WILLIAM HOOPER⁷ RUFFIN (WILLIAM⁶, ROBERT⁵, JOHN⁴, ROBERT³, ROBERT², WILLIAM¹)^1,2,3 died Unknown. He married FRANCES ANN GILDART^4,5 in Mississippi⁶. She was born 1798⁷, and died 1821⁷.

More About WILLIAM HOOPER RUFFIN:
Occupation: Planter; rancher⁸
Residence: Wilkinson County, Mississippi⁸

Children of WILLIAM RUFFIN and FRANCES GILDART are:
i. COLONEL FRANCIS GILDART⁸ RUFFIN, SR^9,10,11,12, b. 1816, Woodville, Mississippi^13,14; d. 1892¹⁴; m. (1) CARY ANNE NICHOLAS RANDOLPH¹⁵, 28 Dec 1840¹⁶; b. 22 Apr 1820^16,17; d. 24 Jul 1857^18,19; m. (2) ELLEN STROTHER HARVIE¹⁹, 27 Mar 1860²⁰; b. 10 Dec 1818, Richmond, Henrico County, Virginia²¹; d. Unknown.

Notes for COLONEL FRANCIS GILDART RUFFIN, SR:

"The following is an extract from a letter of the late Col Frank G Ruffin to Hon Paul Cameron, Hillsboro, N. C.:

I have seen Edmund Ruffin, Sr.'s, Genealogical chart and remember that I found myself the seventh in descent from the head of the family in Virginia, William Ruffin who settled in Isle of Wight in 1660, who accumulated immense landed property on the south side of James River by importing laborers into the country, that sort of service being at that time remunerative by a grant of so much land per capita.
As early as 1743 'Capt. John Ruffin' of Surry was a large planter. The family have generally remained on the south side of James River, but Judge Ruffin's grandfather, Col Robert Ruffin, who in 1762 was appointed along with Robert Bolling, Roger Atkinson, William Eaton, John Bannister, Thomas Jones, Henry Walker, George Turnbull and James Field, all represented by Virginia and North Carolina families to this day, to lay off the town of Petersburg and he was designated by the act as a 'gentleman,' at a time when that term had sense and meaning in it.
Col Robert, after the marriage of his daughters to Claibornes, removed to King William County, and occupied the brick mansion Sweet Hall on the Pamunkey, about ten miles above---not West Point, but West's Point, named after one of our earliest settlers. Sweet Hall, as I knew it in its decay forty years ago had still enough left of its grounds and surroundings to argue the means, tastes, and habits of a gentleman once its owner; as a ruined but distinct dyke which had once reclaimed a very extensive marsh on his large tract of land on the opposite shore of New Kent, showed what must have been his energy and enterprise.
Besides these he also owned another large tract in the immediate neighborhood of Sweet Hall in King William, called 'Turcoman,' which subsequently became the property of his son Sterling (father of Judge Thomas Ruffin) and a very large body of very fine land in the county of Brunswick.
He married the widow of Lightfoot of the Sandy Point Lightfoots, who was born a 'Clack,' and was, as old Mr John Roane, who knew her, has frequently told me, a very beautiful woman, and who had consumption for fifty years, as I learned from Judge Ruffin, who spent much of his childhood with her.
They had five children, two daughters (who married Claibornes, one o fthe oldest colonial names, and one left a son, Sterling Claiborne, who was probably as able a lawyer as the Judge himself, and altogether a very remarkable man,)_ and three sons, James, William, and Sterling. James was a captain of cavalry throughout the war of the Revolution. He settled in King William, married Mary, the daughter of John Roane, Maximus Natu, of 'Uppowoc' on the Mattaponi in the same county, and died at a comparatively early age, having a large family of children. He was a man of parts and very high courage, but extreely lazy habits. Most of his children died in early manhood, and only one of them was a really prosperous man, he migrated early to Tennessee, and thence to Mississippi, and dying bequeathed to his children very large property. * * *
Of Mr Sterling Ruffin I can tell you not half as much as you probably know. He had been dead some years before I came from Mississippi to Raleigh in 1824. His wife Alice was the daughter of Thomas Roane of Newington in the county of King and Queen on the North bank of the Mattaponi, about three miles below Mantapike, and where Dahlgreen was killed in 1863. * * *
My grandfather, William Ruffin, a volunteer at the age of sixteen at the siege of Yorktown, married Margaret Ritchie, daughter of Margaret Roane, sister of the two brothers above named engaged in commerce at Fredericksburg with Hugh Campbell, who had married a daughter of Thomas Roane, and who was so crippled in business that he had to draw out. He and his brother Sterling subsequently left that part of Virginia and moved to Brunswick, where, joining the Methodist church, they became most intimate with the fathers respectively of George A Dromgoole and the Gholsons, and continued so until death.
From Brunswick they moved to North Carolina, as you know. They had both seen gay men, but they became very devout, and gave up as many of this world's vanities as most persons of their persuasion; though neither of them could surrender blooded horses as entirely as Bishop Ravenscroft did---possibly because they had obtained a dispensation from the circuit riders;---and my uncle Sterling bequeathed his to his son, the Judge, in whose family I hope they still remain. These two brothers were, as you know, devotedly attached to each other, and Judge Ruffin once told me, in proof of the fact, that his father, when dying, grasped my grandfather's hand exclaiming: 'Twin brothers; brothers by nature, and brothers in faith.' They were both in earnest. The late Governor Morehead of your State told me that he had heard my uncle Sterling 'exhort,' with the usual gesticulations of his sect, until he would sit down thoroughly exhausted, panting and wet with perspiration.
'He was a powerful man very much of the figure and face of my brother James, bowlegs included,' Judge Ruffin once said to me. My grandfather, from a defective physique perhaps, he was never robust, and for many years suffered greatly from rheumatism---or possible from other causes, was less demonstrative and exhortatory. He died when I was in my ninth year, so I remember but very little of him. But I have always heard, and from several sources, that he had fine conversational powers. At a dinner given to Mr Thomas Ritchie in Essex, his native county, in 1840, I heard that gentleman declare that whether his political principles were good or bad, he was more indebted for them, both in depth and clearness of conviction, to his brother-in-law, William Ruffin, than to any other man. Judge Ruffin told me that he was a man of fine intellect and excellent business capacity, who would have prospered in life, but for the uncontrollable extravagance of his wife.
Like many, or rather, most youths of his period, his education was defective, owing to the derangements of the war; but at the age of sixty-six he retained enough of his Latin to superintend the preparation of my daily tasks for Dr McPheeters; always preceded by the Lord's Prayer, repeated between his knees; and to him and the late Wm. Bingham, of Orange, I owed such proficiency that I took my Latin degree at the University of Virginia when I was but little over sixteen years old.
Of another branch of the family, the founder in this country, was Edmund Ruffin, also a son of William, of Isle of Wight, great-grandfather of the distinguished agriculturist of that name. He was a carpenter and made a large fortune, more, as his great-grandson used to say, than his son and grandson could spend in their short lives---they each died of gout at forty-three. I do not suppose him to have lost caste by his trade; for in the manners of that time, arbitrary and capricious there as always, a gentleman no more came to be such by following a trade, than did a Scotch Cameron by stealing cattle, or a Ruthven by attempting to kidnap a king. Archibald Harwood, of King and Queen, a first cousin of Judge Ruffin, through his mother, was made a coach maker 'because,' as the old lady told me, 'he would not learn his book,' and she was resolved he should not grow up in idleness. And Arthur Brockenborough, son of Dr Brockenborough who married a Roane, aunt of Judge Ruffin, was a carpenter--made such because he was not bright at letters---and was the superintendent of all the carpenters' work done upon the University of Virginia. All honor to their sensible parents.
It was the son of that Ruffin, the carpenter, and the grandfather of Ed. Ruffin, Sr, as we knew him, who was a member of the convention called to consider the adoption of the Federal Constitution, who on the 25th of June, 1798, voted against the ratification of that instrument along with Patrick Henry, the orator of Virginia, and with Theodorick Bland, his own colleague, Stephens Thompson Mason, William Grayson, George Mason, James Monroe, Benjamin Harrison, John Tyler, Thomas Roane, and others. * * *
This gentleman and his descendants resided on the south side of James River below the head of tide, and had all the characteristics of the people among whom they were brought up. There are other branches of the same family in the same region, of whom I knew but little; though they are not remotely allied to me. They all, however, occupy the status of gentlemen in their respective communities.
The traditions of our settlement here vary. One account is that our first ancestor was a parson of the English Establishment. Another, somewhat more ambitious, is that we are a part of the family of the Ruthvens of Pertshire in Scotland, who, attainted and driven into exile in France, returned to England on the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, whence some members of the family migrated to this country. I have no means to decide this point, nor to tell whether we are of the Noble or Scullion branch of the family---whether we are descended from gentlemen, or whether
'Our ancient but ignoble blood
Has crept through scoundrels ever since the flood.'
Your request that I will state the characteristics of the family involves me in some difficulty and more delicacy, as the people were of my own blood, and from what I knew of them, somewhat mixed in their characteristics. They have been within my range of observation, pretty thorough-going men, whether their leaning was to business or pleasure; and I have seen a good many instances of these extremes. They were almost universally high spirited, high tempered, quick to take and resent offense, but placable, except when their personal dignity was invaded or even threatened; when, though not relentless, they were unforgiving.
They have not generally been obtrusive of their opinions, though tenacious of them, and have been too independent and outspoken to make politicians, though they have generally possessed that manliness of bearing and that geniality of manner which have given them the sort of popularity which is based on respect and good will. They have always relished rural pursuits; and my father (who went to Mississippi by the advice of Judge Ruffin, very early in the present century, and landed at Fort Adams with his forty dollars and two shirts in his saddle bags), is the only one of the name I have ever heard of, who had made a fortune by trade. He g ot out ofit as soon as he could, and went to planting cotton and raising horses and cattle in Wilkinson county. Further than this I do no know that they have peculiarities which separate them very widely from their fellow citizens." [Barnes, Robert, Indexed by, Genealogies of Virginia Families, Volume IV, Genealogical Publishing Co., Inc., Baltimore, Maryland, 1981, 337-341.]

More About COLONEL FRANCIS GILDART RUFFIN, SR:
Education: University of Virginia²²
Military service: Served in the Confederate States Army^22,23
Occupation: Writer; Virginia State Auditor^24,25
Public Office: Virginia Auditor²⁶
Residence: "Valley Farm," Albemarle County, Virginia; Richmond, Virginia^26,27,28

ii. WILLIAM RUFFIN²⁹, d. Unknown.

More About WILLIAM RUFFIN:
Cause of Death: Died young²⁹

iii. MARGARET RUFFIN²⁹, d. Unknown.

More About MARGARET RUFFIN:
Cause of Death: Died young²⁹

1. Du Bellet, Louise Pecquet, Some Prominent Virginia Families, Volume I, (J P Bell, Lynchburg, Virginia, 1907), 172.
2. Barnes, Robert, Indexed by, Genealogies of Virginia Families, Volume III, (Genealogical Publishing Co., Inc., Baltimore, Maryland, 1981.), 232.
3. Barnes, Robert, Indexed by, Genealogies of Virginia Families, Volume IV, (Genealogical Publishing Co., Inc., Baltimore, Maryland, 1981.), 335.
4. Du Bellet, Louise Pecquet, Some Prominent Virginia Families, Volume I, (J P Bell, Lynchburg, Virginia, 1907), 172.
5. Barnes, Robert, Indexed by, Genealogies of Virginia Families, Volume III, (Genealogical Publishing Co., Inc., Baltimore, Maryland, 1981.), 232.
6. Du Bellet, Louise Pecquet, Some Prominent Virginia Families, Volume I, (J P Bell, Lynchburg, Virginia, 1907), 172.
7. Barnes, Robert, Indexed by, Genealogies of Virginia Families, Volume III, (Genealogical Publishing Co., Inc., Baltimore, Maryland, 1981.), 232.
8. Barnes, Robert, Indexed by, Genealogies of Virginia Families, Volume IV, (Genealogical Publishing Co., Inc., Baltimore, Maryland, 1981.), 341.
9. Barnes, Robert, Indexed by, Genealogies of Virginia Families, Volume IV, (Genealogical Publishing Co., Inc., Baltimore, Maryland, 1981.), 238.
10. Brown, Stuart E, Jr., Myers, Lorraine F, Chappel, Eileen M, Pocahontas' Descendants, (The Pocahontas Foundation, 1985), 143.
11. Du Bellet, Louise Pecquet, Some Prominent Virginia Families, Volume I, (J P Bell, Lynchburg, Virginia, 1907), 88.
12. Du Bellet, Louise Pecquet, Some Prominent Virginia Families, Volume II, (J P Bell Company Publishers, Lynchburg, Virginia, 1907), 140.
13. Du Bellet, Louise Pecquet, Some Prominent Virginia Families, Volume I, (J P Bell, Lynchburg, Virginia, 1907), 87.
14. Brown, Stuart E, Jr., Myers, Lorraine F, Chappel, Eileen M, Pocahontas' Descendants, (The Pocahontas Foundation, 1985), 143.
15. Barnes, Robert, Indexed by, Genealogies of Virginia Families, Volume IV, (Genealogical Publishing Co., Inc., Baltimore, Maryland, 1981.), 238.
16. Brown, Stuart E, Jr., Myers, Lorraine F, Chappel, Eileen M, Pocahontas' Descendants, (The Pocahontas Foundation, 1985), 143.
17. Barnes, Robert, Indexed by, Genealogies of Virginia Families, Volume III, (Genealogical Publishing Co., Inc., Baltimore, Maryland, 1981.), 232.
18. Brown, Stuart E, Jr., Myers, Lorraine F, Chappel, Eileen M, Pocahontas' Descendants, (The Pocahontas Foundation, 1985), 143.
19. Barnes, Robert, Indexed by, Genealogies of Virginia Families, Volume III, (Genealogical Publishing Co., Inc., Baltimore, Maryland, 1981.), 232.
20. Du Bellet, Louise Pecquet, Some Prominent Virginia Families, Volume I, (J P Bell, Lynchburg, Virginia, 1907), 88.
21. Du Bellet, Louise Pecquet, Some Prominent Virginia Families, Volume I, (J P Bell, Lynchburg, Virginia, 1907), 87.
22. Du Bellet, Louise Pecquet, Some Prominent Virginia Families, Volume I, (J P Bell, Lynchburg, Virginia, 1907), 172.
23. Barnes, Robert, Indexed by, Genealogies of Virginia Families, Volume III, (Genealogical Publishing Co., Inc., Baltimore, Maryland, 1981.), 232. 24. Barnes, Robert, Indexed by, Genealogies of Virginia Families, Volume
IV, (Genealogical Publishing Co., Inc., Baltimore, Maryland, 1981.), 238.
25. Brock, Dr R A, VIRGINIA AND VIRGINIANS, Volume I, (H H Hardesty, Publisher, Richmond and Toledo, 1888.), 138.
26. Du Bellet, Louise Pecquet, Some Prominent Virginia Families, Volume I, (J P Bell, Lynchburg, Virginia, 1907), 172.
27. Du Bellet, Louise Pecquet, Some Prominent Virginia Families, Volume II, (J P Bell Company Publishers, Lynchburg, Virginia, 1907), 140.
28. Barnes, Robert, Indexed by, Genealogies of Virginia Families, Volume V, (Genealogical Publishing Co., Inc., Baltimore, Maryland, 1981.), 21.
29. Barnes, Robert, Indexed by, Genealogies of Virginia Families, Volume II, (Genealogical Publishing Co., Inc., Baltimore, Maryland, 1981.), 1.