John Rucker

• General Notes
  • In the Virginia patent records, the first mention of John Rucker is in 1727 when he patented 977 acres of land, just to the south of Michael Holt. The only neighbor that John Rucker mentioned in his patent was Michael, and I tend to think that the neighbors most likely to get mentioned are of the same nationality. Michael was just to the south of John Broyles and these two are usually considered as the southern tier of the Robinson River German community, but perhaps we should extend our range to include the Ruckers.
    
    In this same neighborhood there was a John Venton with 1000 acres in 1728. He mentions as neighbors:
    
    
    Michael Raffer (Kaifer),
    Jacob Priall (Broyles),
    Michael Holt, and
    John Rucker.
    Three of these four men are known Germans.
    
    Peter died in 1743 and left several heirs, one of which was John, who is mentioned above. John was very active politically. He (John) had a sister, Mary, who married William Offill which sounds a lot like the German Apfel (i.e., Apple). A niece of John, Mary, married William Vawter, a family with connections to the Germans. John Rucker's sister, Margaret, married Isaac Smith (English), and this family had many German connections also.