John (the Bear Hunter) Cutright Home Page

"...John secured our independence as a nation, he was one of the genuine stock of the primitive pioneers, who were always found on the frontier, he was first on the Potomac, next on the West Fork of the Monongahela and in 1789 settled in the land of Boon and Kenton, among the canebrakes" of Kentucky. In 1796 John accompanied General Nathaniel Massie to explore and survey along the Scioto River in Ross Co. Ohio during which the city of Chillicothe Ohio was founded. He died at the age of 83 on December 24, 1830, two weeks after the death of his wife.
" O save from dark oblivion's gloomy reign
The brave, the worthy fathers of our land"

John was born a quarter of a mellennium ago a subject of King George II of England. He later fought in the Revolution to free our country from King George III and England. John was a product of the frontier. His restless spirit is in evidence as he moved from the civilization along the Potomac to the wilderness of Kentucky and finally across the river into Ohio. He was a family man who brought his family with him on his wanderings. Elizabeth traveled with him and had his children when they lived on the Potomac, the Monongahela, Kentucky, and Ohio. According to family tradition John was a woodsman--a hunter--a "BEAR HUNTER".

John may have been descended from a Dutchman by the name of Jan Bastiaen van Kortryk who immigrated from Amsterdam to New York in 1663. The family lived in Harlem for several years, then moved to the area of Kingston, NY, and then, before 1736, south to the Delaware Water Gap area known as Minisink. Prior to 1747 several families including Hendrick Cutrack, his wife Elizabeth Hornbeck Cutrack, Cornelius Cutrack and his wife Taatjen (a sister of Hendrick), and their cousin Cornelius Kortregt & his wife Eleanor Hornbeck (the parents of Samuel Curtright) moved to the South Branch of the Potomac in Harrison Co. Virginia near the site of present Moorefield, West Virginia. This is the area where John was born in 1747. On October 10, 1774 John is reported to have fought at battle of Point Pleasant Va. (Dunsmore's War). In the Revolutionary war John served as a private in Capitan Machen Boswell's Company 2nd Virginia State Regiment, commanded by Colonel Gregory Smith. John was stationed at Camp Middlebrook, New Jersey from September 1778 to February 1779. On September, 23, 1793, while living in Kentucky, John enlisted in Kentucky Mounted Volunteers under the command of Captain David Kennedy, as one of the Kentucky Volunteers under General Mad Anthony Wayne's campaign against the Shawnee Indians in Ohio

At his death on December 24, 1830 John was living in Springfield Township, Ross county Ohio, and renting from Thomas Massie.
Scioto Gazette - December 29, 1830
On Friday last Mr. John Cutright of Springfield Township, Ross County, Ohio died in the 83rd year of his age. The partner of this venerable man died only eight days before in the 73rd year of her age. They lived together as man and wife 57 years, were the parents of 12, the grandparents of 35 and great grandparents of 54 children; numbering 151 descendants.