Margaret Hastings and Joseph Young

Henry's oldest child is likely his daughter Margaret, based on her estimated birth date of about 1756.

Margaret's first husband, Joseph Young, was a patriot lieutenant who died of wounds sustained on September 12, 1781, in the Battle of Kirk's Farm. Margaret's brother, John Hastings, was probably fighting with the Loyalists that day.

In the summer of 1781, the "Tory War" broke out in central and eastern North Carolina, toward the end of the Revolutionary War. By then, the colonial government had already fled to Wilmington, and the colonists had selected their own governor, Thomas Burke. The Loyalist colonel David Fanning decided to capture Burke. On the morning of September 12, 1781, Fanning, with a group of about forty Loyalists that probably included John Hastings, united with a larger force of Scotsmen led by Col. McNeill, crossed the Deep River and headed toward Hillsborough.

The Loyalists encountered a small force of patriots at Kirk's Farm, under the command of Colonel Abram Allen and his lieutenant, Joseph Young. The Loyalists killed the lookout and then ambushed the rebels. During fighting, both Allen and Young were badly wounded. Allen survived; Young did not.

The Loyalists continued on to Hillsborough, where they captured Gov. Burke. The Whigs counterattacked the next day at Lindley's Mill, in what is today Alamance County, but they failed to free Burke. The Loyalists transported him to Wilmington, and from there the British sent him to Charleston.

The pension applications of Orange County natives Henry Ivy and James Cheek confirm that Joseph Young was a lieutenant in the light horse company of rebels commanded by Colonel Abram Allen, and that Young died shortly after the battle.

Joseph Young's will is dated September 24, 1781 and was proved in court during the November 1781 term. The terms of the will are consistent with an estimated 1756 birth date for Margaret, and a 1779 marriage to Joseph Young.

Margaret remarried in 1788, to John Adams.

John Hastings was arrested during or right after the Battle of Lindley's Mill, but escaped after wounding his captor, Joseph Hodge. Hodge became the sheriff of Orange County in 1795.

The Battle of Kirk's Farm must have created a terrible rift in the Hastings family. Henry's son John fought for the British, and his son-in-law Joseph Young died fighting the British. It may explain why John and his Loyalist brother Joseph were not part of the migration of Hastingses to Henry and Bedford Counties in Tennessee around the turn of the nineteenth century.