Samuel Ruggles

Samuel Ruggles (1681-1749), second minister of Billerica, was born in Roxbury on December 3, 1681, the son of Samuel Ruggles of Roxbury and grandson of Thomas Ruggles, who had come to New England from Nazeing in Essex. His mother, Martha, was a daughter of Rev. John Woodbridge, pastor of Andover, and a granddaughter of Governor Thomas Dudley; she died in Billerica in 1738. He graduated from Harvard College in 1702 and taught for a short time at Hadley. His brother Benjamin, a Yale graduate of 1721, later kept the Billerica school, married Dorcas Whiting, a sister of Samuel's first wife, and became pastor of Middleborough and, from 1754, of New Marlborough; his sister Martha married Job Lane of Billerica in 1713.

By 1707 the aged Rev. Samuel Whiting, who had preached in Billerica for nearly fifty years, could no longer carry the ministry alone. On July 7, 1707, a general town meeting chose "Mr. Samuel Ruggles, of Roxbury, to help Mr. Whiting in the work of the ministry, for one year next ensuing." Whiting gave up twenty pounds of his salary; the town voted Ruggles forty pounds a year while Whiting was able to assist him and a settlement of eighty pounds, later raised to one hundred, and promised that after Whiting's death it would make his salary "as good as ever Mr. Whiting's sallery was." Hazen noted that the church, as distinct from the town, had no recorded voice in these negotiations. In September the town sold him eight acres of common land west of the meeting-house at four pounds an acre, the corner where the First Church and the Bennett Library later stood, and there, in Hazen's words, "Mr. Ruggles built his home and lived for forty years." The MACRIS inventory identifies his mansion, presumably built about 1710, with the Ruggles-Parker House at 5 River Street, which the tanner John Parker acquired soon after 1755. The trial year went well, and Ruggles was ordained as Whiting's colleague on May 19, 1708; Whiting died in February 1712-13, leaving him sole pastor.

On December 19, 1710, Ruggles married Elizabeth Whiting, daughter of Samuel Whiting of Dunstable and granddaughter of his senior colleague. She died on July 29, 1727, and on April 18, 1728, he married at Roxbury Elizabeth Williams, daughter of Samuel Williams of Roxbury and niece of Rev. John Williams of Deerfield, author of The Redeemed Captive. Several of his children died young. His daughter Elizabeth married Samuel Dummer, Esq., of Wilmington in 1737 and, as his widow, Rev. Daniel Rogers of Littleton in 1739; Martha married John Whiting of Littleton; Dorothy married Rev. Isaac Morrill of Wilmington; and Sarah became the second wife of Rev. Josiah Stearns of Epping, New Hampshire. His son Joseph stayed in Billerica and in 1747 bought land beside the Osgood mills on the Concord River with the right to use the water for a fulling-mill; another son, William, settled in Waltham. The schoolmaster John Graham boarded in the minister's household in 1718.

Hazen found that "little is known of his ministry and character." For more than a generation Ruggles preached from week to week, "satisfying so well the lofty Puritan ideal of a pastor that no whisper of dissatisfaction is preserved." In December 1714 the rate raised for his salary was set at £81 13s. 8d., twice the town rate of £40 16s. 10d. Early in his ministry, in March 1710-11, the town voted to buy its first meeting-house bell with the proceeds of land sold to Captain Reed, and in September 1737 it voted to build the third meeting-house, which was raised on May 24, 1738. When the preaching of George Whitefield divided the New England churches in the 1740s, Ruggles was one of the few ministers whose name appears in none of the testimonies on either side. Hazen suspected that he shared the view of his son-in-law Isaac Morrill of Wilmington, who rode all over his town warning his people not to hear Whitefield, with the result of "a first-rate notice and a great congregation."

In March 1746-7 the town took up the question of a colleague. A committee of Benjamin Tompson, Esq., Capt. Thomas Kidder and Deacon Joshua Abbott reported that the pastor was "very free" and "desired that the town would proceed in that affaire," and on April 28, 1747, church and town unanimously chose John Chandler of Andover to settle "with the Revd. Mr. Samuel Ruggles, our aged Pastor." On August 14, 1747, the church renewed its covenant, the earliest form preserved in its records, attested by Ruggles as pastor, and Chandler was ordained on October 21, when Ruggles's son-in-law Rev. Daniel Rogers of Littleton opened the service with prayer. His second wife died on June 25, 1748, and Samuel Ruggles died on March 1, 1748-9, aged 67, after a ministry of forty years and nine months; the town voted £150, old tenor, for his funeral. His estate was appraised at £4,103, including the homestead of "about 16 acres," "with a large mansion-house," at £2,300, a library, a silver tankard and other plate, a clock, and an enslaved woman, listed as a "Negro woman," valued at £200.

References

1. Hazen, History of Billerica (1883), p. 172 (choice of Samuel Ruggles to assist Mr. Whiting, 1707; terms of settlement)
2. Hazen, History of Billerica (1883), p. 173 (house lot and home; ordination, May 19, 1708)
3. Hazen, History of Billerica (1883), p. 174 (his pastorate and death)
4. Hazen, History of Billerica (1883), p. 175 (Whitefield controversy; third meeting-house)
5. Hazen, History of Billerica (1883), p. 180 (choice of a colleague, 1747)
6. Hazen, History of Billerica (1883), Genealogical Register p. 127, RUGGLES 2
7. Farmer, Historical Memoir of Billerica (1816), pp. 17-18 (death, age and birth of Rev. Samuel Ruggles)
8. MACRIS BIL.53, Ruggles-Parker House, 5 River St

Title References Expand all

Recorded is Book/Page at the Middlesex North Registry of Deeds unless noted; Probate # is a Middlesex probate case, Ctf a Land Court certificate of title.