Franklin County FlArchives Biographies.....Ruge, John G. July 20, 1854 - 
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Nancy Rayburn http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00025.html#0006128 January 27, 2016, 10:18 pm

Source: Vol. II  pg.160  The Lewis Publishing Co. 1923
Author: History of Florida, Past and Present

        JOHN G. RUGE. There is no family in Florida which is more closely
representative of the trade and commercial industries of the territory and
state founded upon the fisheries, and which has also contributed in a public
way to its high standing in the scheme of national waterways than that which
bears the name of Ruge. The father of John G., HERMAN RUGE, and able, stalwart,
Hanoverian of Germany, became a citizen of his adopted country at the earliest
legal date, and in 1850 founded a machine shop, a ship chandlery, and general
store at Apalachicola. His sons, John G., and George H., who were both born in
Apalachicola, were received into the business, the former in 1875 and the
latter in 1877. Although the father died in 1882 and the brother, GEORGE H.
RUGE, died in 1920, the business has been conducted for the past 47 years under
the firm name of Herman Ruge & Sons and as The Ruge Brothers Canning Company.
	JOHN G. RUGE was born in Apalachicola, Florida, on July 20, 1854. True 
to the common-sense custom of his early days, as a boy he was trained to habits 
of business and economy. One of his first experiences was as a clerk and his 
father’s hardware store. In his youth he finished a course at the Eastman 
Business College (in 1871). As stated, four years later he entered business 
with his father, and during his connection with the house, from 1875 to 1905, 
it greatly expanded in volume and variety of transactions. From 1885 to 1920 he 
held the positions of director, treasurer and manager of the Ruge Brothers 
Canning Company, packers of food products. In the latter year he retired from 
the packing business, forced to that action by the manifold activities and 
other more congenial lines which had crowded upon him. For several years he had 
served as auditor and purser of a line of steamers, was secretary of the County 
Board of Health, mayor and county commissioner, president of the Board of 
Trade, department buyer for a large New York drug house for some years, and 
representative of other eastern concerns. In a broader field, he was a delegate 
to the National Democratic Convention at St. Louis; associate commissioner of 
fisheries of the State of Florida and secretary of the board for several years; 
first vice president and one of the founders of the Southern Commercial 
Congress and a sustaining member for some time; honorary life member of 
Mississippi-to-Atlantic Inland Waterways; member-at-large of the American 
Commission for the Study of Agricultural Cooperation and Rural Credits in 
Europe (1913); member of the American Fisheries Society; member of the National 
Canners’ Association and contributed to the trade journals; and member of the
Academy of Political and Social Science of Philadelphia. Both Mr. Ruge and his
wife are prominent members of the Protestant Episcopal Church, the former
having served several times as a delegate to the triennial church conventions
from the diocese of Florida. For a number of years past Mrs. Ruge has been the
business manager of The Royal Cross, a quarterly magazine published by The
Daughters of the King, an organization of the woman of the Protestant Episcopal
Church.
	JOHN G. RUGE, although nearing the mark of the three score years and 
ten, is by no means a retired gentleman, albeit he has shifted to younger 
shoulders not a few of his most strenuous tasks. To “keep from rusting out,” as 
he expresses it, he has been engaged for the past forty years as local agent of 
the Liverpool, London & Globe Insurance Company of England; is correspondent of 
the New York Board of Marine Underwriters, as well as of Lloyds of London 
(England), and other English Marine companies; a director of the Eagle and 
Phenix Mills of Columbus, Georgia, since the reorganization, in which he was 
active; president of the Apalachicola Chamber of Commerce; president of the
North Florida Chamber of Commerce, embracing eighteen counties; vice president
of the National Rivers and Harbors Congress; director of the Atlantic Deeper
Waterways Association and the Mississippi Valley Association; and chairman of
the Florida State Canal Commission. He is and has been for a number of years a
trustee of the University of the South, Sewanee Tennessee.
	On September 30, 1890, Mr. Ruge married FANNIE FENNO FULLER, daughter 
of SAMUEL N. FULLER, of Chelsea, Massachusetts. They were united at St. Paul’s 
Church (now Cathedral), Boston. Mrs. Ruge is a woman of thorough and liberal 
education, having graduated from the Salem State Normal School and taught in 
greater Boston from 1876 to1888. Various members of her family have been 
prominent in both professional and business fields of Massachusetts. Her
great-grandfather, Rev. DANIEL FULLER, was a chaplain in the Continental Army. He
was ordained to the Congregational ministry on January 10, 1770, and served the
second parish at Gloucester, the Cape Ann Church, for fifty
grandfather, Rev. DANIEL FULLER, was a chaplain in the Continental Army. He was 
ordained to the Congregational ministry on January 10, 1770, and served the 
second parish at Gloucester, the Cape Ann Church, for fifty-eight years. His 
first degree was taken at Harford University in 1764, his second degree in 
1776, and his last public clerical act was the dedication of a new meetinghouse 
at Gloucester, December 25, 1828. Mrs. Ruge’s grandfather was a ship master out 
of Annisquam, and her father was a banker and stock exchange broker in Boston. 
With her education, family traditions and individual tendencies it is but 
natural that Mrs. Ruge should have been actively engaged in woman’s club work
and in cultural and religious movements.


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