Rudderow; by Mary Ann NIcholson

The following article appeared on page 717 of a book published by The Genealogical Magazine of New Jersey. The book was in the collection of the Everton Library in Logan, Utah. I have only the first page of the article. The Everton Collection is not currently available because of construction of the Logan City facilities.

Rudderow by Mary Ann Nicholson

When Dr. John R. Stevenson published his genealogy of the Rudderow family of New New Jersey in April 1898, he offered no sources for his facts (New York Genealogical and Biographical Record, 29 [April 1898] 112-114). An effort to document his work has raised the possibility that Dr. Stevenson confused two contemporary men, one a Welsh Quaker and the other an English Anglican.
Stevenson stated that progenitor John Rudderow was born about 1660 in Her Nant, Mongoneryshire, Wales and came about 1681 as “Crown Surveyor” to review the surveys by Penn’s men who laying out Philadelphia; met Lucy Stiles and her family as they arrived in 1683; married her and settled in New Jersey.
Because Philadelphia was unsurveyed, William Penn appointed William Crispin, Thomas Holme, and Richard Noble to lay out the city according to his grid plan. Crispin died in England and Holme became surveyor-general. Henry Hollingworth served as an assistant to Thomas Holme, and kept a journal (John F. Watson, Annals of Philadelphia and Pennsylvania [Phila., 1845], 1:13, 14). Later David Powell and Charles Ashcom were appointed (Thomas Allen Glenn, Welsh Founders of Pennsylvania [Oxford, England, 1911], 72). Richard Noble, had come to New Jersey in 1675, and in 1676, took the oath of office as Chief Surveyor of Fenwick’s Colony on the east side of the Delaware in Salem, New Jersey (New Jersey Archives, 21:555). In 1683, he was to “set out” Front Street in Philadelphia (Jean R. Soderland, ed., William Penn and the Founding of Pennsylvania, 1680-84 [Phila, 1986], 162). No primary record has been found by this writer to date naming a “Crown Surveyor.”
Among those Welsh Quakers arriving in 1682-85 was John Rhyddech who was born in 1651 in Hirnant parish, Montgomeryshire, Wales. He was the son of Rhydderch; ap Evan of same place, yeoman. Before leaving Wales, John Rhyterch (sic.) of Hirnant parish, Montgomeryshire, yeoman, received 156 acres, conveyed in the Welsh Tract (company #2 of the Lloyd and Davies Patent) in April and June 168.
[This ends page 717, The book may have been A Genealogical Dictionary of New Jersey, a compilation of articles of eary New Nersey settlers. If any reader has access to this book I would love to have a copy of the rest of this article. I may have coppied the whole articles but I can locate only page 717.)