Huguenot

As I prepare to visit Harper in Spain this fall with the Goldy Girls, I am thinking about Huguenot research.  I am deleting old e-mails and decided to cut and paste some information offered by a book company to start my blog post.

The character of French emigration to the Americas was heavily influenced by religion. Following the declaration of the Edict of Nantes by King Henry IV in 1598, French Protestants were granted a wide degree of religious freedom. Given the opportunity to practice their trades and commerce, the French Calvinists (Huguenots) mostly chose to stay in  France during the 1600s rather than seek opportunities elsewhere.

This picture would change dramatically commencing in 1685, when King Louis XIV rescinded the Edict of Nantes, denying religious freedom. In response, hundreds of thousands of Huguenots fled their homeland for the safety of Protestant Europe (the Netherlands, England, Wales, parts of Germany) and the Americas. Popular destinations for Huguenot exiles along our Eastern Seaboard included New England, New York (New Amsterdam), Virginia, South Carolina, and Florida.

Of, course, what has captured my imagination about the Huguenots is the ancestors of John Sevier and his father Valentine.  Here is an URL for information about the Xavier/Sevier family that I found interesting:

https://www.familysearch.org/en/memories/memory/123450588

And another URL that takes me to my own blog post....and the answer to why I found Spain to be of interest to me for Huguenot reasons:

https://serendipityreading.blogspot.com/search?q=Sevier

John Sevier's family seems to have been living in Navarre before his father escaped to London.

There seem to be MANY trains between Barcelona and Madrid.  The high speed trains take about 3 and1/2 hours and cost about $70.  There are also trains between Barcelona and Pamplona costing about $130 and taking again about 3 and 1/2 hours.  The train between  Pamplona and Madrid is 4 hours and costs under $200.  Be sure to choose high speed train.  

Jacob Castle at Battle of Kings Mountain

Mary Kegley stated in her book Early Adventurers on the Western Waters Volume III, Part 1 The New River of Virginia in Pioneer Days 1745-1805 on pages 247-248 that Bazle Castle had said in his pension application for Revolutionary War service that he had had to stay home in 1870 because his father had gone with Virginia volunteers to South Carolina for the Battle of Kings Mountain.  However, when I looked at Bazel's application I could not find that information.  

The librarian at Boyd County who is also a Castle descendant found the information for me on Heritage Quest.  It seems that Fold3 was missing page 3 of Bazel's application.  Then I was chatting with James Castle about this and I could not pull up what the librarian had given me.  James found what I needed and sent it to me and I am putting it here so I won't misplace it again:

Page 3 of Bazel Castle's Revolutionary War Pension application.

James told me one can also access this page at a blog site along with interesting information about Bazel's time as an Indian spy:

https://beckysbridge.blogspot.com/2017/01/bazle-castle-part-2-indian-spy.html

In addition I have placed a clearer copy of page 3 in my file that is labelled Castle on my computer.

 

Young Hawkins

Over the years, I have looked at the Hawkins family found in old Rappahannock County, Virginia that includes John Hawkins and Elizabeth Mosely.  I have a data base where I have added information as I found it.  I do not have reason to believe that they are part of Hawkins yDNA family group #1 (my group), But they are living near my John Hawkins and Elizabeth Butler? who died in the same general time frame as this couple.  

Kenneth Hawkins sent me a website to look at this summer that I am just getting around to and it is VERY interesting:

https://www.johnsyoung.com/family-tree/index.html

This morning I am looking at the information about the Young family who moved from England to Barbados.... and then son, Ben, moved to Baltimore when his father died at a young age of 55?  leaving him as a orphan underage.....Ben owned land in the same vicinity as the Moravian settlement in North Carolina but seems to have moved back and forth between that land and his in-laws home in Maryland as first child, Rebecca was born in Baltimore

Why is this of interest to me?  Because John Hawkins and Elizabeth Mosely's son Thomas Hawkins Married Ann Covington whose mother was Ann Young and Thomas Hawkins and Ann Covington  named their son Young Hawkins.  

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