Preceded by James Otis, Sr. Service/branch Massachusetts militia Education Harvard University Succeeded by Samuel White | Occupation Lawyer Name Timothy Ruggles Children Bathsheba Spooner | |
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Spouse Bathsheba Newcomb (m. 1735) | ||
Timothy Dwight Ruggles (October 20, 1711 – August 4, 1795) was an American military leader, jurist and politician. He was a delegate to the Stamp Act Congress of 1765.
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Early life
Ruggles was born on October 20, 1711 to Rev. Timothy Ruggles. He was grandson of Capt. Samuel Ruggles of Roxbury and Martha Woodbridge, who was a granddaughter of Governor Thomas Dudley.
He was graduated from Harvard in 1732; studied law, and established himself in practice in Rochester. In 1735 he married Mrs. Bathsheba Newcomb, widow of William Newcomb and the daughter of the Hon. Melatiah Bourne of Sandwich, Massachusetts. He was a military officer during the French and Indian War.
Stamp Act
After serving as Speaker of the Massachusetts House of Representatives in 1763, he was selected as a delegate to the first colonial (or Stamp Act) congress of 1765 meeting in New York on October 7, Ruggles was elected its president. After he refused to sanction the addresses sent by that body to Great Britain he was publicly censured by the General Court of Massachusetts.
He became one of the leading Tories of New England. He commanded the Loyal American Association and was a Mandamus Councillor appointed by General Gage in Boston. The Loyal American Association vowed to: - Not submit to rebellious assembly. - Enforce obedience to the King. - Defend each other if imperiled by unlawful assembly. - Repel force with force. - Use retaliation if any member or their property were injured.
Nova Scotia
In 1775, he became a Loyalist and left Boston for Nova Scotia with the British troops and accompanied Lord Howe to Staten Island. His estates were confiscated and he was named in the Massachusetts Banishment Act. In 1779 he received a grant of 10,000 acres (40 km²) of land in Wilmot, Nova Scotia, where he settled.
Family
Ruggles left his daughter, Bathsheba Ruggles Spooner, behind in Massachusetts. On July 2, 1778 she became the first woman executed in the newly independent United States of America. She was hanged while 5 months pregnant for the crime of plotting, with a 17 year old Continental Army soldier with whom she was having an affair with (and we presume she was carrying his child), and two British soldiers (who had deserted the British Army) the death of her husband Joshua Spooner who was savagely beaten and dumped in a well.