Neither B. C. Holtzclaw in " The Germanna Record Number Four " nor Larry King in " Rector Records " gives any information about the first wife of Bennett Rector, the son of Jacob, and the grandson of Hans Jacob Richter, the 1714 immigrant to Virginia. No information is said to be known about where and when Bennett Rector died.
Brenda J. Thomas submitted a note to Beyond Germanna (p. 667, v.12, n.1) which helps to clarify these questions. She notes there is a letter from W. H. Rector to Gov. H. M. Rector of Arkansas, dated 8 Nov 1850, in which he was attempting to see if he and Gov. Rector had a common ancestry. The letter is in the Oldham Collection at the Arkansas History Commission as item 10. W. H. (William Huff, though he never identified himself in the letter as such) Rector wrote from Nashville, Hempstead County, Arkansas.
Items which W. H. Rector mentions from his family history are that his grandfather was Bennett and his great-grandfather was Jacob. His grandfather Bennett had two brothers, James and Jesse. These facts are correct as far as we understand the Rector history. W. H. also mentions that his great-uncles, James and Jesse, served in the Revolutionary War and were at Yorktown. He adds that his grandfather, Bennett, married ____ Glasscock (or Glascock) and moved to Grayson Co. on the New River where he raised his first family. After his first wife died, he remarried and moved to East Tennessee where he died.
W. H. Rector is in the 1860 census from Hempstead Co., Arkansas (Mine Creek Township), where he is given as 40, born in TN, and as a merchant. His wife was Augusta M. (Cox), age 33, born in TN. Four children are listed, Martha, 11; George L., 9; Eliza P.,7; and Cordelia, 1. Except for Cordelia who was born in Texas, the children were born in Tennessee. In 1861, Jesse was born to make a total of five children. The family moved from Tennessee to Texas and in 1858 moved to Arkansas.
(22 Sep 05)
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.