When did Jacob Castle move to Southwest Virginia and did he take his Indian wife with him or meet her there?

 I was cruising the internet with no particular place to go when I found an Ancestry hint about Jacob Castle.  It iis a list of possible 

I have wondered more than once about the fact that Jacob married a native American woman before he moved to Southwest Virginia.  So I decided to look at the above fact a bit more closely.  A google search shows that there is no Pellissippi River in Pennsylvania.  It is the Indian name for the Clinch River.  This would seem a bit more likely for my understanding of the story.  

I also would like to add into this post the fact that an Ancestry researcher wrote a short post that I dded to my Ancestry tree about the fact that it has been said that Jacob was Albino.  This researcher interpreted that folklore to be attributed to the fact that Jacob had German blood and was probably blond and fair and had blue eyes.  He would have seemed very white to the Indians he befriended.  I like this thought quite well.

So the question is about when did Jacob leave Pennsylvania and about when did he show up in Southwest Virginia.  There is the added idea that he was in Orange County Virginia c. 1740 when there is a land transaction and/or a transaction in which her bought a Negro woman from Jacob Stover.  Others say he was born about 1717 in the Palatinate.  He would have  been about 23 at this time if these facts are true.  By 1746 documentation is found tying him to southwest Virginia.

It is clear that he is friendly with the Indians by 1749 when Adam Harman charges him with treason.

My own gut feeling is that Jacob travelled south from PA on his own with no wife and that he took a wife from the Clinch River area of N.C., Va, TN, Ky.  Jacob was probably familiar with the entire area.  Jacob came from a Mennonite background and had lived among Quakers in PA.  His nature was to have no quarrel with any man and to be a peace loving person.  Perhaps the quarrel between Jacob and Adam Harmon caused him to spend much time away from the civilization in which Harmon lived.  And Jacob would not have looked down on the native American tribes and the people who made up those tribes.  He would have accepted them as equals and friends.

Maps of Virginia Counties by John Wood

In Dec 2022 the library of Virginia sent out a post to subscribers about the maps drawn up by John Wood c.1820. 

https://uncommonwealth.virginiamemory.com/blog/2022/12/05/a-map-of-madison-county/ 

n February 1816, the Virginia state legislature passed “An Act to provide an accurate chart of each county and a general map of the territory of this Commonwealth.” The provisions of the act were detailed and specific; each county was directed to contract with a qualified person to prepare an accurate chart of the county that incorporated boundaries at 200 poles to the inch, waterways, mountains, islands, principal roads, ferries and bridges (roads are colored red and waterways are blue), and the exact position of all the cities, towns, villages, mills, manufactories, and public houses. Beginning in 1819 John Wood served as the chief surveyor for this project and oversaw the completion of 96 counties and the drafting for six counties before his untimely death in 1822.

Among these maps held by the Library of Virginia is one for Cabell County! Is this the same map reproduced in our Heritage book for KYOWVA?  Is a copy available at MU special collections?

 

Fairfax County, Virginia

 I don't think I had ancestors in this area in this time frame, but I can't stand not to put a link in my blog to take a look at this map in the future!

https://www.arcgis.com/home/item.html?id=cca6b4a3ef644dbfa89e16b6feb515fe&fbclid=IwAR3yxd3URdAbpTD_dDcSgwkdQ0jAuJ2LT4_dt2kK91rF05co-kQOlouYHWE

Push open to view map

Marshalll Family

 As I read the book on Lunenburg County, Virginia for background to help solve the Wooten/Cochran puzzle I am finding references to my Marshall family.  Again this post is a bit of a brainstorming session with misc information as I read it. I am reading this book on Ancestry

On page 100 I find references to a land transaction in 1722:

So where is the Meherrin River?  I turn to Wikipedia:  

The part of the river that flow through Virginia lies in what his now Southhampton, Greenville, Brunswick Counties and seems to be the border between Lunenburg and Mechlinburg.  In 1722 none of these  counties would have existed.  Hmmmm this is a bit confusing Brunswick was formed in 1721 and perhaps his land was in that county?

Wooten/Cochran puzzle

  I have worked on a brick wall on my Mother's Wooten line for many years!  It is a long story.  If you want to catch up here are links to past blog posts:

http://marshamoses.blogspot.com/2013/10/wooten-in-surry-county-nc.html

The above link takes me to a blog post written in 2013.  One of the pieces of information in this post is the possibility that the surname Jordan may be connected to both Silas Wooten and also to the family of Thomas Ooten/Wooten of Surry County whose widow, Ann Stotts is later found in eastern Kentucky with second husband, John Stotts, and children Silas, Nancy, Jordan, and Levi.  I see an error in this post at the very bottom:  Silas does not witness the estate of River Jordan.  He witnesses someone else's estate and River Jordan is named in the document but is still living.

I am not adding other links today ....if you want to read more, use the search engine on the site with search word Silas.

Oh, Wait.  Here is another blog post that has some incorrect information, but furthers the story:

http://marshamoses.blogspot.com/2014/01/silas-wooten-john-hunt-isaac-williamson.html

Ok.  Today's information.  I have extra time this December as I am in Boston recuperating from a knee replacement.  While cruising on Ancestry I found Shirley Roberts.  Shirley's father and brother are yDNA matches to both Scott Wooten and David Wooten (my yDNA participants for my Wooten line).  This indicates that Shirley and I share an ancestor who had sons who connect to our Wooten/Cochran lines,

So this blog post is about the places where our mutual ancestor might have lived.  Shirley says that her own research has shown the earliest Cockeran ancestors of her father's yDNA matches to have been found in Lunenburg County. Lunenburg encompassed the area that is now Halifax, Pittsylvania, Henry, and area west.  Lunenburg was formed in 1746.  Before that the area would have fallen into Brunswick and before that into ....well it would have just been frontier in the very early days.

Halifax was formed out of Lunenburg in 1752

Remember that Silas P. Wooten enlisted for duty in Halifax during the Revolutionary War.  But it is unclear if he lived in the area or if "everyone" was going to Halifax to enlist in that time period,

The next area of interest is Surry and Wilkes County in NC.  I have long suspected that it could be possible that Silas had lived in that area before the Revolution and I have a good bit of information about that on my blog.  What is new is that in my cruising on Ancestry, I found LOTS of Cockerans/Cochrans in that area in the right time frame.  I was amazed at the number of dna matches I have on Ancestry who have this surname in their tree!

When  I used the names found in Shirley's tree of John Daniel Cockerham b. 1705 in Lunenburg County with a son Moses V. Cockerham b. 1737 in Lunenburg County I found a tree owned by Jennifer Engle that connected Shirley's Cochrans with Surry County, NC. BINGO!  This is exactly what I hoped to find!

Looking at maps I find that this area is just west of Mt. Airy on the NC, Virginia border.  So I believe we are beginning to narrow down places and times our mutual ancestor is most likely to be found.

What is next?  Certainly Moses V. Cockerham is a candidate for our mutual ancestor.  But so is his father.  Or any previous generation....or any of his brothers....no that is not true.  Shirley comes down from Moses.  So if Moses is not shared ancestor it has to be an earlier Cockerham.  So I suppose the next step is to sort out the Cockerham families found in Lunenburg County, Virginia and Surry County, NC.

So this morning I am reading Chapter III in the book:

The Cassell Family

While cruising on Ancestry, I found a reference to a book in which Hans Peter Cassel is mentioned.  Oh, my.  This is beyond interesting!  The book can be found on Ancestry.  I continue to look at my many ancestors who are found in Lancaster County, PA in the years in which the Scotch-Irish, German, and Quaker families were flocking into this very new frontier.

https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/48457/images/DutchQuakerPA-002145-i?pId=355407

Hans Peter Cassel is said to have resided at Germantown and have been the town crier for several years.  Where is Germantown?  It was located just northwest of Philadelphia.  When Hans Peter moved his family there the frontier area had not opened up yet.. Perhaps Germantown was indeed the Frontier.   I know from research on my Moore family that in the mid to late 1600 NO ONE wanted to live as far west as the Schuylkill River.  Commerce was centered around the Delaware River.  But that by the second generation the children of these original immigrants had begun to move to the "suburbs".  However, it is my understanding that these Dutch/German immigrants moved directly to Germantown.  The original 34 settlers drew lots for their land in 1683.  My Cassel family is not among them.  But it is possible that the wife of Hans Peter Cassel had relatives among them:  Abraham and Herman op Den Graeff.  If some of the Ancestry trees are correct, Hans Peter Cassel's mother had maiden name of op Den Graeff.

Ok.  At this point I am having trouble sorting out these family members from Kriesheim.  Does my Jacob really connect to this family and how do they all fit together?  I believe I have found a man with last name Castle who is willing to do yDNA testing for me and has a good paper trail to our mutual Jacob Castle who founded Castlewoods.  Plus he is an Ancestry DNA match to me.  Now I am looking for a male with Castle/Cassel surname who descends from a branch of the family that did not leave PA with Jacob.

My plan today is to cruise Ancestry for the above goal.  I will be adding "stuff" from this exercise to this post as I find it.  There is no organization to this post.  Hopefully the organization will happen after I get yDNA results.  This is more like a brainstorm event.

https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/11780/images/dvm_GenMono001194-00008-0?pId=11

This next (below) is from above book

The below is taken from this book that I am reading on Ancestry.  The pronoun He in the beginning of ths excerpt refers to Willam Penn on his visit to Kreisheim.

As I reread my post in December with the goal of doing some editing and of also refreshing my brain with what I know, I remember having thought about the possibility that our Cassel family were French Huguenots who had relocated at Kreishiem.  I have recently listened to a webinar about the Huguenots and it was stated that during the time of the massacres and persecutions in France these people moved everywhere!  The fact that one of the sons of Johannes Cassel (Arnold) married a woman of Huguenot ancestry could be a clue if I ever want to follow up on this thought.  Again remember I am brainstorming.

The next is from a post made by Brenda Reed at genealogy.com  This article is worth rereading.

https://www.genealogy.com/forum/surnames/topics/cassell/734/

Circa 1632 Yelles married a woman we know only as Mary and by her had five known children born between c1632 and 1650:HEINRICH (a Mennonite minister, possibly a bishop, settled in Germantown, Pennsylvania); JOHANNES, a weaver who converted to Quaker and settled at Germantown in 1681;YELLES, a Mennonite minister who remained in Kreisheim his whole life;ARNOLD, a Mennonite minister who settled in Germantown; and ABRAHAM who remained in Kreisheim.Due to religious persecution for their Mennonite beliefs, Yelles and his family lived in hiding, moving from town to town, though YELLES's main residence was Kriesheim and Worm, in the Palatinate. Yelles was a man of abiding faith who withstood tremendous hardships and came through his struggle with tremendous grace. His descendantsvariously spell their surname as Cassell, Cassel, Kasel, Kassel, and Castle and can be found living all across America. Yelles died in Kreishem around 1681.

Below is a map from a Google search for the Palatinate

 

I found a site on Rootsweb that gives a name for the wife of Yelles.  This is definitely not the Yelles described above,  but it is possibly the son of Yelles above if he was one of the older children.  However, this does not fit with the idea that too Yelles remained in Kreisham.

Oh, wow....this is getting confusing.  But this whether near truth or not does establish that at least someone found connection between Cassell family and op den Graeff family.  I am also thinking about what I learned about the French Huguenots last night.  I noticed that Calvin was mentioned in something that I read this morning and he seems to be connect to Hueguenots.  

And, below is a map showing the location of Worms.  Brenda Reed's blog post on genealogy.com says: 

Kresheim came to be called Kriegsheim in 1794, and today is Monsheim Kriegsheim

located seven miles west of the City of Worms on the west bank of the Rhine River in the heart of the German Lower (Rhenish) Palitinate in between the cities of Ludwigshafen and Mainz

The red marker below shows where google shows Monsheim Kreigsheim to be today.

Hmm....thinking right now that while looking for a second yDNA participant I should give some thought of if there is a proven son of the Yelles Cassel of Kreisham?  Or perhaps someone who seems very solid in this family.  I will give this some thought.

Some of the information that  have typed into the Reunion data base for Castle comes from the following site:  

https://wc.rootsweb.com/trees/110177/I55787/-/individual

The above screen shot also comes from that site and is a list of sources used by author who posted on Rootsweb