RUTHERFORD, Griffith, soldier, born in Ireland about 1731; died in Tennessee about 1800. He settled in North Carolina, west of Salisbury, and sat in the Provincial congress that met in 1775. He was a member of the council of safety, and was appointed a brigadier-general by the Provincial congress at Halifax on 22 June, 1776. In September 1776, he marched at the head of 2,400 men into the country of the Cherokees, who with the Tories had been ravaging the frontier settlements, and, in co-operation with a force that had been raised in South Carolina by Co!. Andrew William-son, killed a great number of the Indians, destroyed their crops and habitations, and compelled them to make peace and surrender a part of their lands. He commanded a brigade at the battle of Sanders Creek, near Camden, 16 August, 1780, where he was taken prisoner. He was confined at Charleston and afterward at St. Augustine until he was exchanged on 22 June, 1781, when he took the field again, and was in command at Wilmington when the town was evacuated by the British at the close of the war. He served in the North Carolina senate, with intermissions, till 1786. Subsequently he removed to Tennessee, and in September, 1794, on the creation of the separate territory of Tennessee, was appointed president of the legislative council.