Philema Rutherford

Philema Vadakin (née Rutherford, 1794 – 1831-05-08) was my 4th-great-grandmother, being the first wife of Philip Vadakin, through their daughter Melissa, mother of William Ryder. She was the daughter of Tristram Rutherford and Hannah Wait. She married, died, and is buried in Bristol, Vermont.

Birth

I have not found a birth record for Philema.

The best information about her date of birth is her death record, which lists her age as 37, which implies she was born in 1793 or 1794.^ref This age also appears on her gravestone. The 1820 census of Bristol records her as aged 16–25^ref, which would indicate she was born 1794 at the earliest; the census was started in August 1820, so this is inconsistent with the age of death by a few months, but small errors are common so this is not shocking. The 1830 census shows her in her 30s^ref, which tallies with these.

The 1880 census of Moultrie, Illinois, where her son Henry F. Vadakin lived, asks for the place of birth of him and his parents.^ref It appears to be “NC” for all of them, which normally means North Carolina, but this can’t be what was intended, so it was likely “not certain” or something similar. Henry was born in Vermont, and if he was reporting the same birthplace for his parents, that suggests Philema was too. This is obviously shaky evidence on its own, but it’s also the case that reported parents’ birthplaces are notoriously unreliable. However, it is still a good guess that Philema was from Vermont, as there is no evidence of her being anywhere else.

She would thus be estimated to be 17 at her marriage at 1812-01-07 where she is named as Philema Rutherford, which makes a previous marriage unlikely, which confirms this is likely her maiden name.

Origins

There are two strains of evidence for Philema’s parents, which I assembled over a decade apart. From census, vital, and gravestone records, I had to basically resort to process of elimination to infer her likely parents. Later, land records provided strong confirmation of this tentative inference.

Census and vital records

My immediate focus was on the couple Andrew Rutherford and Mary Davis (* 1732-10-22), who married in Hampden County, Massachusetts on 1751-11-28, but later moved to Bristol, Vermont:

All Rutherford heads of household in Vermont censuses through 1820 are in Addison County, and all seem to be descendants of Andrew and Mary. In 1830 a single Rutherford house of unclear origin is found in Rutland.
There are other early Vermont records, such as birth, death, and marriage, which list various Rutherfords; so far, all can be more or less plausibly connected to this family.
Outside of Vermont, the closest Rutherford family in 1800 and 1810 is over 80 miles away around Salem, New York, an Aaron Rutherford, and in neither case does the census show any young females.
Based on this evidence and chronology, it seems probable that Philema is a granddaughter of Andrew and Mary.

I charted out this family in 2012 to try to place Philema, with small revisions since. Here are all Rutherford homes in Vermont in 1800 and 1810 (plus one household from 1820) which include female children:

Head	Year	Place	Counts	Inferred births
Tristram Rutherford	1800^ref	Bristol, VT	2 ♂ <10, 1 ♂ 26–44, 2 ♀ <10, 1 ♀ 26–44	1755–1774 ♂♀ 1790–1800 ♂♂♀♀
William Rutherford	1800^ref	Middlebury, VT	1 ♂ <10, 1 ♂ 10–15, 1 ♂ 16–25, 3 ♀ <10, 1 ♀ 26–44	1755–1774 ♀ 1774–1784 ♂ 1784–1790 ♂ 1790–1800 ♂♀♀♀
Andrew Rutherford	1800^ref	Monkton, VT	1 ♂ <10, 1 ♂ 10–15, 1 ♂ 26–44, 2 ♀ <10, 1 ♀ 26–44	1755–1774 ♂♀ 1784–1790 ♂ 1790–1800 ♂♀♀
Thomas Rutherford	1800^ref	Monkton, VT	1 ♂ <10, 1 ♂ 10–15, 1 ♂ 45+, 1 ♀ <10, 2 ♀ 10–15, 1 ♀ 16–25, 1 ♀ 26–44	0000–1755 ♂ 1755–1774 ♀ 1774–1784 ♀ 1784–1790 ♂♀♀ 1790–1800 ♂♀
Truman Rutherford	1810^ref	Monkton, VT	1 ♂ 10–15, 2 ♂ 16–25, 2 ♀ 16–25, 1 ♀ 26–44	1765–1784 ♀ 1784–1794 ♂♂♀♀ 1794–1800 ♂
William Rutherford	1810^ref	Monkton, VT	1 ♂ <10, 2 ♂ 16–25, 1 ♂ 26–44, 2 ♀ <10, 2 ♀ 10–15, 1 ♀ 26–44	1765–1784 ♂♀ 1784–1794 ♂♂ 1794–1800 ♀♀ 1800–1810 ♂♀♀
Champion Rutherford	1810^ref	Bristol, VT	2 ♂ <10, 1 ♂ 10–15, 1 ♂ 16–25, 2 ♀ <10, 1 ♀ 10–15, 1 ♀ 16–25	1784–1794 ♂♀ 1794–1800 ♂♀ 1800–1810 ♂♂♀♀
William Rutherford	1820^ref	Monkton, VT	1 ♂ 10–15, 1 ♂ 45+, 2 ♀ 16–25, 1 ♀ 45+	0000–1775 ♂♀ 1794–1804 ♀♀ 1804–1810 ♂

Most promising is 1800, because it’s soonest after Philema’s birth, so that less will have happened in the interim. What we know:

Andrew, a son of Andrew and Mary, has recorded children Phanny (*1790), Susannah (*1792), and Emelia (*1794). Phanny seems to have died young. The other two account for the girls in 1800.
Thomas, another son of Andrew and Mary, had a child Elmira (*1799), accounting for the under-10 girl in his household.
William is a difficult case. Andrew and Mary did have a son William (*1756), but the recorded oldest male is too young. So, I figure either (a) his age was misreported or misrecorded, or (b) he is a grandson, living with siblings, and perhaps with his mother but still dubbed the head of household. In 1800 he has three young girls in his home, and in 1810 there is one more or two if the ages aren't misleading and he lost one. I also include 1820, which still shows two girls who are thus not Philema. But still it’s barely possible one from 1810 is her.
That leaves Tristram, a known son of Andrew and Mary, who is living in Bristol. Both him and his wife died by 1810, when his oldest son Champion is head of household, probably the same house as 1800 and living with siblings, and possibly a wife or even children of his own (though vital records have not been found for any). There are two girls in both censuses unaccounted for by other records.

Philema married, lived, and died in Bristol, where Tristram and his children are found through 1810, two years before she married. There are two unaccounted daughters in both years, and no other candidates for Philema in all of Vermont or nearby, except maybe a girl over in Monkton. Thus, this makes it most likely that Philema was Tristram’s daughter.

Land records

In 2023, I found two land records which strongly support this conclusion.

On 1814-02-19 (Bristol 4:324)^ref, Philip Vadakin sold a parcel of land to Thomas Vadenburgh, in which the land is described as

being my share as heir to the estate of Trustom Rutherford late of Bristol deceased.

The estate is described in more detail in an 1817-12-29 land sale of Salmon and Amanda Rutherford to Daniel E. Parmelee (Bristol 5:242)^ref, where the parcel is described as

being a part of a second division lot, formerly owned by Tristram Rutherford deceased, paid to the original right of Joseph Lawrence, and has since by order of the Judge of Probate been divided and set off to the aforesaid Salmon and Amanda, and others, the children and lawful heirs to the said Tristram Rutherford….

The parcel is delimited, starting as follows:

Beginning at the northwest corner of Thomas Vadenburgh’s land, which was deeded to him by Philema Vadakin off of the aforesaid farm….

Although a relationship to Philema is not stated, the sources indicate that the probate court divided the estate between Tristram’s children, and Philema got a part of it, and it is that part that Philip as her husband was heir to which was sold to Vadenburgh.

Combined with the above inferences, this seems quite definitive in establishing Philema’s parents.

Amanda is presumably the other young girl listed with Tristram in the 1800 census.

Family

See Philip Vadakin for her known children.

DNA

If we could find testees, Philema would be a good candidate for mitochondrial DNA comparison. Philema’s female line documented here goes back to Rebecca Wright, the first wife of colonial figure Samuel Stone, who has also been traced back further in England. Surely mitochondrial descendants exist for both her and Philema.