Mal had written: ..."Pennepek, or Lower Dublin Church. -- This is now the oldest church in Pennsylvania, as the one gathered by Mr. Dungan was broken up in 1702. "Reverend Evan Morgan, who came to this country very early, and was a man of piety and parts. He broke off from the Quakers along with many others of Mr. Keith's party in 1691; was baptized in 1697, by one Thomas Butter, and the same year, renouncing the reliques of Quakerism, was received into the church. The Thomas Butter is RUTTER! He was a Keithian. Some of the following is from the 'Potts Memorial' book: He 'was' a member in early life of the Society of Friends, belonging to the Philadelphia meeting, also to the Abington meeting, on the records of which the births of his three eldest children are entered. Later he renounced his faith and became a Baptist, and for a time was pastor of a small congregation of that sect in Philadelphia. He died in Philadelphia, on Sunday before 13 March, 1730. He married, by Friends' ceremony, January 10, 1685, Rebecca Staples, who survived him. The newly married pair appear to have at once settled on their land in Bristol township, for they became members of Abington meeting the same year. Children: Anna; Rebecca; Thomas, born 1690 (q. v.): John, 1693; Mary, married Edward Rees: Martha, married - Doughty; Hester/Esther, married Henry Hockley; Joseph, died 1732. It is from his sons Thomas, John and Joseph that most of the names in Pennsylvania descend, in fact, all who claim Rutter descend from the colonial period. Rutter was a Public Friend, as the ministers in that society are called, and an active member there until the schism among the Quakers led by George Keith in 1697. At that date he subscribed his name, with sixty-nine others, to the paper issued at Burlington in defense of Keith. This document does not seem to be generally known. Proud makes no mention of it in his history, and yet he professes to give an impartial statement of this division among Friends, and for that purpose prints three papers against Keith which are mere repetitions of each other, and neglects to give this important one on the opposite side. Having found a loose copy of this Defense, printed on a quarto sheet at the time, I give it in the Appendix to rescue it from oblivion, and to show that there were Quakers of rank and influence who believed that the judgment of the "meetings" against Keith was harsh and erroneous. Rutter was baptized in 1697 by the Rev. Thomas Killingworth, and as he was already a preacher he now set forth Keith's doctrines, of Christ the external Word, and the visible sacraments. He commanded as of higher value than "the inward light." Soon after his conversion Rutter baptized Rev. Evan Morgan and Mr. John Hart, both of whom became eminent preachers among the Baptists. He also baptized Henry Bernard Koster, Thomas Peart, and seven others whose names are not recorded.* "These nine persons united in communion [in Philadelphia] June 12, 1698, having Thomas Rutter to their minister, they increased and continued together nine years, but some removing to the country and the unbaptized Keithians falling off the society in a manner broke up in 1707, and then the few that remained invited the regular Baptists to join them and were incorporated with them." Those who followed Keith still further formed Christ Church, Philadelphia, and the Thomas Peart above named was one of them; for having in 1734, shortly before his death, made a conveyance of the premises where the Baptist Church stood, in Second Street, near Arch, to the Church of England, the vestry of Christ Church demanded possession, and a lawsuit ensued which was finally compromised by the payment of L50. Thomas Rutter organized another society of Keithian Baptists, in 1697 in Lower Dublin, at the house of Abraham Pratt, but soon those who preferred the seventh day for the Sabbath separated," and in 1702 built a place of worship in Oxford township, on a lot given them by Thomas Graves; but they neglecting to take a conveyance in due time, the Episcopalians have got both the lot and the house; on the lot they have built Oxford Church and turned the Baptist meeting house into a stable while it stood, but now it is no more." Edwards says their ministers, William Davis and Thomas Rutter, quitted them; but it is probable that John Swift, whom Rutter had baptized, was carried over still farther to the old forms and ceremonies, and the majority becoming Episcopalians, they formed this church. About two miles from it are the gravestones of some of these early seventh-day Baptists, the curious inscriptions on which are given in Watson's Annals. They have been removed from their original position, and are now half standing near the spring-house, on the estate of the late James N. Dickson. They should be placed in the beautiful rural graveyard of Oxford Church, of which those whose memory they commemorate were the earliest projectors.* * Rev. Morgan Edwards's " Materials for the History of the Baptists," a very rare book printed in 1770. In the records of Germantown, Thomas Rutter's name occurs frequently, as his residence was near enough to the village to allow him to take an active interest in its affairs. When, in 1705 - 6, Pastorius resigned the office of head magistrate of his German community, Thomas Rutter succeeded him, and, according to the record, "on the 11 th day of 12 MO., 1706/7, the Court was opened before Thomas Rutter, Bailiff" Rutter settled on Manatawny Creek about 1715 and built Pine Forge and other forges and furnaces. In Early Penn Land Records, Minute Book H, Thomas Rutter, County of Philadelphia, bought 500 acres in back of his tract at Manatawny, 'it being ordinary land only fit to supply his forage with wood for coal, for 50 pds and one shilling sterling quitrent. Warrant issued 31, Xber, 1718. The main building on the Pine Forge estate is the Pine mansion on which construction was completed between 1725 and 1729 by Rutter, who also built America's first iron-making operation, Pool Forge, in the early 1700's. Thomas Rutter and Thomas Potts were cousins and upon Rutter's death in 1730, the home went to Potts. Thomas Potts' son, John, was not only the next to live in the Pine mansion but the founder of a nearby city, which is known as Pottstown to this day. Obituary in Pennsylvania Gazette, week of 13 March1729/30: Thomas Rutter, Sr.: On Sunday night last died here after a short illness. He was the first to erect an iron-work in Pennsylvania. Diana in AL