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In response to a Gazette genealogy feature,
many readers submitted their family histories to be published as condensed
sketches showing the diverse roots of West Virginia's people. (The entire
submissions are being filed with the state Archives and History Library at
the Cultural Center.) Since Thanksgiving is a time of family feelings, the
reports are being printed on this holiday. Civil War horror To the family of Jesse and Lucy Baldwin of Boone County, the Civil War brought tragedy that was nearly unprecedented. Five of their sons, Andrew, John, Joel, Isom and David (my great-grandfather), enlisted - and almost before the parents could comprehend what was happening came the horrifying news of the death of the first four, who fought on the Confederate side, and the wounding of David, who fought on the Union side. He had an eye put out and was rendered lame by a bullet in his leg. Just thinking of that experience causes me much pain. No one in today's world could fathom giving up four sons to the military and having the fifth maimed. My great-grandfather Baldwin came back to Kanawha County after the war to his wife, Martha. Her grandmother was Annie (Terry) Estep, a Cherokee Indian who is buried at Blue Creek somewhere on the old O.D. Hill farm. No stone marks the spot. The small, dim, crumpled snapshot of David Morgan Baldwin, taken in uniform when he was very young, is all we have to remind us of the price he paid for his beliefs and for the new state that rapidly emerged, called West Virginia. He looks so very young that it's hard to believe he would be allowed to join the military, but we know that age was no deterrent in those times. For his honorable service, he was paid a pension of $8 per month until his death in 1908 at Cedar Grove. He is buried at Ward Cemetery, alongside his wife, Martha, who died in 1910. Amelia
Palmer Slave descendants When I started working at DuPont in 1976, one of the first people I met was Wilma Jean Higginbotham, a fellow plant employee (not the former Daily Mail reporter). Other than the last name, we apparently had nothing else in common, as I was white and she was black. We always affectionately called each other "cuz," and it brought either laughs or perplexed looks from our co-workers. One day at work, I mentioned to Wilma that I had created a family tree, and she said that she also had a genealogy created by someone in her family. We agreed to trade, and soon realized just how close we had been when we called each other "cuz." My family is traced to Amherst County, Va., in the early 1700s. Wilma's line also goes back to Amherst County, to a man named Archibald Carey - a slave owned by a Thomas Higginbotham, who died in 1835. Thomas never married, and in his will he freed his slaves. During that era, freed slaves had to either leave the state or submit a petition stating their desire to remain. This petition process was often long and tedious, with the slave having to convince the state that he was worthy to become a citizen. Archibald persevered and was eventually allowed to stay. He went on to become a successful businessman in Lynchburg. When he was freed, he chose to take the Higginbotham name, as it was one of the most respected in that part of Virginia. This was the beginning of this African-American line of Higginbothams, with many of his descendants now living in the Kanawha Valley. William Morris
Higginbotham Witchcraft trials My most interesting ancestor is the Rev. Francis Doughty, an Anglican minister in Oldsbury, England, who became part of the growing Puritan movement. His beliefs came to the notice of the Anglican Church, and in consequence, he lost his pulpit in 1636. The family decided to move to the New World, and Francis became a pastor in Taunton, Mass. - only to discover that the Puritans of New England were no more tolerant of religious differences than were their English Anglican counterparts. His beliefs on baptism were more liberal than those of the New England Puritans, and so for the second time, he was ousted from his pulpit. The family then established an English-speaking community on western Long Island, in the colony of New Netherlands, where their religious differences were not a problem with the liberal-thinking Dutch. But in 1643 an Indian uprising drove the settlers to Manhattan for safety. His daughter, Mary, wed a Dutch lawyer and politician who established a settlement in what is now Yonkers. Further Indian problems, in which Mary's husband was killed, forced the family to move to the new English-speaking settlement of Flushing, and Francis was chosen pastor of the town. In 1652, he sued the church for salary, causing a rift in the community, and Francis sailed for Virginia. Francis soon became pastor of Hungar's Parish in Accomack County. In 1654 he instigated the witchcraft prosecution of a local woman, which took place at the same time as the much-publicized Salem witch trials. Unfortunately, the fate of this poor woman is unrecorded. In 1657, the widowed Francis married again - to Anne Graves, who had the distinction of marrying the first three rectors of Hungar's Parish, Francis being the third. She was the daughter of Capt. Thomas Graves, one of the original backers of the Jamestown Colony, who arrived there in 1608. Anne and Francis then moved to Charles City, Md., living near Anne's sister and brother-in-law, William Stone, then governor of Maryland. Here again, Francis was involved in another witchcraft trial. The defendant stoutly denied the allegation and sued four people, alleging slander. The trial and lawsuits finally were dismissed because neither party appeared in court. By 1665, Francis and Anne were back in Virginia, where he established two parishes on the Rappahannock River. But he was unseated again in a dispute over the method of payment. His contract called for payment in sterling, but the church paid him in tobacco. A trial ensued, and he won his fee in sterling, but he was put out as minister. Sandra
Ferguson Chum of Washington My great-great-great-grandfather, Alexander Henderson, was born in 1738 in Glasgow, Scotland, and landed in Virginia in 1756. He was a company store manager, called "factors" in those days, for John Glassford Co. in Colchester, Va. Alexander was a respected merchant, and according to his obituary (he died in 1815) in the Alexandria Gazette, he was a "particular and intimate friend" of George Washington. Alexander became active in politics and civic affairs, serving in the House of Burgesses before the Revolution. Later he served in the General Assembly of Virginia in 1783-85, representing Fairfax County, and 1789-90, representing Prince William County. Along with George Mason, James Madison, Thomas Jefferson and Washington, he represented Virginia in determining such matters as fishing rights, trade, currency and boundary-line questions between Virginia and Maryland. The result of their efforts became known as The Potomac River Compact of 1785. One of Alexander's sons was Archibald Henderson, who became the youngest commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps, serving in that capacity from 1820 until his death in 1859. David F. Henderson Frozen at Valley Forge My great-great-great-grandfather, Jacob Allen Albert, was a private in the 12th Virginia Regiment of Foot Soldiers. He survived the bitter winter of 1777-78 at Valley Forge in Gen. George Washington's Continental Army. He fought in the battles at Brandywine Creek, Sept. 11, 1777; Germantown, Oct. 4, 1777; and at Washington's evacuation of Philadelphia. After the Germantown battle, the American troops moved into Valley Forge to prepare winter quarters. Private Albert was a casualty of the extremely severe winter and suffered frozen hands and feet and malnutrition. He was discharged on Feb. 20, 1778, from a hospital converted from a horse stable at Valley Forge. Crippled and ill, he was on his own with about $4 severance pay. He somehow made it back home to southwest Virginia. He regained his strength, but remained a cripple for the rest of his life. He died at age 99. He was a grandson of the original Albert immigrant from Germany, Jacob Frederick Albert, who arrived in America in June 1709 aboard an English ship, the first of three brothers to arrive after fleeing down the Rhine River to Holland during the last years of the 17th century. He arrived in the Carolina colony of Albemarle Sound. He was evidently indentured for five years to repay his passage. Jack H. Albert German and Cornish Dreisbachs from Germany settled in Lancaster, Pa., before the Revolutionary War as Pennsylvania Dutch farmers. Christopher coal miners came from Cornwall, England, to Johnstown, Pa., after the Civil War - then to West Virginia to amass wealth that became Lakeview Country Club and Christopher Hall of Science at West Virginia Wesleyan College. One, James, served in the West Virginia Legislature. The most famous Dreisbach was a leader in the Evangelical Church, the German roots of the United Methodist Church, and served in the Pennsylvania Legislature before being ousted because he wouldn't take a stand on the Masons. Other Dreisbachs laid out the town of Circleville, and one was a circus lion tamer, one helped invent aspirin, one became a leper surgeon and one a University of Michigan quarterback. A Dreisbach married a Behner, who taught the first president of the Philippines while setting up school systems in the islands at the turn of the century. Deeply religious social reformers, they sent their daughter to the embattled Depression community of Scotts Run in 1928 to start a Presbyterian Sunday school known as The Shack. Mary Behner went to the West Virginia University ticket office to beg tickets for her Shack kids, and Dave Christopher held her hand too long afterward. I was the last offspring of that marriage. Once, while standing in a Dreisbach Church cemetery near Lewisburg, Pa., I looked up to see an Amish buggy going by. Worlds of difference. Bettijane
Burger Civil War survivors My mother's cousin has a will written by John Liebing in 1855 in Washington County, Ohio. In the will, he named his seven living children. He stated that he himself was born in the principality of Schwarzburg-Sondersheim (in the present-day state of Thuringia, Germany). He provided for his "present wife, " Catharina, to be given each year 20 bushels of corn, 20 bushels of wheat, 8 bushels of potatoes, one sow "about 200 lbs." and "a cow in summer and bread and butter in winter." In the event of her remarriage, "she must give up the home. The cow and four chickens she can keep." The younger children were to help the two oldest until age 18. He charged the oldest sons, Henry and Carl, to go to Philadelphia to find their sister, Fredericka, "dead or alive." It seems Fredericka had been apprenticed in the household of a wealthy merchant to learn "the art and mystery of housekeeping." Liebing's son Frederick (later called Lieving) enlisted in the Union Army at Marietta in 1862. He served in the First West Virginia Light Artillery, Battery C, known as the Pierpont Battery, which fought at Gettysburg, Pa. I later found that Frederick's half brother, John Lieving, also a Union soldier, was killed at Cedar Creek. Mom's cousin told me a family story: She said that Frederick sent his soldier's pay home to his older brother to save for him. Henry instead used the money to build a house. When Frederick returned and asked Henry why he had spent the money, Henry said, "I never thought you would come back alive." They lived next to each other the rest of their lives. Frederick and Henry Lieving settled as farmers on West Creek in Mason County. They married Yonker sisters. The Lieving brothers, the Yonkers and many of their descendants are buried in the family cemetery on a hilltop at Vernon. A visit to this small, well-tended cemetery is a genealogy lesson in itself. Arline Roush Thorn Clarksburg's proprietor The Davissons were among the first settlers of West Augusta, Va. (now Harrison County, WVa.). They scouted the lands along the West Fork River and Elk Creek before 1770 and made permanent settlements in 1773. Maj. Daniel Davisson owned 400 acres where the primary part of Clarksburg is located and is known as "the proprietor of Clarksburg." He was commander of Nutter Fort during the Revolutionary War, a delegate in the Virginia House of Burgesses in 1802-03 and sheriff of Harrison County in 1817. The Daniel Davisson chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution was named in his honor. His brother, Hezekiah Davisson, was an ensign and quartermaster in Capt. George Jackson's Company, which joined Gen. George Rogers Clark's expedition against the Indians in 1781. The first meeting of County Court in Clarksburg in August 1784 was held at the residence of Hezekiah Davisson and was the first court of any kind ever held in that town. At a court held in March 1786, he was awarded a contract to build a courthouse for 90 pounds sterling. He was a justice of the peace and a member of the House of Burgesses in 1788 and 1792. He and others gave a bond of 4,000 pounds sterling on March 2, 1787, to build a state highway from Clarksburg to the mouth of the Little Kanawha River (now Parkersburg). Another brother, Nathaniel Davisson, was shot and scalped by Indians while hunting on Sept. 8, 1778, near Marshville with his brother, Josiah Davisson (my great-great-great-grandfather). Josiah Davisson (1758-1838) lived on a large farm on Brushy Fork of Elk Creek in Harrison County. The current owner, Abner Stout, a Davisson descendant, showed me an old cellar house built by Josiah Davisson about 1793. Russell L.
Davisson Same spot, 3 counties My earliest known ancestors were John Jones and his wife, Frances, who were married in Culpeper, Va., in 1775 and moved to Greenbrier County in 1776. This information was obtained from an affidavit signed by Frances Jones in her application for a Revolutionary War pension for her husband's service. The affidavit is on file in the Kanawha County Courthouse. Their residence on the Jones Branch of Peters Creek became a part of Kanawha County when the latter was formed from Greenbrier County in 1788. Nicholas County was formed from Kanawha County in 1818, thus placing the Jones residence in three different counties. John Jones was the earliest landowner in Nicholas County, having been the recipient of two federal grants of 400 acres each for service in the Revolution. This information is in Helen Smith Stinson's book, "Cemeteries of Nicholas County." Daughter Frances (Fanny) Jones married Samuel Shelton of North Carolina in 1810 when she was 18 years old. She was born in 1792, the same year that her first cousins, Betsy and Peggy Morris, were massacred by Indians 4 miles away at Lockwood. Fanny's son Winston settled on land between Jerry Fork and Jones Branch, tributaries of Peters Creek. The land had originally been owned by his grandfather Jones. He also had sizable land holdings in Clay County that had been granted to him by the Commonwealth of Virginia. Copies of the grants may be found in the West Virginia auditor's office. Winston operated a general store and post office named Winston at the confluence of Jerry Fork and Peters Creek. He served as Nicholas County sheriff in 1856 and was a captain in the 22nd Virginia Infantry during the Civil War and a state senator serving Clay, Kanawha and Nicholas counties from 1872 through 1876. Over 400 descendants have been identified, many of whom live in Nicholas and surrounding counties. John Jones, his wife, Frances, and daughter, Frances Shelton, are buried in Pratt Cemetery in Kanawha County. A marker was installed at his grave by the Daughters of the American Revolution. William
Shelton Hidden grave After several tries, I finally located my great-great-great-great-grandfather's grave in a remote cemetery in Boone County. We waded through a carpet of myrtle, with fallen trees forming beautiful moss. It was like a piece of heaven, an absolutely beautiful spot. Finding the grave was thrilling, like discovering buried treasure. A marker at the grave, erected by a historical society in 1948, says: "Philip Harless, 1760-1849. Served as Revolutionary War Indian spy 1777-1781 under Capt. Lucas. Pension claim no. 4613." He was 17 when he began spying on Indian movements, and went on to live a long life. Nancy
Lince Scotch-Irish Growing up in Charleston, I never gave my ancestors a thought until one day in the 1980s, when my father and uncle told stories about by great-grandfather, Mason Guthrie, who lived on Kanawha Two-Mile. A light went on in my 50-year-old brain, and I began to conduct research that led to the discovery of James G. Guthrie. James was born in Arbirlot, Angus, Scotland, in 1775. He immigrated to America sometime around 1790-1800 and married Elizabeth Casdorph in Kanawha County in 1801. Their descendants lived on Kanawha Two-Mile and in the area along U.S. 21 called Guthrie. My paternal grandmother was an O'Connor. Her parents, John O'Connor and Hannora Roach, immigrated from Ireland. It is believed that John O'Connor and Patrick Roach, Hannora's father, served in the Union Army around 1861. I have combed files of the Sissonville branch of the Family History Center, courthouse records, state records and made three trips to Scotland in an unsuccessful attempt to learn exactly when, where and how James G. Guthrie and John O'Connor came to America. I am still trying. Robert L. Guthrie Lost on wagon train? My great-great-grandfather, Robert Hammond, came to Harrison County around 1800, supposedly from Ireland or Amsterdam. It is said that he was age 12 when he immigrated, and he pledged seven years of work to the man who paid for his passage. Robert married and had a son in 1822. After his wife died, he remarried in 1824 and had three more children. The last record of Robert is in the 1830 census of Harrison County. It is said that he went to Ohio to catch a wagon train. I found records of three of his children living in Washington County, Ohio. The fourth never has been located. Ethel Nielsen Captured by Indians - twice A mile and a half east of Martinsburg, Opequon Creek flows by the Van Meter property, and at the junction of county routes 36 and 38 rests a stone bridge, 117 feet long and 20 feet wide. Known as the Van Meter Ford stone arch bridge, the structure was build in 1832. It was accepted on the National Register of Historic Places in 1977. The October 1985 issue of Wonderful West Virginia [magazine] says: "One of the earliest settlers in Berkeley County, John Van Meter, obtained approximately 40,000 acres of land in the lower valley of the Potomac from Gov. Gooch of Virginia in the early 1700s." To learn more of this family, we must go back to Holland. Jacob Van Meteren of Breda printed the Coverdale Bible, the first in English and one of the rarest of books. It is said that the Van Meterens who came to America from Holland derive their name from Van (of) and Meteren, a town in the province of Guelderland. The first evidence of the presence of the Van Meter family in America is contained in the list of passengers arriving on the ship Fox at New Amsterdam on Sept. 12, 1662. In the list we find Jan Joosten Van Meteren. His wife was Macyken Hendricksen. They are my ancestors. In 1682, their son, Joost Jan, married Sara du Bois of Kingston, N.Y. She was the daughter of Louis and Catherine du Bois, French Huguenots who had fled religious persecution to the Lower Palatinate in Germany, then to America around 1660. In 1663, raiding Indians captured Catherine and her baby, Sara. They were later rescued. The oldest son of Joost Jan and Sara was Jan (John) Van Meter, born in 1683. In 1705, he married the daughter of another Huguenot who had been smuggled out of Marseille in a hogshead on a vessel bound for the New World. John died in 1745 and was buried on his farm near Martinsburg. After his first wife died, John remarried and had eight more children. The youngest was Magdalena, born in 1725, who married Robert Pewsy. A newspaper genealogy column says that Magdalena, Robert and two of their daughters were captured by Shawnees. It continues: "Whatever became of the two little girls is unknown, but they probably were killed by the Indians. Pewsy and his wife were separated, and the latter was taken north to the lakes by another tribe. ... In the meantime, while Robert Pewsy was living among his Shawnee captors, he had married a squaw and had two children. ... Pewsy was allowed to return to visit his former home on Otter Creek. ... It is believed that Magdalena arrived back before her husband." Juanita S. Halstead Indians killed girls My ancestor, William Morris, was one of the first settlers of the Kanawha Valley. He came to the Kellys Creek area in the 1700s to obtain salt. His son, Henry, moved his family in 1791 to a spot that now is Lockwood, Nicholas County. The next year, his two little girls, Peggy and Betsy Morris, were slain by Indians. In 1992, our Nicholas County Historical and Genealogical Society honored their memory with an impressive service at Lockwood. Nicholas County was formed in 1818 from Greenbrier and Kanawha counties, as part of Virginia. My family has been in the county for two centuries. Many relatives are listed in the 1850 census of Nicholas County. Bonita
Bell Many blended genes Too often, people react to my interest in genealogy with: "Boring! That's just a bunch of names and dates." How wrong they are. Genealogy is the study of the people whose genes inhabit our bodies. There is history, geography and much, much more: the story of America. Yes, there are names as varied as stars up above: Givens, Wash, Yarbrough, Mansfield, Southerton, Varner, Talley, Gentry, Cole, Hill, Ring, Vernon, Rolfe, Rigrish, Folliot, Maloney, Weihle, Wilson, Hayward, Southerland, Fleming, Quigg, Bibb, Cason, Thatcher, Bicking, Wilkinson, Hansford, Dowling, Hargraves, Piersey, Draper, Aylmer, Lygon and even a Jones. Like most others, my family story contains a marvelous collection of personalities, professions and places. The earliest arrived from the British isles in the 1600s. The last to come to America were from Germany in the early 1800s. One was a member of the House of Burgesses who helped establish the College of William and Mary. One was hanged for participating in Bacon's Rebellion. His great-great-granddaughter married the great-grandson of the man who condemned him to hang! Two were in our battles for independence from England. One was of royal descent, yet arrived penniless in Virginia. He finally made peace with his father and followed his footsteps into the ministry. Several fought in the War Between the States. One, with the Army of Northern Virginia, was captured at Spotsylvania Courthouse and died a month before the war ended while a prisoner at Fort Delaware, leaving a wife and four small children. One of these children eventually married a foreman for the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway. In 1880 he was assigned to the Charleston area, so he brought his family to South Ruffner and also helped establish the Presbyterian church nearby. Their daughter married a railroad man, and in turn, their son graduated from Charleston High School in 1912, attended West Virginia University, served as a captain in World War I and went on to be office manager at the Libbey-Owens-Ford glass plant. Now his great-grandchildren are sixth-generation Charlestonians. The people of our past do not make us who we are. That is for each generation and individual to accomplish in their own way. But we can all be proud of the diversity of nations, religions and personalities that have blended in our veins to give us a chance at living today in America. Barbara Givens
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