James Johnston

 In spring 2026 Drew Atkins contacted me for a few proofs for his application for the SAR.  His patriot Is James Johnston who would be Drew's 5-gr-grandfather and also the 5-Gr-grandfather of my children.  At first I was skeptical of Drew's choice of patriot....but a little research led me to the opinion that Drew had chosen well.  James Johnston is fascinating.  Here is what I wrote to Drew:

It is really fun to know that my children and deceased husband had an ancestor who was so much at the heart of our Revolutionary War....by the way, it took extra long today to write this because I had to prove to myself that you really did connect to this man.    I found the proof with the death information for James Johnston's wife who died of old age at the age of 90.  The death register for Henry County  Virginia Vol 1 1853-1875 has death information for Joyce/Joice Johnson who died February 1856 of old age.  Her parents were John and Judith Wells.  She was born in Henry County.  And the informant for the death was David Johnson who is said to be her son.  WOO HOO!

I can not make this tree look better on this site.  If you want to see the tree on Ancestry, write me at mosesm@earthlink.net and ask for an invitation.  Specifically ask me to send you the line from my deceased husband to James Johnston.

And here are excerpts from e-mails that I sent to cousins, nephews, children nieces etc who connect to this man:

https://henrycountyenterprise.com/virginias-forgotten-founding-fathers-james-johnston/

And from Drew:  I'm going with W. James Johnston for my application — served as one of George Washington's Life Guards, an officer under Lafeyette, was at Valley Forge, wounded at Yorktown, the whole nine. I have him confirmed through DAR with good records all the way to Granny, but need the final pieces in the recent generations. 

The British had pulled out of Boston after George Washington's brilliant fortification of Dorchester Heights above the Boston harbor in March 1776 ....the night of March 4-5.....and George Washington guessed that they would head to New York next.  He was in a huge hurry to get to New York as soon as possible with his entire army.   He was anxious to get his underpaid and overworked troops moved from Boston to New York.  It was a huge undertaking!  And the trip would be arduous and dangerous…..It was then that the Life Guard were chosen.  Below is AI overview of Life Guard

 

https://revolutionmonthbymonth.blogspot.com/2026/03/march-1776.html 

https://revolutionmonthbymonth.blogspot.com/search?q=New+York

Slater, Redmon, Sprigg,

It is my birthday today and it is a particularly hot summer.  So I am sitting on my porch until it gets too hot and then I will do my errands for the day and later go out to dinner with family.  But on my birthday I am doing very little work.....or what I consider work.  So I am playing with my ancestors on my grandmother Hawkins' side in preparation for some genealogy events to be held at that Barboursville library this late summer and fall.  I have found two patriots so far and looking for more.  And as I am working on quick and dirty trees for these people, I am finding some information that I don't want to loose, but honestly they are too iffy to add to any of my trees.  So here goes:  Joseph Sprigg

this morning I am working on the ancestors of Helen Louise McKinsey.  So I have started a fan chart with Helen in the 1st generation.  Immediately I found three ancestors that I had not found in the past:  Morecai Moore whose name is on a monument in Georgia....because he was a quaker I had not thought to look at him before.  Then I found Joseph Sprigg who was in Maryland and Ignatius Taylor also in Maryland.  Ignatius Taylor is a proven ancestor on DAR site.  The newest DAR member to join with him connects to member #515406 who descends from his daughter Ann who married Joseph Sprigg.  Joseph Sprigg is also a proven patriot with the DAR.

Joseph Sprigg is said to have been born in Prince Georges County, Maryland in 1736 and died in Washington County Maryland in 1800.  Frederick County, Maryland, was founded on December 10, 1748. It was created by an act of the Maryland legislature and carved out of the western portions of Prince George's County and Baltimore County....and Washington County was formed in 1776 from the western part of Frederick County....so it is possible that this was not a move but two county changes.  

I am a dna match to 

Much to my great sorrow Suzanne is now deceased.  She did a great deal to give me a big head start on these lines as she had accomplished a great deal of research before she died.  Her best public tree is on Ancestry and I get to it by doing a search on Joseph Sprigg and Ann Taylor.  Suzanne's tree is the Lindner-Sprigg Tree.

Among the thoughts that I wanted to capture is the idea that John Redmon who married Lucretia Sprigg probably lived in Prince Georges County MD before his migration west.  

and here is a link to a book on Ancestry that is of interest:

https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/25957/images/dvm_LocHist010768-00432-1?pId=818 

The book is (in case link does not work)

Register of Maryland's heraldic families : period from 1634, March 25th to March 25th, 1935

 

Alsace Lorraine and Switzerland ancestors

I had an interesting 4th of July weekend.  In addition to lots of Revolutionary information, I received several hints about my Alsace Lorraine and Switzerland ancestors that are a part of my mother's mother's tree.  I knew my grandmother very well.  She lived with us or perhaps we lived with her.  She had grown up in Ironton, Ohio and taught school in her early adulthood.  I received e-mails from Ancestry and MyHeritage that I had new dna matches who likely connect to me or my mother through Grandmother's ancestors.  I am having trouble sending screenshots or trees or such things to the dna matches via the sites, so I am posting here the fan charts for Grandmother's mother and father as seen above.

I found that when I tried to make the charts larger on this site they were not as clear.  Then I started thinking about the fact that the connection between my dna matches might be more modern than what is in the chart.  And that means I need to work on my tree to show people who descend from my ancestors that I may not know.  I will work on this and post more.  

 

New Market to Warrenton Virginia

I had a very nice Saturday evening listening to the music played by my son's band at Huck in downtown Huntington.  Joe Randolph was also in attendance.  He was telling me about the trip he and Erin had just made to Williamsburg Virginia for a wedding.  And when he mentioned New Market road, I immediately thought of my talk on the great wagon road earlier in the month.  New Market was the location of the trading post that Valentine Sevier owned!  Is there a chance that the New Market road and the road that crossed the Great Wagon road at the site of Valentine's establishment were one and the same? Below is a copy of my slide for the Great Wagon Road talk:

On my actual slide the information is clearer and the road that crosses the Great Wagon road at New Market is labelled Route 211.  You can see by the Map below why there would have been a road between Communities in the eastern part of Virginia and the Shenandoah Valley in that particular spot.  The gap in the blue ridge Mountains is quite large there. This gap is named Thornton Gap. I think the road was already in existence when Valentine Sevier chose the spot for his trading post.  There is also a road to the west which would probably have been already in existence as well that the Indians would have used to visit Valentine's trading post to bring animal skins and etc to trade for axes, guns, etc.  

Ok.  I found my answer.  The New Market Road that Joe was talking about was specifically between Williamsburg and Richmond.  Joe sent me the road marker that explained it:

Legend indicates that the road was once an Indian trail. In the early nineteenth century, a “new market” was established in Richmond to replace the old one in Williamsburg. This road was eventually referred to as New Market Road. The 1819 Wood’s map of Henrico names a village called New Market near the current intersection of New Market and Kingsland Roads. Originally called River Road, the name changed to New Market Road prior to the printing of the 1853 Smith’s map of Henrico County. In 1976, the road was designated as a Virginia Byway.

Route 211(which would have followed the old Indian trail that forms the crossroads with The Great Wagon Road) ends at Warrenton, Virginia going toward DC rather than Richmond.  Crossroads/New Market would be located on below map just below Luray Caverns where 211 crosses I81 at the bottom of the map.  I can't help but wonder if Warrenton was on the 

 

Family group #27 of Harris yDNA and connecting families 1700s in Virginia

 In April 2026 our three yDNA matches plus Pat Harris rehashed what we had talked about in the past on the puzzle of why our family group #27 is so small and what we already know about this family.  And it was not a surprise that our consensus was that in order to figure out the birth incident or whatever happened we need to get our earliest Harris ancestors back one more generation.  I am only speaking for myself in this post, but I wanted to summarize what I am thinking so that I am not always starting all over when I look at these lines.  Here was what I was saying to the group when I decided to add it to my blog so it is easier to find in the future:

I felt that Pat and I came up with the same idea yesterday that we phrased differently….Pat was a bit more precise.  And I know it is what everyone was thinking as well….I am not going to look at the Davis match at all at this time.  What I believe we need to work on as a group is connecting our known earliest ancestor to parents……not easy, huh?  And because we have so many Harris/Harris marriages, we have to look at Wife’s Harris line as well….already we have had the good luck to find Lurita’s parents…..

Pat, I think you said that your Harris family line #10 was also found in Cumberland County…..Peter Harris married to Elizabeth Gunn ….

Hanover was formed in 1720 and you will see below (Hvr) was long and skinny...Goochland (Go) was formed from in 1728 from Henrico and was a quite large county at the time.  And Hanover and Goochland share quite a long border....and in the western parts of the county the border would have been iffy.....Goochland became smaller in 1744 when Albemarle was carved out of the Western part of the county.  And it was not until 1749 that Cumberland County was carved out of the southern half of Goochland.  And not until 1761 that Buckingham was carved out of Albemarle while Cumberland stayed the same and now adjoined Buckingham rather than Albemarle.  

So, while the more modern map shows the below, we need to be aware of the changes in the Counties as we move back in time.

So at this point we know that the general area that we are looking at had our Family group #27 as well as Lurita's family group #....hmmm do we know which family group John Harris who died in Cumberland County c.1795 and was the father of Lurita belonged to?  and Pat's family group #10 which included Peter Harris and wife Elizabeth Gunn with will 1775 in Cumberland County.

Early Cabell County

 I am working on the early settlers in Cabell County this morning and wanted to to add some links to information on the internet.  The first is an article written by Doris Miller for the newspaper in 1976:

https://sites.rootsweb.com/~wvcabell/history/guyandotte_oldest.html?_gl=1*fhy9h7*_gcl_au*ODQzODg0OTI3LjE3Njg4MzU2ODY.*_ga*MjAxNzU2MDkzLjE1ODYwMDcyMzA.*_ga_4QT8FMEX30*czZlZDE5YWU4LWFhMTQtNGM4Yi05MzJkLWQ4NTk3YWU5ODY5OCRvMTY1NSRnMSR0MTc3MjU1MjQ1OSRqNDckbDAkaDA.*_ga_LMK6K2LSJH*czZlZDE5YWU4LWFhMTQtNGM4Yi05MzJkLWQ4NTk3YWU5ODY5OCRvMTIwNSRnMSR0MTc3MjU1MjQ1OSRqNDckbDAkaDA.

There is information that this painting can be found at the Huntington Museum of Art and that the person in the foreground was a traveling French painter who was on the Ohio side of the river painting the town of Guyandotte across the river.

William Witcher and family

I started a Colonial Dames application for Sara Jane this weekend and after an entire weekend of trying different lines, I happened on to a line that was REALLY fun.  It appears that Sara Jane has Witcher connections and that William Witcher has already been recognized as a proven ancestor in the Colonial Dames.  I found her connection to be Agnes Witcher (b.1793) who Ancestry trees suggest was the wife of   Stephen Wilson.  I have found their marriage record on the WV archives site.  They were married in Cabell County VA  20 Dec 1810.   At that time Cabell County was a huge county encompassing the entire area that is now southwest WV.  

I have found Daniel Witcher in Cabell County in this time period.  In the land records three Witcher men show up 1810, 1811, 1812....Daniel Witcher Sr, Daniel Witcher Jr., Sanders Witcher.  And in 1815 my ancestor, Solomon Hensley, purchases land on Beech Fork from Daniel Witcher Jr.  It is not surprising that some of these names are found together as I believe that Solomon Hensley is married to Elizabeth Morrison who is the oldest daughter and perhaps the oldest child of William Morrison who is married to Rachel Witcher.  They are living on a beautiful farm on the other side of the Guyan River from Barboursville.  William Morrison is squatting on the land as his son does not buy it for several more years.  

My research indicates that William Witcher (the patriot in Pittsylvania County) had children between the years of 1742 and 1765.  The first four children had mother, Ann Majors: John, Daniel, Ephraim and James.  The second four children had mother Lydia Atkinson: William, Caleb, Rachel and Elizabeth.  I descend from Rachel who married William Morrison.

So my question at this point is who is the father of Agnes Witcher Wilson.  I will do some more research and sorting out and post more.  

Here is the URL for the site that seems to have answers to many of my questions that I received after a post to the Witcher Facebook site:

https://witchergeny.com/daniel-witcher%2C-jr?fbclid=IwY2xjawQKom1leHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETFCTEdobnVLN0Y5Ym44bk54c3J0YwZhcHBfaWQQMjIyMDM5MTc4ODIwMDg5MgABHg3DXB7Z6kRC_KDUYuLXDZXOAB-a5j8PwrDlcC_E_0InO2g7fEPuHZinGPZ__aem_vFfMir_DXgfUI2QC-2PKag