Rudolph Huffman (1759-1839)

41°59’35″N  82°52’16″W (Bluewater Beach Rd.) Colchester, ON

by Debra Honor

Rudolph Huffman was the son of Rudolph and Dorothy Weiss Huffman who emigrated to America around 1750 from Darmstadt, in the Rhineland region of Germany. He was born around 1759 in Frederick, Maryland where his parents had first settled. The family later moved to Somerset Township, Washington, Pennsylvania where his father was a distiller.

As a Loyalist, Rudolph Huffman stated that he arrived in the Detroit area in 1785. He is listed on a 1785 map of Grosse Ille renting farmland from Alexander Macomb on Lot 29 of Stony Island. Settlement of Essex County had to wait until the British government signed the McKee Treaty with the First Nations in May 1790. The Land Board granted Huffman Lot 86 on 4 May 1792 which he traded the same day for Lot 48 from Charles Filpley. This property was located in Colchester Township, Essex County, Upper Canada. By the time of his death, Huffman was able to increase his property to 600 acres.

Rudolph married Rebecca Weiss and they had 9 children, five boys and four girls. Rebecca passed away sometime between 1811 and 1826. On the 8 February 1827 Rudolph married the widow of Stephen Brush, Jemima Squire Brush.

During the War of 1812, at the age of 53 years, Rudolph served as a private in the 1st Essex Regiment. On the 9 October 1839, Rudolph Huffman passed away and was buried on the family farm cemetery located on Cloverdale Beach.