pioneer Family of Elderslie Township, Bruce County, Ontario Alexander Ruthven, brother of: Robert Ruthven, Sr., First Pioneer Family of West Essa, Township, Ontario In Spring 1832, sons of Alexander Ruthven, Robert and George relocated to Lot 9, C1, West Essa, Ontario

- with their uncle Robert Ruthven, Sr, 

The Second Robert Ruthven & Mary Rennie

Robert Ruthven & Mary Rennie, he was a weaver, started farming near Alliston raised some pigs on the farm butchered them on the trip to town to sell them, his wife had to ride on the back of the sled with a torch to keep the wolfs off. The trip took two days this was homesteading early days in Ontario

THE WEST ESSA SETTLEMENT Among the first in the western settlement of Essa were:

James Robinson, James Bullock, John Bryce, Alexander and Robert Ruthven, senior,
William Stevenson, William Allan, William Hall.

These men with their familes had emigrated from Scotland during the "radical times" in Glasgow,

preferring to face the forests of Upper Canada rather than endure the political and social oppression of the Mother country.

They first settled in the County of Lanark, in the Ottawa River district, but finding that region somewhat unpromising,

they soon removed to Essa. 

They were, indeed, part of the same Scotch migration which settled in the southeast of Innisfil. Soon they became comfortably located, and they have left a large line of descendants in that beautiful farming district.

Alex. aka Alexander Ruthven, a weaver from the vicinity of Glasgow,

with his sons and brothers, Robert Ruthven, William Ruthven, George Ruthven and James Ruthven,  were amongst the best known settlers in this Scottish group. 

William Ruthven went to Elderslie Township, Bruce County, in the early years.

The brothers, Robert Ruthven and George Ruthven, settled on lot 9, concession 1, Essa Township, in the spring of 1832, and thus became pioneers in that settlement.

George Ruthven was an assistant to Charles Rankin, surveyor, in the survey of Collingwood Township in the summer of 1833.

This was the first township in the present County of Grey to be surveyed, being then included in Simcoe County.

George Ruthven, while thus engaged, located a farm in that township at the time, viz., lot 31, concession 12, and afterward settled upon it, becoming a pioneer of Collingwood Township.

On their way to make the survey of Collingwood Township in 1833, they went from West Essa through the woods

near to Angus of the present time, an got their provisions over the Nine Mile Portage from Barrie, then just newly established.

Robert Ruthven, senior, a brother of Alexander Ruthven, was also a pioneer in West Essa.

He was born in Glasgow and died November 21, 1879, in his 77th year.

It is one of the traditions of the West Essa setlement that one of the sons in the Ruthven family was the first white child to cross the Nottawasaga River in the westward movement of settlement.

William Ruthven, of this settlement, was an early school teacher in the fifties near Cookstown.

About this time also, Charles Handy came out of Tosorontio, where he had been living out of reach of neighbours, and settled upon the west half lot 5, concession 4. The Turnbull family and Mr. Brewster also belong to this early period.

James Robinson, settled in 1831 on lot 4, concession 1, Essa, and after living a while here, moved to Tecumseth, and later to Vespra, where he died.

John Bryce, of lot 6, concession 1, settled in 1831, also. He, like the other people in this group, went to the settlement by way of Bradford and Perry's Corners (Cookstown).

Thomas Bruce, another pioneer, had come first to the Township of Tyendinaga in Hastings County,

and afterward removed to West Essa. 

His Grandson, Geo. W. Bruce, of Collingwood, was warden of the county in 1904, and is Lieut.-Col. of the 35th Battalion, Simcoe Foresters.

A true story, written by Ernest Bruce, of West Essa, entitled "The Barn Raising," gained the prize for the County of Simcoe in 1890, in the Montreal Witness competition. It appeared in that newspaper, and related the story of how a barn

was once raised in pioneer days of West Essa without whiskey, - an event that rarely ever happened in that period, or locality.

The Mormon movement in the early forties took some hold in West Essa.

A Mr. Lake was the Mormon missionary, and held services from house to house in the settlement, the meetings being attended by crowds, as preaching from higher ideals was then scarce.

At these meetings, William Ritchey also did some preaching in an unknown tongue.
They baptized in Hall's Creek, having made a number of proselytes.
Before long these left their lands, several familes in number, and like a swarm of bees they went off all at one time in covered wagons, or prairie schooners, going to swell the Mormon settlement in Illinois or Missouri, and later at Salt Lake City.

At a later time some adherents of the Mormons built a church or meeting house of that denomination in Alliston, Ontario but it is now obsolete.

Double Check this info: http://familytreemaker.genealogy.com/users/s/c/o/David-George-Scott...


Inscription
Robert RUTHVEN
d. Nov, 21, 1879
Æ 76 yrs, 1 mo. 14 dys
Born in Glasgow

Family Members
Parents

Robert Ruthven
1777–1852

Margaret Thompson Ruthven
1771–1863

Spouse

Mary Rennie Ruthven
1816–1880 (m. 1836)

Siblings

Alexander Ruthven
1801–1887

George Ruthven
1812–1904

William Ruthven
1815–1873

Children

Robert Ruthven
1836–1922

William R Ruthven
1837–1924

George Ruthven
1839–1916

John Ruthven
1844–1932

Adam Ruthven
1846–1933

Margaret Ruthven Paddison
1847–1915

James Ruthven
1854–1932

Gaughan Bryce Ruthven
1857–1924

Samuel Ruthven
1860–1881

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Memorials
Region
North America
Canada
Ontario
Simcoe County
Essa
Burns United Church Cemetery
Robert Ruthven
Maintained by: Wheezy
Originally Created by: LJB
Added: 15 Jul 2017
Find a Grave Memorial ID: 181373782
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Robert Ruthven, Jr.'s Timeline

1803
October 7, 1803
Glasgow, Glasgow City, Scotland, United Kingdom
1836
1836
Essa, Simcoe County, Ontario, Canada
1838
April 12, 1838
Essa, Simcoe County, Ontario, Canada
1839
1839
1844
January 3, 1844
1846
June 9, 1846
West Essa, Simcoe County, Ontario, Canada
1847
1847
1854
October 4, 1854
New Tecumseth or Alliston, Simcoe County, Ontario, Canada
1854