Chocy, I don't have any Rutters in my line, but I've done quite a bit of research on my Byrd and Jones lines from Berks County, Pennsylvania, and have often seen the names of Thomas Rutter and his descendants among the records of that area. My ancestor Andrew Bird moved from Berks County, Pa. to the Shenandoah Valley ca 1732. The Bird family had mills and forges at Craney Island right across the county line in present-day Rockingham County. Some of the second generation Birds (Abraham and Mounce) eventually moved into Shenandoah County. Before leaving Amity twp. (present-day Douglassville, Pa.) Andrew Bird signed the inventory (1727) of Mounce Jones. Mounce Jones in his will referred to a piece of his property where it adjoined the dam of Thomas Rutter, so we know they were neighbors. Andrew Bird also signed the inventory (1731) of Swen Rambo of Lancaster County (again right across a county line). Swen Rambo's widow and family also settled in Augusta County as neighbors to the Bir! ds. William Bird the Ironmaster (Birdsboro, Pa is named for his family) married Bridget Hulings, a granddaughter of Mounce Jones. Bridget's brother Andrew Hulings, a grandson of Mounce Jones, also moved the the same area. My point is simply that there were many inter-related families from that area who, within a few decades, moved to the Shenandoah Valley and settled near each other. Andrew Bird was among the first, probably arriving with the Jost Heydt group. If your family's name was actually Rutter, it would be a possibility that they come from the same area as all of the above mentioned families. Some of the following information about Thomas Rutter is from the book OLEY VALLEY HERITAGE by Philip E. Pendleton. "A variation on the small knot of families that came together was the family that comprised a virtual clan, with several related households settling next to each other. An example is the extended family of Quaker ironmaster Thomas Rutter who came to the valley in 1715 to establish Pine Forge, Pennsylvania's first ironworks. Although Rutter probably had the capital to bring along some skilled English ironworkers, it is possible that he, his three sons Thomas, Joseph, and John, and his son-in-law Samuel Savage furnished most of the necessary mine, forest, and forge labor during the initial, experimental years...The valley's first ironworks, and the first in Pennsylvania, was Pine Forge [referred to in early days simply as Rutter's Forge], in Douglass Twp., established as a bloomery forge by Thomas Rutter in 1715. Pine Forge became a finery forge when Rutter built Colebrookdale Furnace in the neighboring community of that name in 1719...[William] Bird, an Irishman, had worked h! is way up through the iron industry, beginning as a young indentured servant cutting wood for Pine Forge's charcoal in the 1720's...The window openings of somewhat later valley English-speakers' swellings, such as the Joseph Rutter House (Douglass, 1731), George Boone, Sr., House (Exeter, 1733), and the Mordecai Lincoln House (Exeter, 1773), appear to have been built to accommodate the familiar vertical sash window..." [Note: Pendleton is a historian whose research focuses on social history and architecture.] In 1721, the American Weekly Mercury advertised for a runaway from Thomas Rutter at the ironworks in the county of Philadelphia, notices to be given to his master or to John Rutter of Philadelphia, smith, for a reward. Thomas Rutter, Sr. was an Assembly delegate in 1729. The book includes a map showing the location of Rutter's land and Pine Forge. From: HISTORICAL REVIEW OF BERKS COUNTY, v. XXV, #4, Fall 1960, p. 121 "Just such a man was Thomas Rutter, an English Quaker and blacksmith, who settled in Germantown, then a German settlement near Philadelphia...Rutter must have been a man of means, for he had been made chief magistrate of Germantown. As magistrate he had to deal with the Indians along the Manatawny and won their friendship...In 1715 Thomas Rutter obtained a patent of three hundred acres in the Manatawny region from William Penn. With his son-in-law, Samuel Savage, he started up the Schuylkill River, and in 1716 he built a "bloomery forge," called Rutter's Forge, on the Manatawny Creek near present-day Boyertown. This marks the beginning of Pennsylvania's iron industry..." The article continues with a lot more about the iron business and Pine Forge. My interest is due to the probability that my Andrew Bird also worked at Rutter's Forge during his time in Amity Township. Interestingly enough, the Bird's forge in Augusta County, Va. was also named Pine Forge. By the time of the American Revolution, many of these early Pennsylvania iron-making business were beginning to look south for new areas with accessible ore deposits and plentiful forests for making the charcoal used in the refining process. William Bird's son Mark Bird and his partners are known to have invested in projects in the Shenandoah Valley. If you are able to link your Rutters to this family, you can be pretty sure that the iron industry was what brought them to the valley. My Pennybacker family who eventually bought Pine Forge from the Bird family right after the Rev. War, worked for Mark Bird in Berks County before removing to Maryland about 1783. There they briefly leased a fu! rnace from the Hughes family (another Pennsylvania iron-making family). When that endeavor was wiped out by a flood a few months later, they moved on down into Virginia and settled at...Pine Forge, in Shenandoah County. Small world, isn't it? Sherry Johnson Date: Tue, 2 Sep 2003 22:16:00 EDT From: Chocybrown@aol.com To: VASHENAN-L@rootsweb.com Subject: [VASHENAN] COLLINS/RITTER-RUTTER-RETTER Thank you for the Pennsylvania RUTTER information. The RITTER/RETTER/RUTTERS came into the valley somewhere around 1747. A story says they landed in Philadelphia in the 1730's and lived in Lancaster Co., PA for awhile. Some I believe moved to Westmoreland Co., PA about the time ours came into the Shenandoah Valley. There is a story they were from Holland but I have not been able to find the link back before 1753. Other family members seem to have links to Maryland and think they may German. Thank you again for the article. Chocy --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software