Rutherford, Griffith

A marker at the county courthouse for Rutherford County, Tennessee named after Griffith Rutherford. Image from Flickr user Brent Moore. [3]Griffith Rutherford, colonial and Revolutionary official, military officer, and land speculator, was born in Ireland, the son of John and Elizabeth Griffith Rutherford. His grandfather, the Reverend Samuel Rutherford, had been banished from Scotland to Ireland because church officials opposed his liberal Presbyterianism. What little is known about his early life was obtained from his son Henry by Lyman C. Draper. According to family tradition, both parents died at sea in 1721, and the infant Griffith was left with relatives in Pennsylvania. Although his later writings indicate that he was barely literate, Rutherford had a keen mind and very early mastered the craft of surveying [4]. He moved first to Halifax County [5], N.C., and in the early 1750s settled in Rowan County [6]. In 1754 he claimed a 656-acre tract on Grant Creek in what was known as the Irish Settlement. In the same year he married Elizabeth, the daughter of James Graham, another early landholder in the area.