Bennett Rector found his way to East Tennessee, but it took a while. To help place him in time, his two brothers, James and Jesse, were at Yorktown. Bennett married a Glascock girl, and moved to Grayson Co. on the New River (from Fauquier Co., Virginia), where he raised his first family. After his first wife died, he remarried and moved to East Tennessee, where he died. Bennett was the grandson of the immigrant, Hans Jacob Richter, of Trupbach. (Bennett's father was Jacob and his mother was a Hitt.) The story is sketchy but it merits mentioning how some of it came to light.
There is, in the Oldham Collection (#10), at the Arkansas History Commission, a letter from W. H. Rector, to Gov. H. M. Rector, dated 8 Nov 1850. William Huff, by his full given names, was attempting to see if he and the Governor had an ancestor in common. He tells that Bennett was his grandfather, and he mentioned his grandfather's brothers, who were in the Rev. War. But, apparently W. H. could not carry his ancestors back to the immigrant. He did not know his grandmother's given name.
W. H. himself married Augusta M. Cox in Tennessee. Three children were born in Tennessee, and the family moved to Texas (another child born there), and then moved to Arkansas. So it is not clear that W. H. left descendants in Tennessee, but his grandfather Bennett may have had other descendants who lived there. Perhaps we could get a fill in here from more knowledgeable people. These pieces of information came to me from Brenda J. Thomas.
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Cumberland Rector was born in 1774 to Charles and Elizabeth Rector, in Fauquier County. After this point, information for him is hard to obtain. In fact, he was incorrectly identified, if at all, by Dr. Salmans, Dr. Holtzclaw, and Larry King. In fact, Larry King, the latest in the sequence of Rector genealogies, does not even have a Cumberland in the index. About 1800, he was living in Roane County, Tennessee, where he signed a petition asking for the creation of Gallatin (later Roane) County. He appears in the civil records there several times in the first decade of the 19th century. He bought land in Rhea County, and served in the War of 1812. His family grew, but, by 1840, it had diminished to himself and apparently one son. In 1842, he commenced selling land to his sons-in-law. He did have sons. He wrote his will in 1845, and it was probated in 1849. In none of the documentary evidence is the name anything but Cumberland.
This information was found and relayed to me by Evelyn Rector Schmidt. We have more Rectors to mention, and I apologize that I can do little more than mention them.
As we go through some of the names, some responses are being made adding or clarifying information. Please send such information to the List. I keep repeating that this is why we have a list. (Note from Web Manager and List Manager: John is ABSOLUTELY correct! If you respond ONLY to a sender's private email address, the rest of the many hundreds of users won't get to see the information. It is EXTREMELY important that replies come to the List, NOT only to the sender's email address. You never know when someone will see a reply with information that will help him/her get past a "brick wall". [GWD])
(29 Jul 01)
We gratefully acknowledge the work of John Blankenbaker who published over 2,500 Germanna History Notes via the Germanna-L@rootsweb.com email list from 1997 to 2008. We are equally thankful to George Durman (Sgt. George) for hosting the list and republishing the notes via rootsweb.com.