Little Fork Church Notes From History June 20, 2024
Notes from History, Another visit from the past, The Rucker’s
This article follows “Notes from History No. 11, Claim of Colonial Burial at Little Fork”
All past articles are available at History | Little Fork Episcopal Church (littleforkchurch.org)
Speaking in public has always brought me anxiety and I have learned that if I speak about a subject that I am passionate about to just wing it. Last Wednesday’s tour group from the Daughter’s of the American Revolution (DAR) at first kind of intimidated me and I was hoping that my two partners, Bob Lee and Kathy Ellis, would be the pillars to help make this tour a success. Research into the Parish records had certainly turned up enough information for me to speak on my part of the presentation but when it came time to answer questions I had to just wing it.
The question was what was the oldest grave in the burring grounds. If I was more prepared or had my computer available to open the Burying Ground Spreadsheet I would have answered, Harry Copperthite who died in 1981 and is buried in plot 1A, but my thoughts went to the resent results of the Grounds Penetrating Radar (GPR) of the Church grounds which confirmed my research that there are potentially colonial era graves at Little Fork. Instead of answering the question with the contemporary 1981 date I discussed the possibility of an 1742 burial of Captain Johann “John” Rucker and his wife Susannah L. Phillips Rucker.
Before the tour started the group was expecting the arrival of another member and one of the ladies commented about a green Mini Cooper that had been slowly circling the Church. Bob and I knew our Rector drove a Mini Cooper but I had thought it was brown. Giving now more thought we went on with our presentations and noticed a young man in the group that was carrying a couple of white roses during the talk. After the presentation he approached me asking for more details of the potential colonial burials and I insisted we walk out to the area.
He introduced himself as Doug Lucy and had seen the church hours online took a chance that someone would be there. As I pointed out the potential family plots and a couple not far away he informed me he had been living in Ruckersville for 17 years and it wasn’t until doing some family research that he discovered he was a descendant of John and Susannah Rucker.
I told him of the 7 or 8 claims on the Find-A-Grave web site of being located at Little Fork that I could discount all but these 2. I also mentioned another family contact I had found that is working with me to help justify the Little Fork burial claim. Kathryn Denise Rucker Krepp and I had made contact in March of this year after I had found an article titled “Renaming Confederate-named Fort Rucker is long overdue (militarytimes.com)”.
According to Dale Lee Lane, who added the memorial on the Find-A-Grave website on October 9, 2013, “John & Susanna are believed to be buried in the old St. Mark’s Parish Churchyard. It is now called the Little Fork Church which stands in Culpepper Co., Virginia.” Only time and research will help prove it.