Joseph Pen Riddick or Ruddick

Owner of Jacob's Hope, Westmoreland, Jamaica from 1823 to 1834. He received compensation for the enslaved people on the estate with his mother Deborah Heath Ruddick Johnson (nee Fleming) in November 1841.

1. Joseph Pen Ruddick was one of six sons of Henry Ruddick, Esquire and Deborah Heath Fleming. He was born around 1800, based on the 23/04/1800 baptism record of two infants of Henry and Deborah. Joseph Pen had at least one son, Joseph William Pen Ruddick, baptized 12/08/1822.

2. Jacob’s Hope was also owned by Joseph’s maternal grandfather, William Fleming, from at least 1810 to 1827. Joseph’s mother, Deborah is listed with her father, William, at Jacob’s Hope starting in the 1818 Almanac (filing for 1817). Joseph appears as owner at Jacob’s Hope in the 1824 (filing for 1823) Jamaica Almanac. He is also listed in the Almanacs as owner of a property named Farm from 1826 to 1833.

3. Joseph Pen Ruddick’s father, Henry Ruddick, was in Jamaica by at least 1782. He was listed in that year's Almanac as an attorney-at-law admitted to practice at His Majesty’s Supreme Court of the Judicature. He held several official court positions in Jamaica from at least 1804. Henry’s country of origin is not clear.

4. Joseph’s mother, Deborah Heath Fleming was born 1773 in Westmoreland, Jamaica to William Fleming and Catherine Eleanor Nightingale (mistranscribed as Nagtergal at her marriage to William in 1768 in Hanover, Jamaica). Note that this is most likely the Catherine Eleanor, daughter of Henry Nightingale and Deborah (Heath) Nightingale, baptized 28/07/1749, in Hanover. Deborah married Henry Ruddick in St James, Jamaica, 21/09/1792. After Henry’s death, Deborah Heath Fleming Ruddick married William Ricketts Johnson in London, England, on 24/01/1818.

1. Familysearch.org, Jamaica Church of England Parish Register Transcripts, 1664-1880 [database online].

2. Jamaica Almanacs (1811, 1818, 1824, , 1826, 1828, 1833 via http://www.jamaicanfamilysearch.com/Samples/Almanacs.htm.

3. Douglass and Aikman's Almanac (1782), http://www.jamaicanfamilysearch.com/Members/a/a1782_05.htm; Jamaican Almanacs from 1805.

4. Familysearch.org, Jamaica Church of England Parish Register Transcripts, 1664-1880 [database online]; Ancestry.com, London, England, Church of England Marriages and Banns, 1754-1931 [database online].

We are grateful to Vilma Rudduck for compiling this entry.