Gerardus Ryker ¹

  General Notes:

Gerardus Ryker was listed as a cordwainer at the time of his marriage in New York in 1762. He immigrated to Kentucky in 1780 from Berkeley Co., VA and was part of the "Low Dutch Colony" in Shelby and Henry Counties in Kentucky. He was killed by Indians in the Long Run Massacre, also known as Floyd's Defeat, September 15, 1781 near Eastwood in Jefferson County, Kentucky. From The Kentucky Encyclopedia edited by John E. Kleber (University Press of Kentucky, 1992): LONG RUN MASSACRE. The Long Run massacre was a major incident in the series of battles in which early settlers in Kentucky fought Indians and their British allies on the western frontier during the Revolutionary War. Long Run is located near Eastwood in Jefferson County, Kentucky. In September 1781 Maj. Bland Ballard discovered Indian signs near Squire Boone's Painted Stone Station, near what is now Shelbyville. He warned the settlers there and at Beargrass Station to move to Lynn Station, which was a more secure area. For unknown reasons, Boone's and several other families delayed moving for two days. When they finally left the station on September 14, 1781, they were surrounded at Long Run Creek by a large party of Indians reinforced by British soldiers under the command of Capt. Alexander McKee. An estimated sixty people were killed by the Indians; only a handful, including Squire Boone, escaped. See Lou Catherine Ciore, "Long Run Massacre,'' Register 10 (Jan. 1912): 75-6.

Gerardus married Rachel Demaree, daughter of Samuel Demaree and Leah Demarest, on 20 Nov 1762 in New York, USA. (Rachel Demaree was born on 19 Nov 1743 in Schrallenburg, NJ and died in 1814 in Madison, Jefferson County, Indiana, USA.)