Johannis Rueff (later anglicized as John Roof) was born in Durlach, a district in what is now Karlsruhe, in the German state of Baden-Württemberg, on January 9, 1730. He married Annie Mira Leonardo of Heildelberg on January 13, 1759. They migrated to the American colonies and landed in Philadelphia in October 1759 and moved north to Fort Stanwix on the New York frontier.
There he traded with Indigenous People, most likely the Oneida and other Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) he encountered, and the few traders moving over the portage known as the Great Carry or Carrying Place, which connected Wood Creek with Oneida Lake, at what is now Rome, NY.
Fort Stanwix was a new facility and garrisoned by British troops when Rueff arrived. He erected a log house, opened trade with the local people, and furnished board and lodging for boatmen and for those who helped boatmen across the Carrying Place.
Other accounts say Rueff and Bartholomew Brodock worked as teamsters using horse-drawn wagons to carry freight and passengers over the portage.
In 1762, in partnership with Philip Livingston, Oliver Delancey and Peter Dubois, Rueff bought 20,000 acres of land from Indigenous People. In 1789 he received a tract of four thousand acres as bounty land while the other partners were deprived of their property, as a result of being attained for treason under the Confiscation Act of 1789. They had supported the British during the American Revolution.
(At the time of the Revolution, when a person was declared guilty of a high crime, due process was circumvented and they were said to be “attainted” without the opportunity to defend himself at trial, and their property is seized. Attainment was considered so extreme that it was specifically prohibited by the later United States Constitution.)
In addition to trading, Rueff also planted crops such as potatoes, corn, and spring grain which he sold at the fort. His crops were said to have greatly aided the those in fort during the siege of 1777, just prior to the Battle of Oriskany on August 6th of that year.
As the British advanced from Oswego under Lt. Col. Barry St. Leger, Rueff was among those who retreated east to Nicholas Herkimer’s home in Danube. The following year he continued east to Canajoharie where he remained until his death in 1798.
His son John Roof, Jr., is believed to be the first settler’s child to be born in what is now Rome on August 28, 1762. His christening was quite an event. Rev. Samuel Kirkland was present as were then militia captain Nicholas Herkimer and Sir Willam Johnson.
Kirkland later ministered to the Brothertons, a Native American tribe, which was organized from Algonquin speaking communities descended from Pequot, Narragansett, Montauk, Tunxis, Niantic, and Mohegan of southern New England and eastern Long Island. They settled o Oneida land in what is now thee towns of Kirkland and Marshall beginning in 1784.
Kirkland’s diary recorded that on Monday, February 12, 1770 he set out for German Flatts to acquire provisions, stopping at Col. John Butler’s for money Dr. Wheelock had sent for him:
“Rose at 4, set off at sunrise, came to Fort Stanwix and preached a sermon to Fort Stanwix; baptized two children, Martin son of John Ruff and Martha Christian, daughter of William Cline, lodged at Mr. Ruff’s.”
This was eight years after Kirkland baptized John Roof, Jr. Three more sons were born in Canajoharie which Joseph Brant raided and destroyed in 1780. Rueff was involved in the rebuilding of the village after the raid.
The next settlement in Oneida County is believed to have been at Deerfield Corners when George Weaver (sometimes spelled Weber) arrived in 1773, followed by Mark Damuth and Christ Jan Real who built log homes and started to clear land. This area was in the Cosby Manor land grant of Nicolas Ecker and other German associates and measured 11 miles east to west and six miles wide.
This tract of 43,000 acres began in 1734 under Governor William Cosby and lies half in Oneida County and half in Herkimer County. In 1793 Philip Schuyler bought out the others for himself, John Bradstreet and Rutger Bleecker.
The source for this article is an 1880 speech by Dr. F. H. Root (possibly Francis Hinsdale Root, 1815-1892) found in the Transactions of the Oneida Historical Society.
Illustrations, from above: 1777 Fleury map depicting the Siege of Fort Stanwix and the Oneida Carry (see a large version here); and a view of the stockade and Fort Stanwix reconstruction completed in 1976 (based on 1758 and 1776 structures).
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