Late in 2009 I received a message from John Dunkin, out of the blue, telling me "John Rudick left his wife and eight kids in Big Flatt AR about 1897 and never came back." John Dunkin turned out to be my second cousin, once removed. I'll try to call him “cousin" from here on in an effort to simplify this account a bit: at least this way there will be one fewer guy named John in this story, and believe me, there are more than a few of them. My cousin's grandfather was Floyd Erasmus Rudick, a brother of my own great-grandfather, Cecil Edward Rudick. Floyd and Cecil were two of those eight abandoned children.

Here's all I had known about John A. Rudick before that message: He was born about 1855. He married Catherine Crews in 1878, in Mountain View, Stone County, Arkansas. The 1880 U. S. census listed John, Catherine, their young daughter Ollie M. Rudick and Catherine's parents and siblings, all living in Locust Grove, Stone County, Arkansas. Twenty years later, in the 1900 census, Catherine was listed as widowed, living with six children and her mother Sarah, in Big Flat, Baxter County, Arkansas. That was all. I had listed John Rudick on my website as “died before 1900,” but my cousin set me straight: At the turn of the century John Rudick was not dead and gone, he was just gone.

Who was this man, where did he come from and where did he run off to? My cousin remembered conversations with his grandfather Floyd which gave us hints to follow. For instance, Floyd had named one of his sons after John, and for years that was our only solid evidence of the middle name Andrew, other than a lot of letter “A”s.

Floyd also said that his grandfather was named Benjamin, and thus John Rudick would probably have been a grandson of the locally well known Captain William Ruddick of Sugar Creek, Arkansas. My cousin believed John was born there, in Benton County. The birthplace turned out to be correct, but the idea of John Rudick as a son of Benjamin Ruddick, and thus a grandson of Captain William Ruddick, turned out to have no facts to support it. I had thought it would be a piece of cake, and that connecting John Rudick to the known family of Captain William Ruddick would add a few generations to my lineage. I set out to show that relationship, but ended up disproving it. And that was only the beginning.

Ruddicks, Reddicks and More...

To simplify things a bit I've had to adopt a few naming conventions. Sorting out the Ruddocks, Ruddicks, Reddicks, Riddicks, Rudicks and other variants of the name is daunting, but I will mostly use the name "Ruddick" in association with Captain William Ruddick and the Sugar Creek/Elkhorn Tavern line, "Reddick" in association with Ebenezer, Stephen and the North Carolina or Tennessee contingent, and “Rudick” (one D) in association with my own family connection: John Andrew and his descendants.

People in these families might have had their surname spelled several ways during their lifetimes, by their own telling or that of others. The names Riddick and Reddick were sometimes mistakenly interchanged in North Carolina, while in Arkansas it was either Reddick or Ruddick. Sometimes the letter “K” at the end was missing. Many of these folks could not read or write, preciseness in spelling was less important than it is now, and further spelling inconsistencies in the U. S. census and army documents complicate these matters. A good example is Stephen, John A. Rudick's actual father, who I have seen called Stephen Riddick, Reddick and Ruddick, all in print within a short time frame.

Some people are analyzing DNA to sort it all out, and genetic lines are being studied back into Ireland and Scotland. This is fascinating in it's own way, but it's not where I'm looking. My goal is simply to find out who the recent ancestors of John Andrew Rudick were and to learn more about all of their lives.

Captain William Ruddick, Benton County, Arkansas, and the Civil War

Benjamin Ruddick, and four John Ruddicks

Let's get back to the search for our John Andrew Rudick. Since he was born about 1855, according to the 1880 census, I checked out the families of each of Captain Ruddick's sons, looking for a John of appropriate age.

William's oldest son was named John Ruddick (1812-1853). He had no son named John and died before John A. was born.

William's second son was also named William Ruddick, born in 1814, and died young in 1820.

His third son was named Samuel Ruddick (1821-1886). Samuel married Polly Ford and had nine children, if I count correctly. One child was named John and was born about 1855. Unfortunately for us, this John Ruddick married a woman named Rachel, had several children, and can be tracked in the U. S. census documents of 1860, 1870, 1880, 1900, and finally in 1910, married to his second wife Anna. He is buried in Benton County, Arkansas.

Captain Ruddick's fourth son was Benjamin Ruddick (1827-1904), matching the name Floyd Rudick gave for his grandfather. In 1850, Benjamin was newly married to Nancy Adeline Pruitt and according to the census, living with his parents Captain William Ruddick and Elizabeth, and a son named John W., four months old. That would make the birth about July, 1850, five years earlier than John Andrew in the 1880 census. This boy is not listed in the 1860 census at all, odd considering he would be Benjamin's first child, and ten years old. Hanneman's book says this John W. Ruddick "died young." He does not appear in the 1870 census with Benjamin's family either, and I have not found him in any other documents. In a 1904 legal case in Arkansas concerning Benjamin Ruddick's estate, the living children were listed, and John A. Rudick was not on that list, although we know he was alive at the time.

William Ruddick's fifth son, Joseph Ruddick (1829-1915), was married twice, first time about 1850 to Mary Louisa Reynolds, and then in 1861 to Sarah Clarissa Taylor. Among Joseph's eleven children there is a John Tilford Ruddick (3-17-1856 to 12-10-1930). This John married a woman named Vina. They had four known children and he is also in all of the census documents through 1910. He is also buried in Benton County, Arkansas.

There were no facts supporting any direct relation of John Andrew Rudick to Captain William Ruddick or to his son Benjamin, except for the statement of John's son, Floyd. John himself never claimed in any census that his father was born in Illinois (four times Tennessee and once North Carolina, for the record) a fact he might have been aware of if he was Benjamin's son. If our John was Benjamin's son, he would have probably lived in Illinois during the war.

I was at a loss, and concluded that Floyd and Cecil and the others were not grandchildren of Benjamin Ruddick, whether they liked it or not. I would have loved to fit our John Rudick neatly into that family, but the mystery deepened.

Ebenezer B. Reddick

In the 1850 U. S. census, in Sugar Creek Township, Benton County, Arkansas, I found an interesting family: Ebenezer Redic (census spelling), his wife Lucy, five children ages eighteen down to four years old, and a Stephen D. Redic at the end of the list, nineteen years old. Ebenezer, Stephen and Lucy were all listed as born in North Carolina.

Ten years later, in the 1860 U. S. census, in Roller Ridge Township, Benton County, Arkansas, were Stephen Redick (again, census spelling), his wife Margaret, and their two sons John, five years old, and James F., three years old. They lived right next door to Ebenezer, his wife Luvicia, and their five children.

William Ruddock - Captain Ruddick's great-grandfather - had six children, and Ebenezer is possibly descended from his son, Benjamin Rudduck (1721 to about 1787 – again, not the Captain's son, but a different Benjamin). The information down this line is not substantiated like the other line down to Captain Ruddick. The Captain's line came through Kentucky and Illinois, the other line through North Carolina. Hanneman's book cannot help us here; he looked more at one branch and very little at the other. He names Benjamin Rudduck, but stops there.

Some say that Benjamin Rudduck had a son named Joseph, who had a son named Ebenezer. This would make Ebenezer Reddick a second cousin to Captain William Ruddick. Indeed, some seem content to give it as established fact: Benjamin, father of Joseph, father of Ebenezer, father of Stephen. It could conceivably be true, but I wish that there was any evidence. It seems to me more likely that Joseph Reddick descends from a line of Riddicks or Reddicks in North Carolina than that he is a son of Benjamin Rudduck and grandson of William Ruddock. Any connections between the Ruddick, Riddick and Reddick lines might be many generations back, possibly on the other side of the ocean. Stephen Reddick, questioned while he was a prisoner of war, stated that none of his relatives were involved in the rebellion, showing that he didn't consider the nearby Ruddicks, two of which he had enlisted along side of, to be related to him.

As for the parents of Joseph Reddick, it has proven to be a complicated puzzle, with dozens of Reddicks and Riddicks known during that time period in North Carolina, but a severe lack of corroborating dates and family relationships. There seem to be as many ideas as there are people doing the research, so for now I end my own research with Joseph Reddick.

For quite a while I thought that Ebenezer was not even one of Joseph's sons. In his will Joseph gave his land, slaves and other possessions to his wife Celia, his daughter Nancy Penny, and to his “four sons,” Benjamin Franklin Reddick, John W. Reddick, Joseph L. Reddick and what looks to be Jno. W. Reddick. Toward the end of the will Joseph appointed Joseph Reddick and Ebenezer Reddick executors of his estate. It seemed odd that Ebenezer was not called a son, along with getting no part of the estate, while the others did. I now see that Jno. W. and John W. must have been the same man, but I only conceded the fact after another researcher, Pat Richard, found a document in which Joseph Reddick gave 150 acres of his land to Ebenezer, actually calling him “my son.”

Here's what we know about Ebenezer B. Reddick: He was born about 1791 in North Carolina, according to census documents. In 1814, while enlisting in the army, he was described as being five foot eight inches tall with black eyes, dark hair and a fair complexion. Ebenezer's middle initial “B” is found on his son George W. Reddick's 1922 death certificate, and I've not seen it any place else.

So in 1821 Ebenezer was given 150 acres of land by his father, which he turned around and sold in 1825. Joseph died in 1827, with Ebenezer and Joseph Jr. as co-executors of the estate. The 1840 census found Ebenezer in Benton County, Tennessee, with family. There was a woman in the same age bracket as him, probably a wife, and five others between five and thirty years old. Ebenezer was forty-nine at the time, leaving room for this to be a second marriage. The youngest boy was presumably Stephen. The next youngest would be Stephen's brother, William H. J. Reddick.

Ebenezer Reddick married Luvicia Trott in 1841, in Benton County, Tennessee. (Many people record Luvicia's name as Lou Vicie, and indeed a granddaughter or two are named Lou Vicie, but in the 1860 census it is clearly written as Luvicia. I find it to be much prettier, and I will stick with it. Back in the 1850 census, and on her marriage certificate, she was called Lucy.) Luvicia had three young children from a previous marriage to a man named William McNeil, who had died in 1840. This combination of the Reddick and McNeil families relocated to Benton County, Arkansas, probably just before 1850. What became of Ebenezer's earlier children, other than sons Stephen and William? For now we can only guess.

In 1850, Ebenezer and family lived in Sugar Creek Township, Arkansas, where Ebenezer was a wagon maker. In 1860, he was a farmer in nearby Roller Ridge Township, where he had purchased 120 acres of land: forty acres in 1854, and forty additional acres on each side of that in 1860. One Roller Ridge neighbor was named Enoch Trott. Was he Luvicia's brother? After his death, Ebenezer's land stayed in the family, at least for a while, owned and expanded to the south by Luvicia's son, Neal McNeil. Another parcel just to the south of that was later owned by G. W. Reddick, Ebenezer and Luvicia's son. Lucy is said to have died in 1865, and Ebenezer in 1866.

At least two other men were named Ebenezer Reddick. The first, a Confederate soldier from North Carolina, was captured on July 16, 1864, in Silver Spring, Maryland and died of pneumonia while in custody. A younger man than our Ebenezer, and perhaps using the name Epinetus Reddick, he likely was from another branch of the Reddicks or Riddicks. The second man was Ebenezer's own son (called Joseph Reddick in the 1860 census) who lived most of his life as Ebenezer N. Reddick.

Stories about Ebenezer Reddick passed down by his descendants vary widely, but all center around his probable Native American pedigree. Sometimes he was 100% Cherokee, sometimes 50% or 75%. One descendant said that “he jumped the reservation and was on the run. He came to Arkansas and adopted the name of Reddick.” Another said he fought in the Black Hawk War. In yet another version, Ebenezer was given some family money, and forced to migrate west after abusing a slave. My favorite tale had Ebenezer as a nephew of John Ross, the famous (and mostly Scottish!) Cherokee Chief.

In 1926, over a dozen of Ebenezer's descendants applied for membership in the Cherokee Nation. Son Ebenezer N. Reddick claimed that his father was ½ Cherokee, and the others took it from there. Affidavits from some old timers were attached to most, if not all, of the applications. Here's one:

I, Hiram C. Rogers, 73 years old, P O address R#2 Garfield Benton County Ark hereby testify that I was personally acquainted with Ebenezer Reddick, who was the father of George W. Reddick, who was the father of John W. Reddick, Thos. L. Reddick, Homer Reddick, H. A. Reddick + Dave Reddick the claimants; I got acquainted with Ebenezer Reddick about 1860; he died a few years after the close of the Civil War; During this time I lived with my father who lived on a farm that joined with Ebenezer Reddick farm and was well acquainted with him and all his family; George W. Reddick told me that Ebenezer Reddick his father came from North Carolina and that he was a half breed Cherokee Indian.

Another affidavit, from A. J. Ford:

I have been acquainted with Ebinezer [sic] Reddick since before the Civil War. I lived neighbors to him for a long number of years. I helped lay him out when he died, it was known all over the country that he was Cherokee blood, claimed to be, looked like it and acted like it.

In another document, a ninety year old woman named Lucinda Edwards, who lived in North Carolina between 1836 and 1881, claimed to know of a Cherokee woman named Sallie Reddick who also lived in North Carolina during that period.

If Ebenezer was ½ Cherokee, then was Sallie Reddick his mother? Sadly for us, in son Ebenezer N. Reddick's own words:

I am unable to state the names of any of my ancestors back of my father. It has been so many years ago since my father died and I was so young at the time of his death that I can't remember of ever having heard anything talked about my ancestors.

The Enrolling Commission of the Cherokee Indian Agency denied the applications. In the case of Ebenezer's grandson Harry A. Reddick, a commission member named James E. Henderson wrote:

The application of Mr. Reddick has been investigated very thoroughly. It seems that for many years neither he nor his ancestors has been identified with the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians of North Carolina, whose affairs we are endeavoring to settle under the Act of Congress June 4, 1924. It would appear from the records in this case that his ancestors migrated to Arkansas before the time of the removal in 1838-39.

For your information I will say that there is a great misconception on the part of many applicants as to really what the Eastern Band of Cherokees is. After the removal in 1838-39, the ancestors of the little Band whose affairs we are now endeavoring to settle purchased the lands they now hold and took deeds for the same. The various rolls made of this Band between 1835 and the present give us a very good proof as to who contributed toward the purchase of these lands and who did not. The ancestors of Mr. Reddick do not seem to appear on any of these rolls. Furthermore, to become a member of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians it is necessary to prove that the applicant or his ancestors were living in North Carolina in 1874; that they contributed toward the purchase of the Qually Boundary; that they have been recognized by and been affiliated with with the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians of North Carolina since 1868. Keeping the above in mind, it is very easy to see that a large number of people of Indian blood living in the south country do not have the right to enrollment with the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians.

Each of the applications contained a statement like “I am sure my grandfather Ebenezer Reddick contributed toward the purchase of these lands,” but there was nothing to back it up. Ebenezer and kin were not on the rolls after 1835, and it seems they had nothing to do with the tribe during the years critical to this case. The decision in no way denied Ebenezer an Indian heritage, it only denied his heirs a part of something it looks like he didn't contribute to in the first place.

In the end, I can't make solid conclusions about Ebenezer's parentage. Perhaps he was half Cherokee, or lived among the Cherokees for a period. Some descendants of John A. Ruddick have had DNA testing done with positive results, but there are stories of Indian blood in the ancestors of John's wife Catherine Crews as well, so it only gets more complicated. Researcher George W. Reddick, another descendant of Ebenezer, notes that several of his relations have had DNA testing done, with little or no evidence of Indian blood turning up, and since Ebenezer was described as fair skinned, George has serious doubts. In his opinion, “I think that Ebenezer developed a story that he enjoyed repeating to entertain others.”

Stephen Decatur Reddick

Stephen Reddick, born in 1831 in Sampson County, North Carolina, was my great-great-great-grandfather, and the father of John Andrew Rudick. I believe he was a son of Ebenezer Reddick (1791-1866) but I've never been entirely comfortable with the way Stephen appears in the 1850 census. The children are listed oldest to youngest, the three McNeal children first, followed by the two children of Ebenezer and Luvicia, and last, Stephen, who was actually the oldest. It could be innocent, but it's also the way boarders and nephews and farmhands were often listed in the census. Testing currently shows that I share DNA with over two dozen known descendants of Joseph Reddick, both through Ebenezer or through Ebenezer's sister and brothers (half-sister and half-brothers?) I believe it's only a matter of time and careful work before more family relationships are confirmed.

Stephen, Ebenezer and the rest of the family migrated from North Carolina to Benton County, Tennessee, where they lived in 1840. After Ebenezer married Luvicia Trott, and then after two daughters were born, they all headed west again, this time to Benton County, Arkansas, probably just before 1850.

Around 1854, likely in Benton County, Arkansas, Stephen Reddick married Margaret Mizer, who was born about 1834 in Blount County, Tennessee. In the 1860 census there were two sons, John and James. John was born a few months after Ebenezer purchased his first 40 acres, so maybe Ebenezer, over sixty years old, was planning for Stephen's new family.

The 1850 and 1860 censuses, along with a few army documents, listed Stephen as a farmer. He was in the Arkansas State Guard. When the Civil War broke out, Stephen's family and Ebenezer's family up near Roller Ridge were only three or four miles from Sugar Creek, where William Ruddick had built Elkhorn Tavern. The Battle of Pea Ridge was fought in March of 1862, and any role Stephen or Ebenezer played in the battle is unknown.

That summer the 35th Infantry Regiment of the Confederate Army was formed, sometimes called the 1st Regiment. On August 15, three Ruddick men enlisted into Colonel James P. King's Regiment, Benton County's Company F, which was commanded by Captain John Miser: Joseph Ruddick, William Ruddick and S. D. C. Ruddick. The first, Joseph Ruddick, was a son of Captain William Ruddick, mentioned earlier, and the William who enlisted would be the Captain's grandson through his son Samuel. (Although an army document stated that William deserted, he later died in a prison in Springfield, Missouri at about eighteen years old.) The third man, S. D. C. Ruddick, turned out to be our Stephen Reddick.

Stephen had been recruited on August 2, 1862, by his father-in-law, Captain Miser, and his early participation in the war seems to have been minimal. According to paperwork from the following spring, Stephen claimed that he had taken up arms twice, but also that he was never in any battles. A muster roll from April, 1863, reported him absent, and said he had been sick since the previous October. In early December, 1862, his fellow enlistee Joseph was injured during the Battle of Prairie Grove and hospitalized. On January 1, Captain Miser deserted, along with his brother, 2nd Lieutenant Elijah H. Miser.

On March 26, 1863, while home on furlough, Stephen was captured and taken north to Cassville, Missouri, where he spent several weeks in a prisoner of war camp, followed by a week in Springfield, Missouri, which included a doctor's examination. On May 13 he was sent to Gratiot Street Prison in St. Louis, Missouri. June 8 found him in City Point, Virginia, where he was exchanged back to the Confederate Army. On June 10 he picked up $49.86 in back pay at Camp Lee, near Richmond, Virginia.

Arkansas Confederate Army records say that Stephen deserted on August 25, 1863, and that Joseph and William Ruddick both deserted on September 10, 1863, coinciding with the regiment's participation in the Battle of Bayou Fourche.

By my estimate of Company F, Arkansas 35th Infantry, about forty of its ninety-five soldiers deserted. During the Civil War over 10,000 confederate soldiers deserted in Arkansas alone. From the Encyclopedia of Arkansas History and Culture:

Myriad reasons exist for desertion during the Civil War. Early in the war, some Confederate units in Arkansas deserted when rumors spread about local Native Americans raiding towns and scalping citizens; the soldiers left their units feeling that their place was at home protecting their families. Troops sometimes left the ranks because of disagreements with their leaders or due to lack of pay. After 1864, some Confederate soldiers probably saw that the war was likely to end in defeat. Other Confederates may have deserted simply because they thought the war would continue year after bloody year, with or without them.

During the Prairie Grove Campaign in December 1862, the Confederates experienced serious desertion of conscripts. Several hundred of these deserters, mostly northern Arkansans who opposed secession, changed sides after the battle and enrolled in Arkansas Union regiments.

In his 1997 book The Confederate War, [Gary W.] Gallagher called attention to a factor unique to desertion in the Confederate ranks: “The presence of Union armies on southern soil generated a type of Confederate desertion unknown among Union soldiers—and one that did not necessarily indicate weak will or unhappiness with the Confederacy.” The desire to protect land and loved ones from Union troops drove up the Confederate desertion rate late in the war, as men chose their duty to their families over their duty to the Confederacy.

The birth dates of Stephen's third and fourth sons, Stephen Sherman and Weston J., are not pinned down, but between 1861 and 1864 are good guesses based upon contradictory documents. During his 1863 imprisonment in St. Louis, Stephen stated that he had four children, so there could be a child we know nothing about.

Stephen used more versions of his name than any other man I know of. His Arkansas military records listed him as S. D. C. Ruddick. In census documents he was Stephen Redick and Stephen D. Redic. Some of the Gratiot Street Prison papers called him Stephen D. C. Riddick, and picking up his paycheck in Virginia, he went as C. D. Riddick. In one document we find a magnificent full version: Stephen Commodore Decatur Riddick. And that's all. After 1863, history has nothing more to say about Stephen Decatur Reddick.

After the War: A Broken Family in the 1870 Census

Here's what we know about the four sons of Stephen and Margaret Reddick, from youngest to oldest, with special attention given to 1870, the first census year without Stephen.

Weston J. Reddick: In 1870, he's listed as six years old, living with his mother Margaret and her second husband, in White Rock, McDonald County, Missouri. There was a W. J. Reddick in the 1880 census, eighteen years old, living with the John B. Due (Dew) family of Maury County, Tennessee and listed as a nephew. John Due's sister, Sarah Elizabeth Due, had married William H. J. Reddick, who I believe is another son of Ebenezer Reddick with his first wife. They relocated to Arkansas, where William, like his brother Stephen D., might have died in the Civil War. There's a marriage recorded between a Weston Reddick and Priscilla Jennings on February 2, 1892, in Lowndes County, Mississippi, but this has led to no further information.

Stephen Sherman Rudick: About nine years old in 1870, he lived on the farm of James and Nancy Bayless in Sugar Creek, Benton County, Arkansas. There's no sign of any relation between his mother and the Bayless couple, who were reportedly childless and relatively well off. Ten years later there was a Stephen Redick, eighteen years old, living with John and Mary Devers in Newton City, Missouri. A Steven S. Rudick was listed in the 1900, 1910, 1920 and 1930 censuses, married to Nancy H. Rudick at various Missouri addresses. Years later, Stephen was mentioned in the obituary of James, his older brother. Stephen S. Rudick died April 3, 1942.

James Franklin Rudick: Born on June 19, 1858, in 1870 James was twelve years old and living on the farm of Isaac and Sarah Stapleton in Sugar Creek Township, Missouri (yes, there's a Sugar Creek Township on each side of the border, and the Missouri one is the location of Seligman). James was listed in the census as a nephew, so Sarah Stapleton was Margaret Mizer's sister. James was still with the Stapletons ten years later. In 1900 and 1910 he was married to a woman named Martha, and lived in Flat Creek Township, Barry County, Missouri. He died on March 21, 1918.

John Andrew Rudick: Born on March 31, 1855, in 1870 John worked on the Michael Buttram farm in Sugar Creek, Arkansas. The census listing was confusing at first: the relation to the family looked to me like "barrel boy," and one account on the internet interpreted it as "barnyard boy." That's sensible, but obviously not what was written, and now as I see it John was a "bound boy." It's not known whether the contract was for a typical seven years or until he turned twenty-one, or whether he was treated like a son or a slave. Hopefully it was more like a son, since it appears that Michael Buttram's wife Sarah Buttram was originally Sarah Mizer, a first cousin to John's mother. (If you think that there seem to be nearly as many Mizers in this account - whatever spelling - as there are Reddicks - whatever spelling - you are correct, and more Mizer connections will be revealed shortly.)

During their younger years, the boys were never far from each other, or from their mother. Other than Weston, they stayed in the southwest Missouri area for the rest of their lives.

On April 29, 1868, Margaret married William Richard Buxton, a broom maker and blind from birth, who in 1879 became a Methodist Preacher. The census lists them both, and then a one year old girl named Maria E. Buxton, followed by Weston J. Reddick. Margaret died some time before the 1900 census

Maria Esther Buxton was John's half sister (not his sister, as was later reported in a newspaper item), and she married John B. Richardson about 1888. They lived in Benton County, Arkansas in 1900, Caverna, Missouri in 1904, and in Long Township, Sequoyah County, Oklahoma in 1910, near to Fort Smith, Arkansas.

Did Stephen and Margaret have any children other than the four boys we know of? Children John, Stephen Jr. and James were easily located in the 1870 census, but no other unclaimed Rudick boy or girl has been found. Such a child, born in the early 1860's, would likely have stayed with his mother, like Weston had.

Who Was John Andrew Rudick, and Where Did He Go?

John Andrew Rudick was born March 31, 1855, likely in Sugar Creek or in Roller Ridge Township, in Benton County, Arkansas, the son of Stephen Decatur Reddick of North Carolina, and Margaret E. Mizer of Tennessee. John's grandparents on his mother's side would thus be John and Mary Miser of Tennessee, and his grandfather on his father's side was probably Ebenezer Reddick, of North Carolina.

John's father Stephen probably died during the Civil War, or shortly thereafter, and after that John spent time indentured on the Michael Buttram farm. Years later, he referred to himself as “Wandering John,” and related that in 1876, he worked for the Fort Worth Daily newspaper in Fort Worth, Texas, learning printing and more from editor Capt. B. B. Paddock.

In 1878, in Stone County, Arkansas, John married fourteen year old Jemima Catherine Crews. Their first child, Ollie Mae Rudick, was born there. John and Catherine lived with her family in Locust Grove, Stone County, Arkansas, until moving to Big Flat. On August 4, 1882, John was elected Justice of the Peace in Big Flat, so the next four children, Josephine, Edna, Rosa and Floyd were likely born there, since the following two, Cecil and Macon, both claimed to be born in Big Flat in their WW1 draft documents. The last child, Homer, was born in 1891, in Seligman, Missouri.

About five months later, on January 28, 1892, a Seligman newspaper reported "John A. Rudick has accepted a position as book keeper, etc. in McClure's Store.” Cousin John Dunkin was told that Catherine had insisted that the entire family move back to Big Flat after learning that John was being unfaithful.

Through John’s son Floyd Rudick comes this story: John Rudick was a school teacher, and two weeks before the school year began (must have been in 1897) he rode his horse into town, supposedly on an errand to purchase some shoes. He was spotted crossing the river by ferry near Big Flat, and heading west. He never came back.

The children of John Andrew Rudick and Jemima Catherine Crews were:

Ollie May Rudick (1880-1971)
Josephine E. (Josie) Rudick (~1881-1911)
Edna Aldene Rudick (1883-1964)
Rosa Rudick (1885-1946)
Floyd Erasmus Rudick (1886-1967)
Cecil Edward Rudick (1888-1952)
Macon Cornelius Rudick (1889-1934)
Winfred Homer Rudick (1891-1947)

In 1909, Catherine married a man named John Rose, a miller by profession, and more than twenty years her senior. John Rose died four years later. In 1918, Catherine married a man named Sam Sutterfield, and they lived in Searcy County, Arkansas, just west of Big Flat. By 1940, the census lists Catherine as a widow, living in Gore, Oklahoma. She died twelve years later, and is buried in Luther, Oklahoma, near her son Homer and his wife. Her tombstone reads “Our mother Catherine Sutterfield 1863-1952.”

I'll stop pretending here that John vanished into thin air, and admit that we knew a little more all along. He was in the 1900 census as John A. Rudick, married to Theodosia S. Rudick. He was listed as a farmer, living in Quapaw Indian Territory, just across the border in what would in a few years be Oklahoma. In 1910, he was also listed as a farmer, in Peoria Township, Ottawa County, Oklahoma (same place, but ten years later, and after statehood) with wife Sarah Rudick.

Sarah Rudick and Theodosia S. Rudick were the same woman, of course. A fellow researcher exploring the convoluted Mizer clan found her for me in 2012. She was born Sarah Theodosia Burrows, a daughter of Josiah Henninger Burrows and Elizabeth Mizer. Josiah Burrows had over twenty children with at least three wives. Elizabeth Mizer was his first wife, and she died a year after Sarah was born. Elizabeth was a first cousin to John's mother, Margaret Mizer, so for the record, John Rudick left his wife and eight children to run off with his second cousin. (Also for the record, Josiah's third wife was John's aunt, Mahala Mizer!)

“Doshia” Burrows grew up in Sugar Creek, Arkansas, and it's more than likely that she knew John Rudick (Reddick) when they were children, perhaps even attending school together. When John's first wife made their family return to Big Flat from Seligman, Missouri, Sarah Theodosia Burrows was very likely the reason, as Sugar Creek and Seligman were only about ten miles from each other.

Sarah had an earlier marriage to a man named Daniel Cox (and a son named William Cox), so on a marriage certificate dated September 2, 1897, in Cherokee County, Kansas, the bride and groom are John Andrew Rudick and Dollie [!] Cox.

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The Rudick Branch

The Crawdad Files

The Cecil Rudiick Letters