ROLPH, REUBEN (1744-1807). Signer of Huntington’s 1775 Articles of Association. According to his family tree posted on Ancestry.com, Reuben was born in Half Hollow Hills, Huntington, on April 20, 1774, to Moses (1718-1791) (see) and Phebe née Smith (1718-1775) Rolph. The family tree lists these siblings, all younger: Rebecca (1747-1822); Hannah (1748-1763); Benjamin (1751-1832); Phebe (1758-1798); and David (1761-1837). As per Portrait and Biographical Record (author unknown), Reuben’s father, Moses, moved to Huntington from Rahway, New Jersey, in 1740.
As per Frederic G. Mather in his scholarly text, The Refugees from Long Island to Connecticut (1913), Rolph was a signatory to Huntington’s Articles of Association. On May 8, 1775, 403 men, most of them Huntington residents (a few were from Islip), “shocked by the bloody Scene” that had occurred just weeks before at Lexington and Concord in Massachusetts, where patriot Minutemen and British regulars had engaged in a bloody armed struggle, put their signatures on Huntington’s Articles of Association. Only 37 Huntington residents, either Loyalists or those wanting to stay out of the fray, refused to sign. The Articles noted that the signers affirmed their “Love to our Country,” agreed “to whatever Measures may be recommended by the Continental Congress; or resolved upon by our Provincial Convention, for the Purpose of preserving our Constitution, and opposition to the Execution of the several arbitrary, and oppressive Acts of the British Parliament,” and prayed for “a Reconciliation between Great-Britain and America.” The actions of these associators were seen by both patriots and the British as a step towards rebellion. The fact that these men signed these Articles, placing themselves in danger of British retaliation, including imprisonment, seizure of their property, and exile from Long Island, is proof of their patriotic service.
Reuben Rolph married Mary Elizabeth Carman (1748-1824) in Huntington on March 24, 1770. The couple had children named Hannah (1766-1824); Reuben (1771-?); Mary (1775-?); Moses (1775-1838); and Elizabeth (1779-1853). The Find A Grave website lists his marriage but only Hannah, Moses and Elizabeth as his children. The family was living in Huntington in 1775 as per New York Genealogical Records. In Portrait and Biographical Record, Reuben is cited as the grandfather of Jarvis Rolph (Moses’s son), a surveyor, town clerk, and justice of the peace of Huntington; Reuben is noted as having a house that was used as British headquarters during the American Revolution and that he and his oxen team were pressed into their service. This is confirmed in “Old Times In Huntington, An Historical Address,” by Hon. Henry C. Platt on July 4, 1876. Platt stated,
When a British officer, in command of the Hessians, took possession of the house of Reuben Rolph, grandfather of Jarvis R. Rolph, he was frank enough to tell him, if he had any money or valuables about the house, to put them out of the way before his soldiers arrived, as he had the worst set of scoundrels with him ever created. Mrs. Rolph had a purse of gold in her hand just as the Hessians marched in the gate, and in the hurry of the moment, threw it under the gooseberry bushes in the garden. She recovered it the next day, and hid it in a more secure place. Mr. Rolph lived in the eastern part of the “Town Spot.”
The 1790 census shows Rubin (sic) Rolph heading a household in Huntington consisting of one free white male over 16, one free white male under 16 and two free white females. Reuben is listed in the U.S. Tax Assessment Rolls of Real and Personal Estates, 1799-1804, as living in Huntington in 1799. He had $972 in real estate, $122 in personal estate and paid $1.90 in taxes, placing him in the top third of his contemporaries. As per the 1800 census, Reuben’s household consisted of four people-one white male over 45, one white female aged 10 through 15, one female aged 26-44 and one female over 45.
As per Cemetery Inscriptions from Huntington, Long Island, compiled by Josephine C. Frost in 1911, his gravestone at Huntington’s Old Burying Ground is inscribed, “In Memory of Reuben Rolph who died April 20, 1807 in the 63 year of his age. Ms. Frost recorded the inscriptions of many Rolphs including Reuben’s wife Mary, daughter Elizabeth, grandson Jarvis and numerous others.
