In 2017, I experienced a significant breakthrough in my genealogical research. For years, my cousins and I struggled to find information about my great-grandmother’s family, the Hennigs. It wasn’t until I found a record in FamilySearch that everything started to fall into place.
Sometime between 1910 and 1911, the entire family changed their surname to Hennig, which was my great-great grandfather’s mother’s maiden name. The reason for this change is listed in his son’s naturalization papers, and an excerpt is provided below.
“While said name would indicate that the undersigned is Polish, that, in fact, he is German; that by reason of the name, those with whom the undersigned associates are given to understand that he is of Polish extraction, when in fact he is a German …”
Johann Leopold Schwittkowski became John Paul Hennig.
Johann insisted that he was German because he was born in Danzig (Gdansk), which was under German rule at the time. However, his parents were Polish, and Schwitkowski, his last name, is Polish. The “owski” in his last name felt too Polish for him.
After discovering the Schwittkowski name, I uncovered a flood of new ancestors. Don’t give up! The answer is out there. Contact me if you need assistance.
You can read more about this in-depth at Schwittkowski.
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There is much information on the World Wide Web regarding my ancestor, William Bean. His is a fascinating story of pioneering strength. He was the husband of Lydia Russell; I mentioned her in my blog, Native American Heritage. You can read of her capture by the Cherokee and her freedom by Nanyehi (Cherokee: “One who goes about”), known in English as Nancy Ward. It is rumored that Lydia’s nephew, Lewis (Louis) Russell, son of George, married (or had relations with) a Cherokee, which produced descendants. But I digress…
William was born on 09 Dec 1721 in St. Stephens Parish, Northumberland, Virginia, and was baptized there.
He married Lydia Russell in 1744. Before leaving Virginia, William was a captain in the Virginia Militia and a Revolutionary War Veteran. Before settling in Tennessee, he settled in Pittsylvania (Danville) County, Virginia.
They were the first “white” settlers in Tennessee. Some say the first “European-American settlers.” William was of Scottish descent, and Lydia was of English descent.
William was a longhunter. He was also friends with fellow longhunter Daniel Boone.
Daniel Boone
Longhunter with dead deer
Daniel Boone Longhunter with a dead deer
Longhunters were explorers and hunters in the 1760s who went on expeditions for about six months into the wilderness of the American frontier. As was William Bean and his friend, Daniel Boone. They may have met by being agents for Richard Henderson, a land speculator who later played an essential role in the early settlement of Tennessee.
1769, Bean moved his family (5 to 8 children) from Virginia to Tennessee. There, they cleared land and built a cabin close to the junction of Boone’s Creek (just above the mouth of the creek) and the Watauga River, near what is today Johnson City, Tennessee. Bean camped here with Boone and was familiar with the country. He liked the secluded part of the land where he built his cabin. It was hidden from the river by high rock formations and thick overgrowth. The creek provided plenty of water from the springs. The cabin was concealed from Indians who might pass by on the river, and the mouth of the creek was marked by a large waterfall, which kept boats from entering the creek. The spot around Bean’s cabin became known as the Watauga settlement.
William and Lydia were now the first permanent white settlers in Tennessee. Their son, Russell, was the first white child born in Tennessee. Most of William’s siblings, as did Lydia’s brothers, George and John Russell, joined him. You can read more about this area, the Beans, the Russells, and the settlement at The Overmountain Men by Pat Aldermen.
William is said to have been “a man of parts,” a substantial landowner in Pittsylvania County. Members of the Bean family were prominent in civil and military affairs in the Watauga Valley for many years. The colony was outside of any governmental control, so they founded the Watauga Association. William served in the Revolutionary War from 1776 to 1780 as a Captain in the Watauga Riflemen. At the Battle of Kings Mountain, it is rumored that Captain Bean and his men scattered a band of Tories and hanged nine.
Source: Notable Southern Families, Volume 2
William Bean was one of the first patentees of the land leased from the Indians by Charles Robertson as trustee for the settlers and later secured by treaty. His name is found to the petition for annexation to North Carolina, which is in the archives at Raleigh, and was received by messenger August 22, 1776.
At the end of the Revolutionary War, William Bean was granted 3000 acres of land for his outstanding service. He decided on a piece of land in what is now Grainger County Tennessee.
William Bean was also a businessman; he built Bean Station at a significant crossroads. William built the Bean Tavern, outside of the fort, the largest tavern between Washington D. C. and New Orleans. Travelers coming from all over stopped there on their excursions. It was a bustling crossroads for the surrounding settlements in East Tennessee.
Interesting Note: Abraham Lincoln’s mother was a waitress at the Bean Station Tavern. And Davey Crockett traveled there as well.
This is a beautiful video of the history of Bean Station. It is only 7:49 minutes long but packed with information! I highly recommend viewing it.
Like Daniel Boone, his old friend and companion, Captain Bean “did not like to be crowded”. He had helped blaze the Boone trail and watched emigrants settle upon the Watauga and Holston until they numbered perhaps a thousand people, then he began to look around for a home with more latitude, and where game was more plentiful. It is a family tradition that he selected the site of Bean station because of the gap in the mountain, and because of the sulphur springs, and salt licks, which latter attracted deer and other game.
Captain Bean erected Bean Station about the year 1778. Since he had grandchildren at this date, he could no longer be considered a young man, but as this is the year of his activities against the Tories it will be seen that he was still very active in frontier military affairs. The fort is said to have been strongly built and well defended, when occasion necessitated, by the few families who settled in its proximity.
The number of years that pioneer families lived in fear and suffered the atrocities from the Indians is shown by the massacre of Jane Bean, a daughter of Captain William Bean, twenty-one years after the family had moved to Bean Station.
Jane Bean had gone to a nearby spring for the purpose of doing a washing when Indians hidden in a cedar thicket jumped out, killed and scalped her. The grave may yet be seen in the rear of a barn near the public road, and is marked with a rough stone bearing the inscription, “Jane Bean, Nov. 12, 1799,” now on the place of Mr. Ethelbert Williams, once part of the estate of the Cobbs at Tate.
The only remaining daughter of Captain Bean of whom we have record is Sarah, who became the wife of John Bowen, brother of the brave Lieutenant Reece Bowen, whose death is so graphically described by Mr. Draper in “Kings Mountain and It’s Heroes”.
There are many interesting traditions extant in this branch of the family of the early days at Bean Station.
The story goes that “on the day preceding the marriage of Sarah Bean, when all plans had been made for the celebration, John Bowen was called away to assist in quelling an Indian uprising, and the wedding had to be postponed”. Two weeks later, however, the wedding took place and after the culmination of the ceremony the groom took his bride to his cabin five miles distant from the station.
The honeymoon was spent in continuous trepidation and fear of the Indians, who at this particular time either through real or imaginary grievances against encroachments and broken faith of the settlers, were stealing into every settlement, massacring and plundering.
In the early morning Sarah Bowen would take her pail, and while her husband stood guard in the doorway with his gun, hasten to the spring for water.
One night Sarah and John Bowen were awakened by a stealthy and suggestive tapping outside the door. They arose, armed themselves with hatchet and gun and awaited the moment of attack.
Moments and hours passed and nothing more alarming transpired than the same suggestive Tap! Tap! Tap!
With dawn, the mystery of the delayed attack was solved. While dipping candles on the doorstep, Mrs. Bowen had spilled some of the tallow, which had attracted a gander one of several that Mrs. William Bean had brought her daughter the same day that she might collect feathers for a new feather tick!
When Indian danger threatened and Mr. Bowen was off on duty, one of Sarah Bean’s brothers would hasten for her, forcing her to jump astride the horse behind him, a feat shocking to the modesty, but necessary in the emergency, and dash away with her to the protection of the fort.
From David Crockett: The Lion of the West By Michael Wallis
One of Crockett’s good friends was old Major Russell’s son, George, the namesake of his uncle Captain George Russell, who followed his brother-in-law, William Bean, to Tennessee in 1770 and was promptly killed by Indians while on a hunting trip near his home at German Creek.
Lydia (Ancestor #: A132561), William (Ancestor #: A008045), and Bean Station are listed in the DAR Genealogical Research Database.
William died four months after he made his will on 06 Jan 1782.
His descendants are many and all over the country. Descendants lived in Tennessee, Virginia, Illinois, Wisconsin, Missouri, Iowa, Louisiana, and elsewhere.
As always, please do let me know if you see any discrepancies or errors. Thanks for reading!
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On October 24, 1889, more from the violent nor’easter that began on the 23rd…
A fifth vessel that met with disaster on our coast in the heavy nor’easter gale that began about sunset on the 23rd was the British three-masted schooner Busiris of St. John, New Brunswick. This vessel, manned by a crew of seven men, including the captain, had sailed from St. Mary’s, Georgia, several days previously with a full cargo of lumber for her home port.
All went well until the evening of the above-mentioned day, when the weather became boisterous, with a terribly heavy head sea, causing the schooner to labor badly. At 11 o’clock at night, some twenty-five miles east-northeast of the Currituck Beach Lighthouse, the mainmast, and mizzenmast went by the board, rendering her entirely unmanageable. She fell off into the trough of the sea and drifted before the storm, completely at the mercy of the wind and waves.
The Busiris soon became waterlogged, but the buoyancy of her cargo prevented her from sinking. At 1 o’clock in the afternoon of the following day (24th), the wreck was sighted by the lookout at the Poyner’s Hill Station (Sixth District) toward which it was being driven. Station Keeper, Capt. John Thomas Wescott, Jr. led his crew into immediate action, for it was seen that the dismasted craft must come ashore nearby and that it would require sharp work to save her crew.
Time to raise the flags at Poyner’s Hill Life Saving Station. Ships in distress, such as the Busiris, were often first spotted from the lookout tower, seen here to the left.
The apparatus cart was run out of the boat room, hauled to the beach, and, as far as possible, the gear made ready for action. An hour after being discovered, the wreck grounded some two hundred yards above the station and about the same distance offshore. The Lyle gun was soon fired, placing the shot line across the jib stay, but so far aloft that the crew could not secure it from deck, and the frightful rolling of the vessel prevented them from climbing for it.
Seeing the difficulty and not wishing to lose any time, the life savers hauled the projectile ashore and fired again. This shot landed the line within the reach of the anxious sailors, who eagerly seized it and hauled aboard the whip that the station men had bent to it. The hawser soon followed, and in a very few minutes, the gear was set up.
The crew of Poyner’s Hill Life Saving Station working with breeches buoy equipment.
A tremendous surf broke on the beach, and the vessel was lying so uneasily that it was impossible to keep the hawser taut. At the suggestion of the district superintendent, who had hurried to the scene at the first alarm, cork jackets were sent off to the vessel with the breeches buoy. This proved to be a wise precaution, every man having to be drawn ashore through the surf.
Many residents in the vicinity gathered on the beach and rendered much-needed assistance to the life savers. Men were stationed constantly at the crotch to keep it upright and at the tackle, but so heavy and sudden were the vessel’s motions that the strain could not be kept on the hawser, and its bight was often in the water.
The work of landing, though expeditiously performed considering the circumstances, was attended with much labor and trouble owing to the slack line, and it would have been difficult for the station men to have accomplished it unaided. But for the cork jacket, which enabled the sailors to keep their heads above water when the buoy dipped into the surf, the rescued men would have fared badly.
One hour was consumed in effecting the transfer. The schooner’s captain was entertained by the district superintendent until after the sale of the wreck. Others of the shipwrecked crew went to the station, where they were furnished with a complete outfit of clothing (part of which was from the supply donated by the Women’s National Relief Association) until their own wet garments could be dried.
Twenty-four hours later, they departed for their homes. The Busiris and her cargo were sold at auction November 5th for a nominal sum. The following letter received by the assistant inspector of life saving stations (Sixth District) some days after the wreck plainly indicates the value placed upon the services of the life-saving men on that occasion by the captain of the schooner:
POYNER’S HILL STATION, November 1, 1889
“SIR: I beg leave to acknowledge the gallant service rendered myself and crew of the wrecked schooner Busiris, which drifted ashore dismasted and waterlogged during the terrible gale October 24th last, by the crew of the Poyner Hill Station. Their assistance was prompt and effective, and I desire to compliment them and the United States Life Saving Service in general for the efficiency displayed on that occasion. Without their assistance, all of us would have perished. I wish to extend my kindest thanks to all. Yours, ever truly, E.L. Morris, Master of the schooner Busiris.”
Poyner’s Hill Life Saving Station. Photograph is the property of Norman & Sandi Roberts and kindly submitted by Ben Bateman. No part of this document may be used for any commercial purposes. However, please feel free to copy any of this material for your own personal use and family research.
Annual Report of the Operations of the United States Life-Saving Service for the Fiscal Year Ending June 30, 1890
Photograph of Poyner’s Hill Life Saving Station is the property of Norman & Sandi Roberts and kindly submitted by Ben Bateman. No part of this document may be used for any commercial purposes.
Martha “Mattie” Lee Chapman was born on this day in 1888. She was my great-grandmother’s sister, so my great-grandaunt.
She married Charles Hobdy Forbes at the age of 21 in Norfolk, VA. Her last year of schooling was when she was a freshman in high school. She was a housewife, a mother of two, and a member of First Baptist Church in Norfolk. Her husband was a barber and owned his own shop by 1930.
She had a fractured hip, which the coroner put as the main reason for her death, but generalized arteriosclerosis “contributed” to her death three weeks later. Her daughter died a year before her death.
There were many references to Mattie from my great-grandmother, so I presumed them to be very close.
Stay tuned for more blogs regarding the Chapman family coming soon.
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Gone too soon. This is a video of my grandaunt, my grandfather’s sister, Jeanne Wescott, 1923-1965.
There are so few pictures matching such a short life. (I’ve done my best to date the baby pictures as some were not labeled. Some of the baby ones may be of her brother. They were both born in the same place. Their eyes and cheeks were different, so I used that area to differentiate.)
She was born in Norfolk, VA. She married and divorced. She did not have children.
I feel incredibly honored to share my birthday with my great-grand-aunt, Martha Schwitkowski (Hennig), who was the sister of my great-grandmother, Clara.
Born in Wisconsin on August 25, 1893, Martha entered the world just four years before Clara, setting the stage for a rich family legacy. At just 15 years old, Martha was already making her mark by working as a teamster for a local coat shop, bravely driving a horse-drawn wagon—a remarkable feat for a young girl in those days! By the time she turned 25, she was still living with her loving parents and her seven younger siblings, embodying the spirit of family and hard work.
Just a year later, she married Stanley Budnik, and together, they built a life near her parents, raising two wonderful sons. Family continued to be at the heart of Martha’s life. When she was 55, her beloved mother Augusta moved in with them, showcasing the deep bonds that held their family together. Martha was also dedicated to her community, taking an active role in the St. Lawrence Christian Women’s Society, where she gathered with other women to pray and support one another. Additionally, she was involved in the Sacred Heart League, promoting a deeper spiritual life and devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus—her faith was a guiding light in her life.
Tragically, Martha passed away just a year after her mother. Their lives were celebrated at St. Lawrence, where their respective funeral services took place, ensuring that their memories continued to shine brightly within our family. Reflecting on Martha’s life inspires me, not just in honor of her legacy, but in gratitude for the love and strength that runs through our family’s history.
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Have you ever looked at the 1800 or 1810 census and thought, “well, this does not give me much information.” No, it doesn’t give you the specific details as in later census records, but it can tell you other things.
The 1800 census was the second census in America and was taken as of 04 August 1800. It tallied free white males and females in several age categories: under 10, 10 but under 15, 16 but under 25, 25 but under 45, and over 45. Indians, slaves, and free blacks were listed in single categories undivided into age groups.
The age breakdown of household members is far more useful than the one in 1790 census, because it can help to separate parents from children (or grandparents living with their adult children and grandchildren) and it lets you match up the offspring more accurately.
But, what if you cannot find the names of all the children? Patience is key. For instance, because of the 1800 and 1810 census, I knew that my 4th great grandfather, Daniel Logan, had a couple more children. I just never could find them. Fast forward about a decade or two and AncestryDNA® ThruLines® helped me crack my case wide open!
Meet Polly Ann Logan.
AncestryDNA® ThruLines® needs to be used as a guide, not fact. But, in most cases, they can help you connect the dots so to speak. ThruLines® shows you how you may be related to your DNA matches. But, if your tree is incorrect or their tree is incorrect, the information may be wrong. Again, use it as a guide. You know you’re related because of the DNA, but make sure you find the paper trail accurately to connect those dots.
However, Orpha has been as allusive as her mother, Abigail Soper! Orpha is on a lot of other people’s trees, but I cannot find her anywhere else. Some say she married Stephen Morey, others have Samuel Morey. I can’t find much information on either men. Orpha is a popular name in this family line, but maybe she didn’t live long or maybe this wasn’t even the other daughter’s name. Time and research will tell.
But, Polly Ann was a different story. I was able to track her down with records and find many descendants. All thanks to TruLines®!
Happy hunting! Share their stories! Tell their stories!
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On January 1, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation. However, before that, the Manumission Act was enacted in Virginia in 1782, allowing slaveholders to set slaves free in their wills.
My 1st cousin, 8x removed, did just that.
Timothy Tynes was one of the richest men in Isle of Wight, Virginia. His father, Robert Tynes, had accumulated a fortune in lands and business transactions. He built a plantation home in 1750 that still stands today. When Robert died in 1794, he left “all my whole Estate, both real and Personal,” to Timothy, his sole surviving son.
Timothy never married; he lived with some of his many slaves in the house his father had built, just outside Smithfield, where he managed his many inherited plantations. His parents and his brothers and sisters pre-deceased him. When he died, his nieces and nephews expected Robert’s great wealth to be distributed among them.
Timothy, however, had other ideas. Upon his death in 1802, his will freed every one of his 81 slaves by name and gave most of the land to them. A niece, Sarah Tynes Purdie, received one plantation, and a cousin’s son was left some land; the rest of Robert’s descendants got nothing.
Photo taken by Hope Stanley (whose husband Charles is a descendant of Robert and Mary Tynes) in February 2000, at a time when the home was for sale and visitors allowed.
Timothy Tynes’s will gives special treatment to a slave named Beck (Rebecca) and her children, suggesting that these may have been Timothy’s own offspring. Beck’s son, John, inherits an entire river plantation. Timothy also singles out slaves named Sukey, Prince, Tim, Sam, Dick Unge, and Little Charles for bequests of land or money. The rest of the freed slaves are to share a large tract of land, of which Dick Unge has been given 100 acres.
These families flourished, building homesteads, farming, and working the water in the community. Today, many descendants of the Tynes families are in Isle of Wight County.
Annual Report of the Operations of the United States Life-Saving Service for the Fiscal Year Ending June 30, 1890
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