| The Ritter Family News
Letter Written by: Jerry R. McDonald jrm2232@cs.com |
November 24, 1998
What is in this edition of the letter:
- Welcome
to the Ritter Family News Letter
- Got a
good name for this letter?
- Why this
letter is not in Acrobat Form as originally planned
- Question
about Dolly Garner
- Question
about Thomas Wesley Ritter
- The
Original Ritters of Moore County
- Milestones
- Picture
of Captain John Ritter of Moore County
Hello to all and welcome to the first of what we hope to be many editions of a newsletter devoted to discovery and genealogical research on the Ritter Family of America. It seems appropriate that this first publication outline the scope, and lay some ground rules for inclusion of materials in future editions.
Firstly I have to confess that I am flying totally blind with this project. I got the idea for this letter from two sources; 1) my own success in picking the brains of other people, and 2) seeing the Internet site put up by Larry W. Ritter, of Fairfield Texas. I have been working on exploring my "Ritter roots" for at least 10 years, off and on. It seemed that I get "fired up" every year when I visit with family in North Carolina. I made it a point to gather as much information from the remaining relatives as possible before I began searching through some dusty volumes in courthouses, and other places. I had considerable success talking to those I knew best, but I found that while they might know names and places, they knew little of dates and official information. After interviewing all the living Ritters I knew personally and putting those things on videotape, I started hunting other places. I purchased books published by the Moore County Historical Society, and then I started what has turned out to be the most interesting and fun part of my search. I found Clarence Arvil Ritter b.1909 who lives, interestingly enough about three doors from where my mother worked for many years. On one of my visits to Greensboro I stopped by and introduced myself and found Clarence to be very warm and accepting. He told me all he could remember of the Ritter line, mostly his information was limited to his immediate family. He knew little of Capt. John and others, but did give me some addresses of Ritters in his line. I used those addresses to contact and get acquainted with many and that led to more Ritters, and the first thing I knew I had made a lot of new friends and found a bunch of cousins that I didn't know before.
What I got from each new person was more information that I could use. It has worked like a patchwork quilt with many pieces still missing. Now that I have found Larry W. Ritter's database, and thanks to many of you, I now have a much more complete idea of how all these Ritters fit together.
My idea for this letter is to utilize computer technology to speed up the search for information and allow each of us access to each other's knowledge . I foresee that this letter might be a place where you and I can post questions regarding our Ritter ancestors. This letter will offer the questions to all readers and hopefully the readers will supply some answers, which will be published in subsequent issues. During dry spells when there aren't many questions to ask of others, I will be happy to publish milestones of more recent Ritter family members, plus offer articles that might be of interest. These can certainly be file materials for all of you for future use. One article I offer shortly is all I know about Tommy Ritter of Greensboro. For those of you who don't know, Tommy Ritter built Ritter's Lake, and is very well known around the entire state of North Carolina, at least by older folks. Ritter's Lake was very famous in the early years of this century, and if you have been in NC, or know much about that area, you will know about Thomas Wesley Ritter and Ritter's Lake. Thomas was my grandfather and I know quite a bit of him.
I very much hope that all of you will become reporters for this letter, because if you do not, I will surely run out of things to talk about, and the well will run dry. So the success of this effort depends on all of you to contribute.
I am reserving the right to publish or not publish any submission. Good taste and relevance to the purposes of this letter will be my guide when considering items to include. Please keep me posted on situations that arise in your family. Here is an example. Leta Symantha Ritter Murrow b.1905 of Robbins, NC, has had a fair amount of health problems of late, but seems to be making a comeback. It was through that she was suffering from a brain tumor. I understand that she has made somewhat of a recovery now. She descends from Elias Spinks/Samuel Jones/Lucian Ritter. I remember her well from when I was a young boy visiting with my Grandmother Molcy Ann Williamson Ritter.
Oh, one other selfish request, I am researching the Williamsons of Moore County as well. Molcy Ann Williamson's father was Eli Williamson. If any of you are working on that area, please let me know via email.
I have been thinking of a slick name for this news letter, but so far the one above is the only thing I can come up with. What to offer something new? Please email all your ideas to me for consideration, I will be most appreciative. 73051.2312@compuserve.com
After writing my first letter to all of you, I received several emails notifying me that some of you are not familiar with such things as Acrobat, and didn't know how to go about installing that software, or that you have limited hard drive space and not able to install it, etc. In the interest of getting this off the ground and making sure that it is compatible with the maximum number of people, I have decided to go this direction, at least for the first couple of issues. I will attach at least one Acrobat document to this letter as a test. This will be to see how many of you can get your Acrobat readers working. Since the email system is basically designed for sending text across the network, graphics files need to be coded somehow so they are transmitted as text, then decoded back to a graphic form at your end. I like Acrobat for that purpose, since it allows me to put both graphics and text in the same document, then convert it to pdf or Acrobat form before transmitting it. Now, I did got one email that suggested that I investigate HTML as a means for doing that. I will have to admit that my knowledge of that is very limited. I welcome your suggestions as long as I can understand that you are talking about. I am a bit short of knowledge, particularly about Internet/Internet software. So I am being challenged to learn about new things for future use.
I am much like my uncle, June Bryson Ritter of Greensboro; he once told me that his head was so full of information, that when he heard something new in one ear, something he already knew would be pushed out the other ear. Now that is how it feels these days.
Hope you are in better shape than that.
We already have some submissions for you to ponder. One of our readers writes:
Everyone who contacts me regarding the Ritters wants to know about Dolly Garner. I have a theory but can't prove it. In Rascie Wicker's on Moore County there is mention of a Dolly Williamson who married a William Garner. Could this be our Dolly Garner? I would like to know more about her, but haven't had the time to do any research. Hopefully some of you retired guys will jump on this and see if there is anything to it. At least include this in your newsletter under the questions column.
My Grandfather was Thomas Wesley Ritter (b.1877). He was born in Moore Co. North Carolina, later after he married Molcy Ann Williamson, the family moved to Greensboro, NC. His marriage license dated 01/19/1902 bears the following witnesses: D.H. Garner, and T.W. Ritter Sr. The only Thomas Wesley Ritters I know of is the Thomas Wesley Ritter (b.1786 d.1821) who was the father of Capt. John Ritter (b.1816 d.1902). I am aware that there was another Thomas, son of Capt. John Ritter. I do not know if he was a Thomas Wesley and I have that his dates are 1841 to 1915. He was certainly alive and could have signed the license, but why would he have signed it T.W. Ritter Sr. if he only had one child and that child was a girl. Her name was Annie. That is my what my records say. Anyone out there got any solutions to this one?
I have the following Thomas Ritter ((b.1841 d.1915), 2nd child, son of Capt. John married Sarah Maness (no dates available), and the child was Annie (no dates).
Thomas Wesley Ritter (b.1877 d.1956), 2nd child, son of John Spinks Ritter (b.1844 d.1916) and Mary Manass (b.1847 d.1888)
I certainly don't claim to have the only account of the Ritters coming to Moore County. There are stories that seem to come from several sources that can not be documented. I will tell you two stories that I have, one of which has some documentation.
My cousin, Lydia Mae Benbow Brooks took up the study of the Ritter family many years ago, long before I was old enough to care. Before her death, she verbally gave me an account of what she found. Here is the story she gave me.
There were three brothers, John, Thomas, and Jesse. They were German immigrants, who came there and received land grants at the confluence of Bear and Cabin Creeks. One of the boys stayed there while the other two traveled on to the Ozarks. I have most of the records that Lydia uncovered and have no evidence to support this story. I did find that at the end of her life she was corresponding with Pete Moore, a lady who lived at 10013 Essex Avenue in Oklahoma City. I wrote to Pete but received no answer.
After another try I got a call from Ms. Elizabeth Hayden who explained that she was Mrs. Moore's daughter and that Pete had passed away several years ago. Ms. Hayden had no interest in pursuing family history at that time. I do not know if the above story came from Mrs. Moore, or exactly who Mrs. Moore is, but surely she was very interested in the Ritters of Moore County. If any of you know, please pass that along to me.
The other story I know was uncovered while I was researching the family history of the Williamsons of Moore County. A relative of mine found a written history of the Williamsons that tells quite a tale of how they came to be in Moore County. The full "History of the Williamson Family" document is on file at the Moore County Library in the Historical Room under the Williamson Family. There are two versions filed there, almost identical excepting a few details. I will quote from the bottom of page two of one of the versions.
|
Their personal things were few. They took the old wooden chest that Grandpa had made of cedar, put together with pegs, for the lack of nails; and placed the most precious things in it. The Bible was the most important. Then their few clothes, and a piece of the badly cracked mirrow. At the last moment, Grandma called out to them saying "don't forget to put the feather bed on last! " It was placed inside the covered wagon, making a comfortable seat for the women and children. The feathers of the chickens and geese for many years past. The wagon train pulled out, the cows tied behind them, headed for Jamestown, Virginia. Their neighbors went with them; the John Garner family, the Thomas Hunsucker family, the John Ritter Family, also the family of Enoch Shields, Bill Whitley and several others. |
This story of the Williamsons of Pennsylvania tells how an Indian uprising forced these people from their settlements in PA and how they basically ran for their lives in 1740, ending up on Grassy Creek in Moore County.
If the John Ritter family mentioned above is the same as our family, and the location of their settlement in Moore County seems correct, then John Ritter is likely the father of Jesse B. Ritter. Jesse was born in 1735 so he would have been quite young when the family fled Pennsylvania and came to NC.
It would be nice to hear from others who can either document or add to the above. Perhaps there are other accounts of the Ritters in Moore County. Please take a bit of time to share your knowledge.
T. Theodore Ritter (b.12/30/1917 d.10/28/1998) Moore County 2nd spouse Julia Ann Ritter Williamson
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©1998 by Jerry R. McDonald
Email the author at: Jerry R. McDonald