John Rutherford Jr. was born in Burke County, North Carolina, on October 18, 1789. Rutherford donated a large tract of land to what became Rutherford College. He is mentioned in a letter from his wife, Elizabeth Camp Thornton, to Zebulon B. Vance in 1878 asking for the appointment of Dr. J. C. Whiteside as physician to the imprisoned workers on the Western North Carolina Railroad. He died in Burke County on March 13, 1880.