Chapter XVII Some American Rudds (Communicated by Malcolm Day Rudd.) Perhaps there is no more interesting aspect of family history than that which deals with migratory traits. Doubtless there are families which through force of circumstances, such as continuous inheritance of property or lack of initiative, have occupied a nearly stationary position geographically, while countless others, impelled by the force of dissimilar environment, have seemed peculiarly susceptible to the lure of new countries and new possibilities of advancement for themselves and their progeny. It is too much to say that the colonizers of a family are its strongest characters, but it is true that those who have voluntarily assumed the hardships and privations of "pioneering" generally comprise the sturdier and the more self-reliant individuals, to whom a proportionate degree of interest attaches. That some of the Rudds should have adventured in the American Colonies is most natural, and it is of them and their descendents that this brief chapter treats-not in genealogical detail, but merely in the way of a general survey of the subject, contributory to this work. In America the name "Rudd" is of comparatively infrequent occurrence, and though it has been synonymous with a high degree of respectability, it has not become pre-eminently distinguished nor conspicuous in public annals. Natural ability of an order rather above the average, coupled with soundness of judgment and character, rather than the brilliancy of genius, have been identified with the bearers of the name from generation to generation. Nearly all American Rudds are sprung from Jonathan Rudd, who first appeared in New Haven, Connecticut, in 1643. His origin and early history are wholly conjectural, and especially discouraging conditions have thus far attended all efforts to clarify the subject. A tradition, extant in several branches of his descendants, asserts for him a Nottinghamshire origin, but corroborative evidence of this tradition has been sought in vain. Again, it is supposed that he came to New England in 1637, at that time of the greatest influx of settlers in the first half of that century, a period (i.e., after 1635) during which the passenger lists of record in England are deplorably deficient. At every turn similar bars to research have arisen, and "to cap the climax" our emigrant died, suddenly it would seem, in 1658, intestate his wife we are led to believe having pre-deceased him), leaving a family of young children to the guardianship of friends. Hence the particulars of his overseas home, which had he lived longer would undoubtedly have been transmitted to his children as they advanced to maturity, were lost to them and their posterity, and to-day are almost beyond the hope of recovery. Probably Jonathan Rudd was not a seeker after religious liberty, but apparently came out of England a youth in search of adventure and advancement. In New Haven he was guilt of minor indiscretions during the first year of his residence there, but on becoming a free burgess in 1644 he assumed the stringent religious obligations incidental to citizenship in that colony, and appears henceforth to have taken up the responsibilities of life with earnestness and vigour.[sic] From the pages of the pas this dim figure emerges romantically once-on his marriage to a bride whose name has failed to survive the lapse of years. It appears that he removed from the New Haven Colony, after a short residence there, to Saybrook, a settlement at the mouth of the Connecticut River. There in the winter of 1646-7 he contemplated marriage. On the day set for the wedding there was a great fall of snow, and no magistrate having jurisdiction in Saybrook could be found to perform the service. It so happened, however, that John Winthrop the younger, afterward Governor of Connecticut, acting under authority from the Colony of Massachusetts Bay, was in the vicinity, and hearing of the dilemma in which these young people were placed, agreed to marry them, provided that they would come to a certain brook which was the accepted boundary between the two jurisdictions. And so they were married, the bridal party standing on one bank of the stream, and the magistrate upon the other, and to this day the name Bride Brook remains as a memorial to that event. The picturesque setting of the scene has lent itself to song and story, and in a more practical way the event is a matter of history, as it was cited some forty years after its occurrence as evidence as evidence in certain disputes arising over boundary lines. In a new country where each individual is thrown to a great extent upon his own resources for a livelihood it is difficult to determine a man's actual social status by his pursuits. Jonathan Rudd was by vocation a worker in leather and a farmer, and by avocation a soldier. In contemporary records he is styled Lieutenant Jonathan Rudd, and was by appointment from the Colony of Connecticut in 16542 assistant to the redoubtable Indian fighter and commander of Saybrook Fort, Captain John Mason. In civil life he was among the "Selectmen" or governing board of the Settlement, held one or two minor offices, and would probably have made greater impress on his time had not death so early cut short his career. From Lieut. Jonathan Rudd's two sons Jonathan and Nathaniel have descended the greater number of persons of the name in America. By successive migrations to new portions of the country this name, in common with countless others originating, so far as American history is concerned, on the Atlantic seaboard, has become identified first with the later settled portions of New England, then with the "up-state" portions of New York, then with Western Pennsylvania, Ohio and the Middle West, and finally with the trans-Mississippi states, as the course of the Republic has westward held its way. The remainder of this chapter will be devoted to brief mention of the better-known Rudds of this general descent, and to remarks upon such unattached families of the name as the writer has happened upon in the course of his researches. to be continued....