Henry's father identified

If you miss something the first time, I guess you miss it all the time.

I recently exchanged emails with another Hastings researcher, Wilma Pinola. She told me that she had spoken with Dick Poplin (who did one of the earliest Hastings genealogies about 70 years ago) at a 2004 reunion, and he told her that Henry's father was named Joseph Hastings, who died around 1808 at the age of 100. Mr. Poplin credited T. R. Marsh, Mrs. Louise G. Brown and Ruth Cates Robinson for his information.

I had already predicted that Henry's father was named Joseph, based on Scots-Irish naming conventions of the time. (Under those conventions, Henry's eldest son Joseph would have been named for his paternal grandfather.) But my initial reaction was to dismiss it for lack of evidence. I've never seen a will or a land transfer attributable to this Joseph Hastings.

Then I looked at the censuses, and I changed my mind.

The original 1790 Orange County census has been lost, but the names have been reconstructed from old tax lists and so forth. And the 1790 census shows two men named Joseph Hastings. Now, in 1790, Henry's son Joseph (the Tory) was 33 years old.

Who is the second Joseph?

Then I looked at the 1800 census, which inexplicably shows three men named Joseph Hastings in Hillsborough, Orange County. One's a junior. (They're enumerated as "Hasten," but they are grouped with Henry, Henry, Jr., William, Robert and James "Hasten," so they're clearly our folks.)

One Joseph is is 16 to 25 with a wife and a daughter. Joseph Junior is 26 to 44 and has three sons, a young daughter, a wife and two slaves. The third 45 or older, and he's living with a female age 10-15.

Joseph Junior is certainly Henry's eldest son, who married Susannah Holloway in 1775. By the time the 1800 census was completed (around 1801), this Joseph's three oldest children (Elizabeth, Margaret and Joseph) were married and out of the house, leaving three sons (Henry, Robert and Stephen) and two daughters (Mary and Susannah) still living with their parents.

The youngest Joseph is Junior's son, who married Nancy Pittman on April 9, 1800. The only uncertainty is that I show this Joseph's first born child to be a boy (John, born January 26, 1801).

So who is the third Joseph? He can't possibly be Henry's son -- too old, and that son is well accounted for.

He's got to be the same "second Joseph" who is on the 1790 census. And I think the girl living with him is Junior's daughter Mary (born 1786, later married Thomas Thomas).

Once more, with emphasis: in 1790 there are two heads of household in Hillsborough named Joseph Hastings, and in 1800 there are three. That's one more Joseph per census than my confirmed research ever showed.

I sure wish I could find some other traces of this elder Joseph. But even without those confirmations, I'm convinced. And I've updated my family tree accordingly.

Next question: who was this Joseph?

A. B. Markham's maps

While in Washington, DC recently I managed to squeeze in an hour and a half of research at the Library of Congress, and I came across a wonderful map by A. B. Markham, showing the locations and owners of the original Orange County land grants. It's a work of art that took more than a quarter century to complete.

And it shows Henry's original 1756 grant, plus tracts purchased by his sons Joseph and William. And John Young. And a bunch of other names that will be familiar to any Orange County researcher.

Mr. Markham also drew a similar map of Wake County.

The map, which is copyrighted, is available through Mr. Markham's son, Allan. I won't post his email address (don't want to unleash the spambots), but you can find it through a Google search. It costs $12.95 plus $3.00 shipping.

It's an indispensable tool. Highly recommended.

SWAG about Henry's ancestor

One of the most frequent annotations in my genealogical notes is "SWAG." It's shorthand for a "silly wild-assed guess," and it's how I mark facts that are unproved, but based on plausible circumstantial evidence.

Henry Hastings' parentage has not been proven, at least in my opinion (and the opinion of another very knowledgeable Hastings researcher, Ruth Hasten Walsh).

So here's a SWAG that needs more research. The 1755 Orange County tax rolls (a list of "tytheables") contains an entry transcribed as William Harten. I have not been able to find a copy of the actual list, so I don't know what the handwritten entry looks like.

Then, in 1766, the will of William Asten was proved in Orange County court. In his will, William names his two sons-in-law (Peter Downey and Archibald McLeroy -- but not his daughters, and he does not mention a son.

William Asten is not listed on the 1755 list of tytheables. Could William Harten and William Asten be the same person? And could this person be a Hastings?

According to the LDS genealogy website, William Asten was born around 1709 in Prince Edward County, Virginia. (That website is a mine field of misinformation, by the way, but it's the only source I can find for him.) Virginia is certainly a plausible birth place for Henry's parents.

The first problem with this theory (besides the absence of any evidence) is that William Asten doesn't mention Henry Hastings in his will. That's not conclusive proof either way, but it's certainly impossible to ignore. (Perhaps William Asten was Henry's uncle.)

The second problem is that none of the confirmed descendants of Henry Hastings has any known connection to the Downey or McLeroy families. In fact, I can't confirm that Peter Downey ever lived in Orange County; he died in Surry County, North Carolina, on 15 Nov 1803.

I do note that, according to the LDS website, Peter Downey was born in Amelia County, Virginia, which is where another line of Hastings lived in the eighteenth century. Some researchers say that our Henry descends from the Amelia County line of Hastings, but nobody has proven it.

Remember that when Orange County was formed in 1752, it was huge, and comprised a good chunk of east-central North Carolina. So William Asten could have lived thirty or forty miles from the Hillsborough Hastings, and had no connection to them.

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.

Which Hastings was a Tory?

In October 2006 I posted an entry on Genforum suggesting that the John Hastings who on August 7, 1754, was named to work on a road in Orange County "from the Camp Branch to the Western Path in Robert Cate's dist[rict]" was Henry's brother.

I also suggested that this John Hastings was the same person whom Col. David Fanning in 1781 named a lieutenant in of the British colonial militia, and whom the "patriot" Colonel Robert Burton permitted to remain at his home "until called on." Joseph Hastings received the same dispensation. Joseph and John Hastings could be Henry's brothers, but I think it's more likely that they are his children. Regardless, they were Tories (Loyalists).

I recently found a passage in Archibald Henderson's "North Carolina, the Old North State and the New" that confirms that John Hastings was a Tory who wounded a man named Joseph Hodge during the Battle of Lindley's Mill. (Click on the excerpts to enlarge them.)

This John Hastings was a Loyalist, in a stronghold of rebellion. And the excerpt makes him out as a bit of a coward, too.

The date of this incident is not given, but it appears to have occurred on September 14, 1781, during the Battle of Lindley's Mill. In the summer of 1781 the Tory War erupted in eastern and central North Carolina between Loyalists and Whigs (rebels). On September 13, 1781, the Loyalists, under Fanning, captured Thomas Burke (the governor of North Carolina) in Hillsborough. The Whigs counterattacked the next day in the Battle of Lindley's Mill. The Loyalists turned Burke over to the British, who imprisoned him at Charlestown (Charleston), South Carolina.

In the next month, the Whigs defeated most of the Loyalists in eastern North Carolina, and the British soon abandoned Wilmington. A few days later, Lord Cornwallis surrendered his forces (including some North Carolina Loyalists) at Yorktown, Virginia, effectively ending the war.

Early in 1782, David Fanning escaped from North Carolina, ending the Tory War. The British evacuated Charlestown in November 1782, taking with them more than eight hundred Loyalist soldiers. Some of the Loyalists went to England, but most left for other British possessions, including Florida, Bermuda, Jamaica, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Ontario.

A website about the family of Joseph Hodge (the man John Hastings wounded) says that according to the "North Carolina Revolutionary War Folio," Joseph Hodge (1775-Feb 28, 1822) was wounded in Orange County on Sept. 14, 1781 by a Tory, Hastings during the Battle of Lindley's Mill. The site adds that Joseph (Hodge) and (John) Hastings later became neighbors and friends. I don't see a source for the latter statement. I note that Hodge was born in 1755, which suggests that the Tory John Hastings was Henry's son, not his brother. Henry had sons named John and Joseph, so the names match.

What does the "C" stand for?

I wish I knew. It would probably help identify Henry's ancestors.

At the time Henry was born, middle names were not always given. And when they were used, they often referred to someone else's surname -- the mother's maiden name, perhaps, or the name of a neighbor. So discovering Henry's middle name would be very useful to researchers.

The frustrating thing is that Henry had a son named Henry C., so if we knew his son's middle name, we might conclude that it's Henry's, too. But I've never found any proof of the younger Henry's middle name, or that he held himself out as Henry Junior. So the C might stand for something else.

Reading between the lines of Henry's will

Henry's will provides some basic facts, such as the names of his children -- at least the ones who survived long enough to inherit from him.

But what can we learn by reading between the lines of the will, and in light of the other facts available to us?

First, why does Henry leave his daughter Mary a note for $50 "upon" his grandson John Young? John is, by all accounts, the son of Henry's daughter Margaret, from her first marriage to Joseph Young. I assume that Henry is referring to a promissory note that John Young gave him on April 16, 1811 payable January 1, 1814, in the amount of $50. By giving the note to Mary, Henry is telling John to pay her the $50 when the note matures.

Second, Henry does not mention a wife in his will, but nearly all researchers believe that the Elizabeth Hastings who died on July 1, 1800 at the age of sixty is Henry's first wife. We are less certain that the "E.H. age 73" buried near Henry is his second wife, but I don't believe any other explanation makes sense.

The 1810 census shows Henry living with two women, one age 10-15 and the other 26-44. Neither one is old enough to be "E.H." So we know that:

1. Henry married E.H. after Elizabeth died in 1800;
2. E.H. died before the 1810 census; therefore
3. E.H. was born between 1728 and 1737 (because she was 73 at her death).

Third, the will demonstrates that Henry's son-in-law, Thomas Crabtree, is not the Archibald Crabtree who married Polly Hastings on May 22, 1813. I'm sure that Polly Hastings is Henry's daughter Mary; Polly is a common nickname for Mary.

Some researchers show that Archibald and Thomas Crabtree are the same person. I don't buy the argument. for several reasons:

• "Thomas" and "Archibald" are not the same name, or variants of each other;
• in his will, Henry refers to his daughter as Mary Hastings, not Mary Crabtree;
• Henry's will was written more than a year before Polly married Archibald, so in 1812, Archibald was not Henry's son-in-law, but Thomas was; and
• if Henry gave Mary Hastings a $50 note in his will, why would he leave a dollar to her "husband," Thomas Crabtree?

I believe the explanation is that in the early nineteenth century, "son-in-law" usually meant "stepson." I believe Thomas Crabtree is the son of Henry's second wife, E.H., from her first marriage to a man named Crabtree.

I have no idea who Thomas Crabtree might be. The 1800 and 1840 North Carolina censuses show two Thomas Crabtrees in Orange County; the censuses from 1810 through 1830 show one. I assume that the Thomas Crabtree mentioned in Henry's will was a relatively young man in 1812, but old enough to be the "caboose" of his mother's first marriage.

Nor do I know who Thomas Crabtree's father is.

But here is a really outlandish speculation: could Henry's second wife be Elizabeth Barton, the widow of Thomas Crabtree, Jr., who died in Orange County in 1774? This Elizabeth Barton is mentioned in Thomas Crabtree's will, but I find no trace of her after 1774. She had a son named Thomas (who married Elizabeth Campbell in 1792), and she was born on January 3, 1741 -- almost, but not quite, old enough to pass away between 1800 and 1810 at the age of 73.

Most researchers accept that Henry's son James married Hannah Crabtree in 1784. Hannah's parents are unknown, but only a handful of Crabtrees had moved from Maryland to Orange County by 1784 -- including Thomas and Elizabeth Barton Crabtree. Could Henry have married his son's mother-in-law?

I have no way to prove that Henry's second wife was Elizabeth Barton, but it's an interesting thought, and it would explain the identity of Henry's "son-in-law" Thomas Crabtree.

Finally, why did Henry treat his sons so generously and his daughters (except for Mary) so badly? Henry's sons each received at least $44 plus other items. Except for Mary, who got the $50 note, all of Henry's daughters received just one dollar from his estate. I don't believe it was common practice in the early nineteenth century to leave the bulk of an estate to one's male heirs, while nearly disinheriting the daughters. What's going on here? Did Henry not like his other sons-in-law?