Here is Stephen's dad..........................Adri.......i think our direct ancestor was Issac's brother......but i am not sure.............5th son of the original immigrant.........John Ruddell, Sr........born in England, circa 1695.........he died in Virginia..........in the Shenandoah valley..............

Kinda like our family came full circle................b/c my Pop's wife............Jessie Pauline Barker..........born near Roanoke in 1914...........October..............she said her family, the Barkers..........once owned an entire bend of the Shenandoah river....................

ISAAC RUDDELL

Isaac (2), the fifth son (of John Ruddell), has probably had more written about him than all the other Ruddell brothers. In 1769 he disposed of 900 acres in Frederick County, Virginia and moved to Washington County on the Virginia-North Carolina border where he organized a company of Militia and attained the rank of Captain.

Captain Isaac Ruddell's company was paid to fight the British and Indians under Colonel George Rogers Clark in Kentucky and Illinois. Possibly while in Kentucky, he discovered the land was cheap and good, so he moved his family and a number of relatives to what is today the rich bluegrass region of Kentucky and established Ruddell's Station, also called Ruddell's Fort. A station was a cluster of cabins arranged for defense against Indians. Ruddell's Station also had a stockade to which the whole settlement could flee for protection when threatened.

Built in the spring of 1779, it was located on the east bank of the South Fork of the Licking River, about 7 miles from present-day Paris, the County Seat of Bourbon County. In June of 1780 the fort was attacked and captured by British Colonel Henry Bird along with Simon Girty and a force of 600 Canadians and Indians. Ruddell's Fort was built of wood and could only withstand rifle fire, not the 6 cannons the enemy possessed, so the only thing Captain Ruddell could do was surrender having made the condition that the prisoners would be under the protection of the British and not turned over to the Indians. The agreement was made, but once the gates were open the Indians rushed in and Colonel Bird lost control. Many were killed on the spot, but 470 men, women, and children were made captive and forced to march 800 miles to Detroit, where they were divided among their captors, some being taken on to Canada.

The records of the War Department show that Captain Isaac Ruddell' was released two years later in an exchange of prisoners and returned to the colonies in October 1782. He was treated well while in captivity in Detroit because of his association with the British officer in charge, due to the fact that they were both members of the Masonic Fraternity.