XIV. Chastain – Staton – Soblet

Peter Chastain was the son of GEORGE CHASTAIN and REBECCA JANE {STATON} CHASTAIN. One source cites Christian as the middle name of George Chastain, but most Chastain researchers do not use this middle name when referring to him. George was born in Buckingham County, Virginia, about 1766. Based on the age she reported on the 1850 and 1860 censuses and other information, Rebecca was born about 1772. We are fortunate in the case of George Chastain and his ancestors to have relatively detailed, reliable information – not without some gaps and even some occasional errors – about their relationships, movements, and lives. This information is not entirely free of gaps and errors, especially about how the generations fit together, but it provides an excellent foundation for our understanding of this family. Much of what follows is based on research done by members of the Pierre Chastain Family Association, which has published a very thorough book on the first five generations of the family in America as well as its European origins.¹

George Chastain was still in his father's household (in the part of Henry County that became Franklin County, Virginia) in 1779, and his name is on a May 24, 1779, list of petitioners asking that Franklin become a separate county. (Either his birth year is not accurate or he signed the petition as a teenager.) George is shown as a taxpayer in Franklin County on July 16, 1791, and on August 18 of that year he and Rebecca were married in that county.² George and Rebecca's property was situated on the west bank of Little Otter Creek, where they purchased 168 acres on April 11, 1794, and then another 80 acres on December 22, 1801. George was an active member of the Pigg River Baptist Church, a church that also counted among its members the Staton family we will shortly meet. ³

On September 1, 1803, George and Rebecca sold their 248 acres in Franklin County. Probably in the spring of 1804 they moved to Kentucky, where several of George's brothers had already gone. Here they resided first in Shelby County, where George paid taxes in May of 1805. By June 23 of the same year, though, the Chastains had relocated to the Floyd's Fork region of Henry County, Kentucky. George became a member (by letter of transfer) of the East Fork Baptist Church⁴ there on August 31, 1805, and Rebecca was made a member (by experience) the very next day. George was a leader in this church, serving as its messenger and hosting meetings in his own home. In 1809, George is listed among the county taxpayers and was taxed for owning three horses. On July 23, 1810, George and Rebecca purchased 100 acres on Floyd's Fork. In 1815, George is shown with 100 acres on Drennon's Creek (part of Floyd's Fork) in Henry County as well as with three horses again. Ten years later, he added to his land holdings a little over 100 more acres on the Little Kentucky River, two miles west of Smithfield, Kentucky.⁵

Census information from 1810 forward generally corroborates these movements.⁶ In Henry County, Kentucky, in 1810, George Chastain's name is obscured by the census taker's smudged handwriting (caused, no doubt, by his attempt to correct this name he could not figure out how to spell), but it appears to read Shateen. George and Rebecca are both listed as 26 to 45 years old, which would be correct. (He is actually about 44 years old, and she is about 38 years old.) The presence of Rebecca's father on the same sheet strengthens our belief we have the right couple here. In that same county in 1820, George's name is spelled Chasteen. A farmer, he is again listed as being 26 to 45 years old, when he is in fact about 54 years of age, but two things lead us to think that we have found the right couple again: there is a female in the right age column (45 years old and older) to be Rebecca, who is about 48 years old in 1820, and this couple is enumerated immediately next to Rebecca's father on this census.

In 1830, George is listed in Henry County under the name Shatteen. He is correctly shown as 60 to 70 years old (he is 64 years old), and Rebecca is in the proper category as well: she is 58 years of age and is placed in the column for 50 to 60 years old. For a third time, Rebecca's father is listed on the same census sheet as Rebecca and her husband are listed. This proximity actually helps us to identify both them and her father, George Staton.⁷

In early September of 1830, George and Rebecca sold all their Kentucky properties (something over 200 acres) and moved north across the Ohio River, again as George's Chastain brothers had done earlier. Their move was not to Indiana, as we might expect, but to Edgar County, Illinois. On September 27, 1830, they purchased 240 acres near Bloomfield in that county and on October 16 of that year also purchased 80 acres of public land.⁸ This location was about ten miles north of Paris, Illinois. George and Rebecca, now in their sixties, probably made this move in order to remain near their children and perhaps, as we have seen, to avoid a cholera epidemic. It is likely that the Chastains were active in the Mt. Pleasant Church in Edgar County while they lived in that county.⁹ Less than two years later, however, on May 17, 1832, George and Rebecca pulled up stakes and (following their children, including Peter, once more) moved to Washington County, Indiana, where they purchased 180 acres on September 17, 1832. Their home is said to have been on a hill east of Livonia Road, across the Lost River from the Union Baptist Church.¹⁰

Deed and census information provides hints that George and Rebecca may have experienced some health problems during the late 1830s. On March 11, 1839, they deed to their son Barnett 100 acres in language that suggests this action was in return for his support of his parents. The 1840 census for Washington County, Indiana, bears this out, and it does not record George and Rebecca by name. The only George Chastain listed is far too young for the man we are seeking (who is about 74 years of age in 1840). But there are two older (70 to 80 years of age) persons, a male and a female, living with Barnett (here called "Barnard" on the census) in Vernon Township. In fact, Barnett is the only Chastain in Indiana with a male that age in his household.

Sometime before the 1850 census, however, George and Rebecca resumed maintaining an independent household (presumably on land they had continued to own). In that year they are living, again, in Vernon Township of Washington County, Indiana, but we cannot tell where. He is correctly shown as 84 years old and she is correctly shown as 78 years old. George Chastain died in Vernon Township on May 28, 1854. He was buried on the couple's farm near the original Lost River Primitive Baptist Church, but the cemetery in which he was buried has since disappeared.¹¹ Three years later, on October 24, 1857, his widow Rebecca sold to Barnett all her land interests in the county (the couple's remaining 120 acres), and doubtless went to live with him again. The 1860 census confirms this: Rebecca is shown in Barnett's household in the northern part of Vernon Township (near Campbellsburg); she is described as being 88 years old, totally deaf and blind, and unable to read or write. According to the Chastain family histories, she died in Washington County, Indiana, on August 10, 1865, and was buried next to her husband in the cemetery on their farm.

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At this point we turn to the lines of George Chastain and Rebecca {Staton} Chastain, starting with those of Rebecca. Her father was GEORGE STATON.¹² It is possible that George was often called, or even formally named, Simeon: both a George Staton and a Simeon Staton are said to have married a woman named SALLIE¹³ {ROBERSON} STATON, who would be Rebecca's mother, and Staton researchers seem divided over this man's actual name. It is possible that he bore the names George and Simeon and that references to him use both of them. It is even possible that Sallie married first one brother and then the second when the first died, as this practice was not uncommon then. We know nothing about where and when Sallie was born, or where and when she died – except that Sallie died sometime before July 21, 1808, when George married Lydia Combs Van Cleve. Sallie and George were probably married about 1770, but we have no information about the date and place of their marriage.

We do know something about the Roberson line, however – hardly more than a list of names and dates, but more information than we have about some other lines. Evidently Sallie was the daughter of THOMAS ROBERSON (about 1718 to sometime between 1790 and October 1798, when his will was probated) and JANE MAGDALINE {LEGRAND} ROBERSON. The LeGrand line, like that of the Chastains, was Huguenot in origin. Jane was the daughter of JEAN LEGRAND, who was born in LeHaye, Netherlands, on December 5, 1694, and died on May 18, 1731. Her mother may have been named Catherine, but that is all we know about her. Jean was the son of PIERRE LEGRAND, possibly from Sedan, France, who died in Virginia on March 29, 1707. He had come to Virginia aboard the Peter and Anthony in 1700. Pierre LeGrand had married JUDITH VEREUL (daughter of JEAN VERUEL and MADELEINE DU FAY) in London, England, on July 10, 1662.

Thomas Roberson was the son of JOHN ROBINSON (as the name was originally spelled before a clerk in Franklin County, Virginia, evidently misspelled it and the family learned to be called Roberson) and TABITHA {JONES} ROBINSON. John was born in Henrico County, Virginia, about 1688 to 1692 and died in Cumberland County, Virginia, between December 11, 1767, and April 1768; his parents were THOMAS ROBINSON (born about 1670) and a woman named ELIZABETH whose family name is lost to history. Tabitha's birth is estimated to have occurred from 1694 to 1702, in either Henrico County or Goochland County, Virginia.

Tabitha's parents were EDWARD JONES and MARY {FIELD} JONES, who married Charles Scruggs after Edward Jones died – apparently sometime during the 1690s. The Jones line is unknown, but there is considerable information about the line of Tabitha Field – although some of it may be guesswork.

Information contributed to the LDS IGI names PETER FIELD and JUDITH {SOANE} FIELD as Mary's parents; they were married in Chickahominy Parish in James City County, Virginia, on October 21, 1678. Peter was born in April of 1647¹⁴ and died in New Kent Parish, Virginia, on July 24, 1707; he seems to have been affiliated with St. Peter's Church there. Since there is conflicting information about Judith's birth we cannot be sure when she was born,¹⁵ but she is thought to have died in Henrico County, Virginia, about 1703. It also seems clear that her father was HENRY SOANE (1618 to about 1666). Based on information contributed to the LDS and corroborated by evidence in Virginia land grants, Henry's wife was also named JUDITH (possibly Fuller). Both Henry and Judith were apparently from Surry County, Virginia, but died in James City County in that state. There is more information about this family in what has been contributed to the LDS, but until the conflicts in this information are resolved we cannot accept any of it.¹⁶

Henry Soane, described as a "gentleman" in the records, owned a good deal of property in James City County, Virginia. He began with a land patent for 297 acres on the east side of the Chickahominy River (Hoggsland) in November 1651, which he obtained for the transporting of six persons, including himself, his wife, his father, and his mother. Five years later, he purchased 2,200 acres on the northeast side of that river. In 1662 he added 500 acres at the head of the river for transporting 10 persons and 500 more on the northeast side for another dozen persons. It seems that his widow, Judith, continued the land purchases after Henry's death: she obtained 450 acres in March 1666 on the north side of the James River near the Chickahominy. It turns out, however, that Henry had claimed this land in return for transporting nine persons but did not take possession, and so the government granted it to his widow after her petition. If the information contributed to the LDS can be believed, the Field line is a very long one. The father of Peter Field was JAMES FIELD, who was born in England in 1604 and died in Henrico County, Virginia. The parents of James were THEOPHILUS FIELD and a woman known to us only as ALICE. Theophilus was born in England on January 22, 1574, and died in Hereford, England, on June 2, 1636. His wife Alice died after July 26 of that year. The father of Theophilus was JOHN FIELD, born in East Ardsley, Yorkshire, England, in 1519; he died in St. Giles, England, on March 26, 1588. John's father was named WILLIAM FIELD, born in Bradford, Yorkshire, England, in 1470 and died in East Ardsley, Yorkshire. William's father was also named WILLIAM FIELD, who was born in Bradford in 1388 and died in April of 1480; this man's wife was named KATHERINE, who was also born in Bradford.

The name in the next generation back was in transition to Field from the earlier Delfield or Del Field. William Field's father was THOMAS FIELD/DELFIELD, and his mother was named ISABEL. Thomas lived between 1360 (when he was born in Sowerby, Yorkshire) and 1429 (when he died in Bradford). His parents were THOMAS DEL FIELD (born in 1330, died in Bradford in 1391) and a woman named ANNABELLE, who was probably from Sowerby in Yorkshire. Three more generations of the Delfield or Del Field family males are identified in information contributed to the LDS: JOHN DELFIELD (born 1300), THOMAS DELFIELD (born 1278), and ROGER DELFIELD (born 1240).

This trip back into the 13th century takes us to the end of the line of Rebecca {Roberson} Staton, so now we can examine that of her husband George. George (or Simeon) Staton is thought to have lived from about 1735 or 1740 until sometime during the 1840s, and one account claims that he lived to be 106 years. As we shall see, the evidence for this longevity is not conclusive. Some accounts place his birth in Ireland, but I think he was probably born in Accomack County or Amherst County, Virginia. By 1786, perhaps earlier, George Staton was living in Franklin County, Virginia, where in that year he is shown on the personal property tax list with three horses and nine head of cattle. Here he and the Chastains belonged to the Pigg River Baptist church. Here he and the Chastains belonged to the Pigg River Baptist church. In 1787, George Staton was deeded land in Franklin County, and on January 4 of the next year he bought 160 acres on Otter Creek in that same county; he sold the former property to a son in 1793. On April 12, 1796, he purchased 30 acres on Gap Branch of the Little Otter River. ¹⁷

Probably between 1802 and 1804, George Staton left Franklin County, Virginia – as George Chastain also did about this time – for Henry County, Kentucky. In Kentucky, he resided for some years near Good Hope Meeting House, which was located about twelve miles from Louisville. On July 6, 1805, George asked to have his church membership transferred to a congregation in Henry County, but we do not know much more about his time in Kentucky. He is mentioned in the court order books later that year when he was responsible for laying out a road from the courthouse to the county line in the direction of Man's Lick. George Staton sold his land in Henry County in October of 1830, which leads us to wonder if he moved in with a relative at that time.

We have already considered census information from 1810 through 1830 that includes George Staton. This information seems to show George living near his daughter Rebecca and her husband, George Chastain, in Henry County, Kentucky. We can now focus on what these censuses tell us about George Staton. The situation in 1810 is slightly confused by the fact that the George Staton on the sheet (and indexed as such) is only 26 to 45 years of age, which would be wrong for Rebecca's father if he had been born about 1735 to 1740. On this same page, however, is another man whose name as written by the census taker is difficult to read but probably is also George Staton. (He is not in the index under this name.) This second man and his wife, the only persons in the household, are both 45 years old or older (and born before 1765, therefore), which seems right for the couple we are trying to identify. We can be reasonably sure that one or the other of the two men named George Staton on this census sheet is the father of Rebecca, and I believe the second one is by far the stronger candidate. (The other man may in fact be George Staton's son who bore the same name.)

Ten years later, in 1820, George Staton is listed immediately next to George Chastain. He is a farmer 45 years old or older. There is no older female, which suggests that Sallie has died between 1810 and 1820. But there is a female who is 26 to 45 years old, along with two children under 10 years of age. Unless this is a daughter who has returned to her father's household, with her children, the presence of this group raises the possibility that George Staton was married again and that we see here his second wife and their two children (or her children from a previous marriage, perhaps). This second family, if it is such, is present in George Staton's household in 1830 as well.¹⁸ Now George is listed as being either 80 to 90 years old (making him born in 1740 to 1750) or 90 to 100 years old (making him born in 1730 to 1740). Because the census taker made his mark between the two age categories, we must hold back saying for certain which age is the correct one for George Staton, but my analysis of where he tended to put his marks on this page argues for it falling in the age column for 80 to 90 years old.

George Staton's sale of his property in Henry County, Kentucky, in late 1830 corresponds with family information that George Staton lived the final years of his life with his children on Little Raccoon Creek near Ladoga in Montgomery County, Indiana.¹⁹ At the time of the 1840 census there is no George Staton residing in Clark Township of that county, where Ladoga and Little Raccoon Creek are located, and the only man named Staton who is living there does not have an elderly male in his household. Very near to this Joseph Staton, however, there is a man more than 100 years old in the household of a Joseph Ragsdale. Ragsdale may be George's son-in-law (Staton family researchers differ on this – there is almost no information about this George Staton's children), and so it could be that George is living with Ragsdale in 1840. On the other hand, it is also possible that this very elderly man is Ragsdale's own father. Thus we cannot verify that George Staton died in Montgomery County, Indiana, sometime between 1840 and 1850, when he is absent from that year's census. He is said to have been buried with military honors back near Louisville, Kentucky.²⁰ We cannot be positive that he was in fact over 100 years old when he died, but we can be sure that he was very old indeed when he died.

There is a good deal of confusion, too, about George (or Simeon) Staton's possible antecedents. In one account, he is said to have been born in Ireland, to have come to America just before the War of Independence, and to have fought in that war for seven years.²¹ Other accounts state that he descended from a Virginia family that can be traced to the first recorded Statons (perhaps originally Staunto or Staunton). I am inclined to lean toward the second of these explanations for George and his family, but there is considerable disagreement among Staton researchers even about how this line developed in America. What follows is my speculation about that topic.

Some Staton researchers believe that George was the son of Thomas Staton and Anne {Matthews} Staton. Thomas was the oldest son of a Warrington and Catherine {Hesten}²² Staton. Thomas and Anne lived in Russell Parish of Bedford County, Virginia, one of the two counties from which Franklin County was eventually created. Thomas had moved to Bedford County from Accomack County, Virginia (in Virginia's portion of the peninsula that makes up the Eastern Shore). He made his will on March 9, 1778, and evidently died a few days later as it was probated in Bedford County on March 23, 1778; George Staton was a witness to the will and participated in the sale of Thomas's estate.²³

If George Staton was the son of Thomas and Anne, he probably was born later than 1735 to 1740: Warrington's own children logically would have been born during the 1730s, given his life span. After Thomas's death, Anne moved to Amherst County, Virginia. (Both Bedford and Amherst are near to Franklin County, where we first see George Staton.) Warrington Staton lived from about 1716 to sometime between December 5, 1760, and March 31, 1761.²⁴

Warrington Staton's parents were probably Joseph Staton and Susanna {Warrington} Staton.²⁵ Susanna's parents are not known, but good candidates are Thomas and Elizabeth Warrington, who lived in Delaware during the 1740s. They – and a Thomas Steaton – were members of St. George's Episcopal Church in Indian River, about nine miles from Lewes, Delaware.

Things get a bit tangled, though, when it comes to Joseph Staton's parents. He might be the son or grandson (through yet another man named Joseph Staton) of a Joseph Staton born about 1666 and a woman named Jane {Stockley} Staton, born about 1663. Jane came from either Pokomoke, Somerset County, Maryland, or Assawoman, Accomack County, Virginia – both on the Eastern Shore. (It may be noteworthy that a Joseph Statin registered a cattle mark in Somerset County in 1686.) According to one source, Joseph and Jane were married on June 14, 1687. Jane was the daughter of John Stockley and Elizabeth {Watkins} Stockley. John was born in 1621 and Elizabeth was born about 1633-1634; they were married in Assawoman, Virginia, about 1652. John died there before August 18, 1673, and Elizabeth died there before August 6, 1707. John Stockley was the son of another man of that name, born in Stoke-on-Trent, England, about 1600. His wife was Elizabeth {Woodman} Stockley, also born in Stoke-on-Trent about 1600. The elder John Stockley was the son of yet a third man bearing that name, who was born in Stoke-on-Trent about 1570 and died in Virginia after 1620.

It is agreed that the earlier Joseph Staton (born in 1666) died in Accomack County, Virginia, in March of 1710 (his will being dated on the seventh day of that month). It is not agreed that Joseph's three youngest children were apprenticed to their older brother, named Joseph, but this remains a possibility.²⁶ The consensus among Staton researchers is that this Staton line probably traces to a John and Anne Staton who emigrated from England to America, but the precise link of the later Statons to this couple is unclear. John Staton was born in Stratford-on-Avon, England, in 1640 to 1644, perhaps to a couple named Mark Staton and Elizabeth Kirby; Anne {Matthews} Staton was born there in 1646. They were married in 1665.²⁷ Anne was the daughter of a John Matthews, born in that same place about 1614, and an unnamed wife. They were married in Stratford-on-Avon about 1640.

John and Anne immigrated to America, arriving in Pennsylvania in 1666.²⁸ They settled somewhere on Delaware Bay, perhaps at Milford in what is today the state of Delaware. Here their children, including the earlier Joseph we have discussed, evidently were born. An alternate account has Joseph and a brother already youngsters when John and Anne arrived in America. It is interesting to note that the latter account identifies the second child of this couple as a male named Simeon, which hints at a connection with the George or Simeon we are seeking. John and Anne both died in Delaware.

None of the above is proven, and some of it is probably only conjecture. There are other possibilities, too. One of the younger children of Warrington and Catherine Staton, in addition to the Thomas we have met, was a George. This George was born at about the right time – during the 1730s or 1740s – to be the father of Rebecca {Staton} Chastain, who was born about 1772. This George Staton, however, married another Anne Matthews (the third woman of that name in this narrative!), not Sallie Roberson, who was the wife of the George Staton we are seeking. It is conceivable that Anne died, after which George married Sallie. Another possibility we must consider is that George Staton was not at all connected with these Statons from Stratford-on-Avon but an entirely different Staton family. For example, a John Staton was living in Buckingham County, Virginia, by 1774; he had a son named George about whom we know little.²⁹ We have, in sum, scattered information and theories about the Statons before Rebecca's father George (or is it Simeon?) but nothing we can prove.

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Having discussed the Staton enigma we return to the Chastains – only to find a serious enigma facing us there as well. The Chastain family histories generally agree that George Chastain links up with the earliest segments of the Chastain family through WILLIAM CHASTAIN, and that is the hypothesis that the Pierre Chastain Family Association favors. I believe the circumstantial evidence for considering William the father of George is strong, but we will probably never be able to be positive about this link because documentary evidence does not exist. William's wife was named SARAH (often spelled Sary); her last name is not definitely known but was probably Barnett.³⁰ We know nothing more about Sarah. William Chastain was born in 1744 in the part of Goochland County, Virginia, that became Albemarle County in that year and Buckingham County in 1761. William and Sarah were married about 1764, perhaps in Albemarle County.

Our first definite sighting of William Chastain is a tax record in Henry County, Virginia, in 1782.³¹ This portion of Henry County, as we have seen, became Franklin County in 1786. His property was along the Little Otter River and Otter Creek, about ten miles west of present-day Rocky Mount, Virginia.³² This section of Virginia was truly the edge of the frontier during the 1780s, which may help to explain Chastain family lore that the young men of the family avoided starvation the first winter only by roasting the ear after ear of corn that they managed to gather.

William Chastain was a member of the Pigg River Baptist Church and signed a petition on May 24, 1779, asking the Virginia legislature to create Franklin County. Since he was in the militia (County Lieutenant – that is, commander – of the Second Battalion), William may have served in the Revolutionary War or in Indian fighting, but we have no record of his military service if he did. He is listed on personal property lists in Franklin County from 1786 to 1794. In 1788, the Virginia tax list shows William Chastain with two males over 16 years of age; one of them would have been his eldest son George, age 22 years, who makes his own appearance on the tax lists three years later followed by the other sons in turn. At least twice, William and George paid their taxes on the same day.

We do not know when William and Sarah died, but they probably died in Franklin County, Virginia, sometime during the 1790s or shortly after 1800: there are no Chastains listed in that county by 1803 (George has sold his land and left the county in 1804), and the large number of Chastains who have moved to Kentucky by the time George finally does leave have no older adults living with them. It is quite possible that George tarried in Virginia until his father or mother had died, after which he felt free to go west himself. On the other hand, because a daughter of William and Sarah Chastain was married in 1795 without her parents being listed, as was customary, they both may have been dead by then. We just do not know.

When we move back a generation from William Chastain, we encounter another less-than-secure link, for we cannot be sure who his parents were. We can be very sure that his father was one of the three sons of Pierre Chastain the immigrant (a man we will meet presently), but missing or destroyed records will always keep us guessing which one it was.³³ These sons were named Pierre, Jr. (who was usually called Peter), René, and Jean (sometimes called John). The Chastain family histories generally conclude that the most likely candidate is Pierre, Jr., with René a weaker candidate and Jean an unlikely one. I concur with this conclusion but feel obliged to include some information about all three brothers in case the accepted wisdom is wrong.

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PIERRE (PETER) CHASTAIN, JR., was born in Manakintown, Virginia, in 1707. A child of the union between his father and Anne {Soblet} Chastain, Peter was willed his father's original grant of 111 acres of land but sold this property on March 3, 1729 – in order to pay off a gambling debt, according to Chastain family lore – and moved elsewhere in the county. His whereabouts for the remainder of the 1730s are not known, but by 1740 he appears in Albemarle County, Virginia, where he was granted property on both sides of Hunt's Creek.³⁴ This area later (1761) became part of Buckingham County, Virginia, and peter is on a list of tithables in that county in 1764.

Peter's wife, whom he married about 1730, is thought to have been MILDRED {ARCHER} CHASTAIN, a woman who was usually called Middy. She was born about 1709, but we know nothing more abut her or her family.³⁵ Peter is the only one of the three brothers without a surviving will; as a result, the names and dates of the children of this couple are not definitely known, but Chastain researchers have come to think that the couple had at least nine sons, including William. Several of these sons were born in the 1740s, about when William would have been born, and most of them seem to have gone south rather than west as William did. Peter himself may have moved to South Carolina and died there, but the Chastain family historians list his place of death as Buckingham County, Virginia, sometime after 1775.

Thus we cannot be positive that Peter had a son named William, but there is good circumstantial evidence to support the hypothesis that connects the Chastain line we are following to Pierre Chastain, Sr, the first member of the family in America. Chastain family tradition in Indiana links Peter with having lost the Chastain homestead in Virginia, and the given names in his branch of the family are rare in the other ones. In addition, Peter Chastain's closest friend and neighbor in 1744 (when William was born) was a William Allen, and both of this man's names show up afterwards as given names in the part of the family to which we belong. So do the names George and Valentine, names of the sons of William Allen.³⁶ In fact, George Chastain's presumed father, William, seems to be the very first Chastain to bear that given name, which becomes common in the family afterwards. Another family story states that the Peter Chastain born in 1795 was specifically named for his great-grandfather, the Peter who was the son of Pierre Chastain, Sr.

The second brother, René Chastain was born in Manakintown about 1713, also the son of Pierre and Anne {Soblet} Chastain. In 1732, he married Judith {Martin} Gevedon Chastain³⁷ and died sometime in 1786 in the portion of Ninety-Six District, South Carolina, that would later become Abbeville County.³⁸ René lived in Buckingham County, Virginia, at about the same time that his brother Peter did. Since his will does not mention all of his sons, René cannot be eliminated as Peter's father, but there is no William among those who are listed there.

Jean Adam Chastain, the oldest of the three brothers, was probably born in Vevey, Switzerland, in May of 1690. His mother was the first wife of Pierre Chastain, Sr., Susanne {Reynaud} Chastain. Born about 1667 or 1668, Susanne was the daughter of Pierre (one source says Jacques) Reynaud, chief tax collector in the town of Issoudun, France, and his wife Anne {Jupille} Reynaud. Jean Chastain had two wives, Marianne (whose family name was probably David) and Charlotte Judith {Amonet}³⁹ Chastain, but, like his brother René, no known son named William. Jean died in Cumberland County, Virginia, in December of 1761. He may have been a physician like his father.

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Through one of these three brothers, most likely the one named Pierre, Jr., but usually called Peter, our Chastain line connects to PIERRE CHASTAIN, SR. Thus it is likely that Peter's mother was Pierre's second wife, ANNE {SOBLET} CHASTAIN. Anne was born in Sédan, in the French province of Champagne, where she was baptized on October 27, 1675.⁴⁰

Pierre was born in Chârost, France (near Bourges), on or about April 9, 1659, the day he was baptized. Although the Chastain family evidently lived in Chârost, it probably worshipped as Protestants in the nearby town of Issoudun. It was in the latter town's Saint Cyr Roman Catholic Church where Pierre married his first wife, Susanne, on January 27, 1687.

The Chastains and the families related to them were, broadly speaking, Huguenots, the name applied to all of the Protestant dissenters in France, whatever sect they belonged to. More strictly speaking, the Chastains were members of the Waldensian or Vaudois sect, members of which originally lived in the Piedmont area between Italy and France before being driven out by the troops of King Louis XIV. The Waldensians, named for a 13th-century evangelical named Waldo, claimed to have been converted to Christianity by St. Paul himself and practiced a religion notable for its stark simplicity. The Roman Catholic Church regarded them as heretics. When in 1655 an army was sent to eradicate them, the Dutch offered refuge. Huguenots increased in France during the 16th century, particularly after Martin Luther's teachings became better known there, and John Calvin provided his leadership of the dissenters during the first half of the 16th century. Many of the Huguenots came from the educated and well-to-do classes; in fact, many of them were aristocrats.

Repression of dissent in France began as early as 1545, and religious wars tore that country apart for decades after 1562. Flights of Huguenots began in the latter year. A famous massacre in Paris and elsewhere on St. Bartholomew's Day (August 24) in 1572 forced many Huguenots to flee for their lives and led to sporadic warfare until 1592. The royal Edict of Nantes of 1598 theoretically brought official tolerance to France, but religious freedom there was only nominal and there were always violations. Even this protection ended when King Louis XIV, under the influence of his queen Catherine de Medici, revoked the Edict of Nantes on October 18, 1685. Persecution against Huguenots mounted in France, and many more thousands of Huguenots fled the country. Most went to Germany, Switzerland, or the Netherlands. In the latter country several states invited them to migrate, and the city of Amsterdam granted them full citizenship and the right to practice their trades. From these countries, often with a stop in England, Huguenot refugees went on to a large number of locations in the New World from Canada to the West Indies (including all thirteen of the original American states). Often among the most skilled and most venturesome within French society, they brought their talents and energy to these new homes.

Pierre Chastain must have felt threatened by the upsurge in repression and hostility, because he left Chârost for Switzerland sometime between 1688 and 1692. Some researchers think that he left France primarily because as a Protestant he would be unable to study medicine in that country's universities, controlled by Roman Catholic clerics, and so went to Switzerland to study there. The evidence suggests that Pierre renounced his Calvinist beliefs in 1682 when the rest of his family did, although these same researchers characterize this act of abjuration as a mere formality that would enable Protestants like the Chastains to pay lip service to what was required while they continued to worship as they wished. In this context, and because Pierre did not return to France but continued on to England and Virginia, I am inclined to think that religious impulses more than anything else motivated his departure.

Whatever his reasons, we know that Pierre Chastain crossed the rugged Jura Mountains to Canton Vaud, Switzerland, staying first in Yverdon and then more permanently in the Baillage de Vevay on the northern shore of Lake Geneva. Here he appeared on three censuses between 1690 and 1698. Pierre had apparently left alone, but his family (his first wife, Susanne, their five children, and Susanne's mother) had joined him by 1696. At some time after September 1698, the Chastains went to The Hague in the Netherlands. They later lived in the South Holland Province town of Wallone, Leyden, where a child was born, and then left the Netherlands for London, England. It was from London that Pierre and his family immigrated to America.

Virginia had previously welcomed small groups of Huguenots, and Pierre was evidently one of those who negotiated permission for approximately 207 French and Swiss Huguenots to journey to that colony. They were the first of an estimated 700 or so Huguenots who would settle in Virginia at about this time.⁴¹ (The group also considered locations in Florida and the Carolinas.) A public collection to help pay the costs of the emigrants' trip was organized by the Archbishop of Canterbury and received support from the English royal family among others. Such interest in the Huguenots was not entirely altruistic: the skilled French Huguenots brought competition for English workers, and Church of England leaders who were discouraging dissent within England could hardly be glad to see the Huguenot dissenters worshipping so freely. In addition, there were those in England who had large land holdings in America and hoped to settle the French on their empty property – and there were those in Virginia who viewed the colony of Huguenots as a welcome western buffer against both the raids of hostile Indians and, ironically, any efforts by the even more hostile French in Canada to extend their influence into the western reaches of the colony of Virginia.

Pierre, Susanne, and their five children left Gravesend (London) on April 19, 1700, aboard the 250-ton ship Mary and Ann, whose captain was George Haws. They must have welcomed the opportunity to build their own community, and a permanent refuge, in a new land. And having quarreled with Captain Haws frequently on the voyage, the Huguenots must have welcomed the sight of Virginia when the Mary and Ann arrived at Hampton Roads, at the mouth of the James River, on July 13, 1700.

Lieutenant Governor Francis Nicholson, who was in charge of the colony, met the Huguenots personally (a mark of the importance with which he viewed these people who had attracted his monarch's support). Many of those Nicholson greeted were so sick that they could travel no further. The group had originally been destined for a site near Norfolk, but the influential William Byrd evidently persuaded Nicholson to send them instead to property he would provide about twenty miles above the falls of the James River (the future site of Richmond). Nicholson used the weak condition of the newcomers and the unhealthy climate of the Norfolk area in order to justify the change in plans, adding that in the new location the Huguenots would serve as a convenient buffer against the western Indians. The new destination, called Manakintown, was some seventy miles from the ocean. Once it had been the site of a Monacan Indian settlement, until these particular Indians had been driven westward and virtually wiped out.

To create Manakintown, Virginia set aside 10,000 acres on the south bank of the James River.⁴² Byrd, fellow Council member Benjamin Harrison, and some soldiers personally escorted many of the refugees from Jamestown (still Virginia's capital) up the river to their new home. The party covered the twenty miles on foot; perhaps that was a good thing, actually, since the baggage they put aboard one boat was mostly lost when it capsized in the James River. Some of the Huguenots evidently chose to remain in the Jamestown area, or remained too ill to travel, but Pierre Chastain and his family were among the 120 or so persons who headed up the James River to their new home.

Byrd had been generous to donate this land, but in truth there was no real town at Manakin, only a few huts, some semi-cleared land the Indians had used for their slash-and-burn style of agriculture, and miles of forested acres around the Huguenots' new home.⁴³ In addition, the site was not only physically remote and isolated but inconveniently located above the fall line and so (at a time when the river was the only real roadway) was without direct access to the tidewater, the ocean, and trading opportunities. In actuality, Manakintown was at the edge of the Virginia frontier, on the very fringe of North American civilization in 1700.

Arriving in midsummer after most of the crops should have been planted, the Huguenots faced a bleak future. Moreover, the extra travel to the site of Manakintown and other immediate needs had depleted the Huguenots' modest common fund and they had to sell some of their property for a little money. Byrd and some other Virginians also made contributions to help the group with its immediate needs and through the winter ahead, and the Virginia legislature allotted the newcomers a small ration of cornmeal from Byrd's mill. The needs grew when a second large group, having arrived on the Peter and Anthony, showed up just as the season was changing. The winter was a trying period, and many of the Huguenots died. Dissension and inadequate leadership also took a toll on the morale of the newcomers. Among those who did not survive the scarcity, discomfort, and disease of that first winter were Pierre's first wife Susanne and some of their five children. Additional aid came in 1701 and 1702 from both London and Virginia, and the worst period was over.

The refugees, for the most part urban tradesmen, craftsmen, and professionals (like Pierre, a physician), struggled to learn how to farm, and in time the basically fertile soil would begin to produce. By 1706 about half of the 10,000 acres was divided among the settlers, usually, in the French manner, in 133-acre lots fifty paces wide that stretched far back from the James. There were additional allotments of undistributed land by 1710. A square little village, also in the French style, was laid out as a home for the farmers. The Huguenots began to raise fruit, grapes for wine, flax for linen, and cattle, but like the rest of Virginia they soon turned to tobacco – and slave labor. The tobacco they floated downriver and traded for other goods, and so the community succeeded.

In return for agreeing to settle at Manakintown, the Huguenots had received some concessions. They received full citizenship immediately, provided they took the prescribed oath. (War between England and France in 1704 accelerated the process of naturalizing the Huguenots.) They were granted freedom of worship, were permitted to engage their own clergy, and were made exempt from all but parish taxes for seven years. Like most French Protestants who settled under the English flag, the Virginia Huguenots were quite comfortable in the Church of England. The Manakintown settlement was made into a separate and autonomous Anglican parish, the Parish of King William.⁴⁴ These were significant concessions from a colony that had remained a closed society for nearly a century, and the arrival of the Huguenots in 1700 is regarded as a major turning point in Virginia's progress toward religious freedom. All in all, the Huguenots probably considered the bargain a good one, despite their hardships and sacrifices.

Like all the other adult males among the settlers, Pierre Chastain received 133 acres when the 10,000 acres was divided among them. His narrow strip of property stretching back from river frontage adjoined the parson's glebe land. As some of the other first settlers moved on, Pierre added to his first property some additional land on the south side of the James River: first 111 acres (on March 23, 1715) and then a little over 379 more acres on the west side of Jones Creek southwest of Manakintown (on July 9, 1724). Sometime after 1705 he also obtained approximately 574 acres on Lower Manakin Creek, now apparently renamed Bernards Creek. At the time of his death Pierre Chastain owned something over 1,000 acres, along with a slave named Robert. (The acreage mentioned was then in Henrico County, was later in Goochland and Cumberland Counties, and is now in Powhatan County. Virginia.)

Pierre is usually described as a physician, in both Europe and Virginia, and the collection taken to support the Huguenots' immigration to America included some funds for medicines and medical instruments that he could take to their new home. In fact, in France he was a "surgeon," who performed such routine tasks as drawing blood, dressing wounds, helping with births – and cutting hair, which probably accounts for his frequent depiction as a barber and wigmaker. Pierre's ancestors on both sides of his family evidently had also engaged in this profession before him. How much advanced medical training, if any, he received in Switzerland Contemporary records confirm that Pierre continued to practice as a physician in Virginia.

Pierre seems to have been regarded as one of the new community's leaders. He was listed near the top of the roster of those arriving and apparently served as a civil magistrate. One visitor in 1702 described him as "Captain" Chastain, and several surviving documents use the same term. It may reflect either his nominal title in the county militia or a courtesy title of some sort. It is clear, however, that Pierre Chastain had considerable influence among the Huguenots. One sign of this is that Pierre served in the first vestry of King William Parish (about 1701) and also as one of its two church wardens. This brought him an important role, as the parish calculated and collected the annual tithe, disbursed funds, and in many ways served as the community's local government. The fact that the church was also the center of Huguenot life in Manakintown drives home how high his prestige must have been. The Huguenot community soon became widely known for its "piety, thrift, and successful industry." The refugees, many of them intellectuals and other leaders of French society before they fled, also gained a reputation for culture and intelligence. In later years the French Huguenots who arrived in 1700 produced a disproportionate share of the leadership of colonial Virginia.

As more and more English (and slaves) moved into the community, its distinctiveness began to disappear and the French Huguenots became assimilated into the surrounding culture. In some ways, the changes in Manakintown epitomized the transition many immigrant communities in America have made throughout our history. Services at the Anglican church, originally held entirely in French, later were divided between those in French and (increasingly) those in English, a sign of growing tension between the two groups. Many of the refugees never learned English, but by the second "new" generation, it was difficult to find French speakers and writers in Manakintown. (Virginia's government soon required the refugees to communicate with it only in English.)

Some of the original settlers sold to English, and many of the children of those settlers began to scatter across Virginia and beyond. The original village also disappeared by about 1750 as the need to huddle together against the environment and possible Indian attacks disappeared and the French learned how their concept of the village clashed with farming realities in America, or at least in the South. Today there is little to evoke what the isolated community of French refugees must have been like. The original church is gone, too, although a more recent structure housing the Manakin Episcopal Church does stand on the same site. Pierre's house, somewhat dwarfed by a more modern brick addition, still exists, however.⁴⁵

After Susanne died, sometime between February of 1701 and November 10 of that year), Pierre married again. His second wife, whom he wed on the latter date, was Anne {Soblet} Chastain. She was born about 1674 and lived until April 3, 1723, when she died in Manakintown.⁴⁶ Following Anne's death Pierre was married still one more time, to Mary Magdalene {Verrueil} Chastain, the widow of Antoine Trabue. This marriage took place between May 19, 1724, and October 3, 1726. Mary survived him.⁴⁷ Pierre had no children with Mary, but from his three sons with his first two wives came the very large Chastain family that is especially prominent in parts of the South and in Indiana.

Pierre Chastain, Sr., died in Virginia sometime between October 3, 1728, when he made his will in Goochland County, and November 20, 1728, when it was probated there. He was buried on what is now called Monacan Farm, which lies between the river and Manakin Episcopal Church. In 1982, members of the Pierre Chastain Family Association cleared and marked the grave site, which is a few hundred yards from Pierre's house.⁴⁸

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Anne was the daughter of ABRAHAM SOBLET⁴⁹ and SUSANNAH {BRIAN} SOBLET. They, too, were Huguenot refugees but from Sédan, in Champagne. Here religious toleration survived the longest in France because from medieval times until 1685 Sédan functioned as an independent principality within France. It may even have had a majority of Protestants. Abraham was born in Sédan, France, on December 4, 1648, and was baptized there two days later; Susannah was born about 1652. Abraham and Susannah were married in Sédan on March 31, 1674.⁵⁰

The Soblets took a somewhat different route to Virginia than the Chastains did. They had arrived in Sédan only in 1637 (their original domicile is unknown). They fled to Protestant Germany sometime between 1681 and 1686; here they lived in Mannheim and then in Wesel. Abraham joined the army of the Dutch sovereign, William of Orange. The army invaded England at Torbay in Devon and won a quick victory over King James II, after which William of Orange became King William III of England in what is known as the Glorious Revolution of 1688-89. Soon afterwards, Abraham Soblet sent for his family to join him in England, where they lived in Littlebury on the outskirts of London.⁵¹ Abraham and two of the children went to Virginia aboard the Mary and Ann with the Chastain family, but his wife and some other children – including Anne – sailed later (September 20, 1700) aboard a second ship called the Peter and Anthony. In Virginia, Abraham plied – perhaps first had to learn – his trade as an ouvrier en tabac, a "worker in tobacco." He too was prominent in the leadership of the Anglican church the Huguenots founded at Manakintown, like Pierre serving as a church warden. Abraham Soblet died in Manakintown sometime between 1716 and 1719.⁵²

We know something about the lines of both of Anne's parents. Susannah was the daughter of JACQUES BRIAN and SUSANNA {GERARD} BRIAN, who were married on October 6, 1637. Susanna was born about 1612 and died in Corcy, France, on April 10, 1659. We know her parents were named JEAN GERARD and JEANNE {D'ORLEANS} GERARD but nothing more about them. Jacques was the son of PIERRE BRIAN and MARIE {POUPART} BRIAN, who were married on August 6, 1609.⁵³ Pierre had been born about 1581 and died in February of 1641. He was the son of GUILLAUM BRIAN. Marie was the daughter of a man named MATHIAS POUPART. We do not know the mothers of either Pierre or Marie.

Anne {Soblet} Chastain's father, Abraham, was the son of JEAN SOBLET and JUDITH {LOMBARD} SOBLET. Jean, born in Beaumont, France, was the son of ELIE SOUBLET and SUSANNE {RENAUDIN} SOUBLET. Jean died in Virginia. We know nothing more about the Soublet line, but Susanne was born about 1590 and died in Sédan on February 7 in 1653.

It remains only to pursue the Chastain line in France. The family that produced Pierre seems to have originated in the area around Bourges in central France. It also seems to have been living there during the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre in Paris on August 24, 1572. Pierre was born in the province of Bourges, Berri (now the Department of Cher).

Pierre's parents were ESTIENNE CHASTAIN and JEANNE {LAURENT} CHASTAIN, who were married by 1652. We know nothing more about Jeanne and her family except that (according to one unconfirmed source) her father may have been named Moyse. Estienne was born in Chârost, France, on March 30, 1625, and died in 1694 or later. He was the son of JACQUES CHASTAIN and JEANNE {AUDET} CHASTAIN. Jacques, born about 1598-1600, is thought to have been the son or grandson of an earlier ESTIENNE CHASTAIN, who fled the city of Bourges at the time of the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre in Paris in 1572.

Each of Pierre's immediate male ancestors served as a notaire royal at Chârost: Estienne in 1648-1694, Jacques in 1633-1659, and the elder Estienne in 1579-1604.⁵⁴ The duties of a notaire royal included drafting wills and contracts, caring for such documents and making them available to those who needed to consult them. Holding such a position, and as physicians and barbers, the Chastains were the solid professional and middle-class citizens typical in the French Huguenot community.

The Chastain line thus wends its way back from Sarah {Chastain} Vanderpool to her father Peter Chastain to George Chastain to (probably) William Chastain to (again, probably) Peter Chastain to Pierre Chastain the immigrant to the French Chastains mentioned just above. Along the way, there are several interesting collateral lines, including Starks, Statons, Soblets, and others.

And with that comment we have exhausted all of the lines that can be identified in the ancestry of my father's mother, Glenn Vanderpool, who married Charles M. Neal. What a rich ancestry and heritage!

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rev. 6/18/10

Notes

¹Refer to the book itself; another volume, on the fifth generation, was published in 2000. Return to text

²There seem to be two separate county records for their marriage, with different spellings for both parties. In the Franklin County records, the marriae bond is dated August 13, 1791, and the marriage date is shown as August 18, 1791.

³ See the USGS maps for Endicott/Virginia and Ferrum/Virginia for the Little Otter Creek area. Pigg River Baptist Church, founded in 1773 and still in existence, is approximately eight miles west of Rocky Mount, Virginia, on Route 750 — just east of the Blue Ridge Parkway. See the USGS map for Ferrum/Virginia and slides 09656-57, taken in 2000.Return to text

⁴This church, first called East Floyd's Fork Baptist Church, was organized on September 11, 1802. In 1872 its building was moved to Smithfield, Kentucky, where it still stands. See the USGS map for Smithfield/Kentucky for the location of this town and slide 12893 for a view of it in 2008. The church's original location was about two miles west of Smithfield, on land adjoining that of George Chastain. (See next note.) Only the huge slab rock that served as the front step remains at the first location. So many Starks attended this church, possibly founded by Abraham Stark, that it was commonly called "Stark's Meetinghouse." It fell into decline after most of the Stark families moved to Indiana around 1810.

⁵Floyd's Fork meanders over quite a bit of Kentucky. See the USGS maps for Ballardsville/Kentucky, Crestwood/Kentucky, Fisherville/Kentucky, and Smithfield/Kentucky for the areas it touches and slides 12887-90 for some representative views, some of them quite near the Chastain prperty and the original site of the East Fork Baptist Church. The East Fork is on the first of the USGS maps. Drennon's Creek is shown on the USGS maps for Worthville/Kentucky and Franklinton/Kentucky. See slide 12891 for a view of it. For a view of the LIttle Kentucky River, see slide 12892. All these slides were taken in 2008. Return to text

⁶The Virginia census for 1790 does not exist, and there are only fragments for 1800. Franklin County's information is among the missing portions. Return to text

⁷So does the growing list of George and Rebecca's children. She bore children over a period lasting more than twenty-two years. Return to text

⁸George Chastain's purchase was for the east and west halves of the southwest quarter of Section 5, Township 15 North, Range 11 West and for the west half of the southeast quarter of Section 6. The public land he patented was the west half of the northeast quarter of Section 7, Township 15 North, Range 11 West, on June 6, 1831. The latter cost him and Rebecca $100. (The actual purchase of public land was made by James Chastain, probably their son, who bought his own land close by.) See slides 11949-50, respectively, for 2006 views of George Chastain's properties in Sections 6 and 7. See Appendix II for a description of how public lands were surveyed and sold by the United States government. The application for purchase in 1830 has George Chastain's signature, which suggests that he had had some education.

⁹This was probably Mt. Pleasant Primitive Baptist Church, which began to meet in the courthouse in Paris, Illinois, in 1823, and then in the Minerva School. About the time the Chastains were living in Edgar County, Bethlehem Church, four miles from Grandview, was formed out of the Mt. Pleasant church. Statens are listed among the early members of the Mt. Pleasant church, but the incomplete records do not show Chastains as well.

¹⁰George and Rebecca's property apparently included parts of Sections 22 and 23 in Vernon Township, along with 20 acres in the southwest quarter of Section 14 in that same township (all in Township 2 North and Range 2 East). Some of the land was purchased from another person and some of it (in Section 14) had previously belonged to George and Rebecca's children. I have seen a land patent (dated October 1, 1834) only for the 40 acres in the northwest quarter of the northeast quarter of Section 22, land that George and Rebecca purchased on October 9, 1832, for $50. See the USGS map for Livonia/Indiana for this property. On January 29, 1838, George and Rebecca deeded the property in Section 14 to their son. Records show that a George Chastain patented 40 acres in the southwest quarter of the southwest quarter of Section 17, Township 2 North and Range 3 East on September 9, 1835, but this may be another man of the same name – perhaps the younger George Chastain mentioned in the text. See the USGS map for Beck's Mill/Indiana for the location of this land. Other USGS maps to consult for the Lost River area include Campbellsburg/Indiana and Smedley/Indiana. Return to text

¹¹George is said to own real property worth $450. The 1850 census also reveals that he could read and write. The family cemetery is a short distance due south of that of the Lost River Primitive Baptist Church, buried in a thicket. Return to text

¹²This family name is often spelled Staten, both in the period we are studying and today. If the information that follows in the text is not correct, the only other lead we have on this family is that a Rebeckah Staton is supposed to have been born about 1762 in Amherst County, Virginia, to Thomas Staton and Ann {Moore} Staton, who were married in that county in 1757. Thomas Staton was born about 1732 in the same county. It is possible this is the Staton family we are looking for, but there is nothing solid to link it to George Chastain's wife Rebecca.

¹³Sometimes this name is given as Sara. Return to text

¹⁴One source says 1642.

¹⁵One source places her birth in James City County, Virginia, in January of 1645. Another states that she was born in Henrico County, Virginia, in 1628. Information contributed to the LDS IGI suggests that she married Henry Randolph on December 12, 1661, but this may be another woman with the same name – especially in light of the date for her death that is given in the text.

¹⁶One plausible account says that Henry Soane's parents were Henry Soane and Elizabeth {Worger} Soane, who were married on November 5, 1621, and that Henry died in Sussex County, Virginia, in 1632. Elizabeth evidently survived Henry. These would be the parents cited in the text, described in the records as Henry, Sr., and Elizabeth, Sr. Return to text

¹⁷See an earlier note for more information about this church, which once fined George Staton for playing in a card game. Return to text

¹⁸One researcher believes that George Staton married a woman named Lydia Combs Van Cleve, widow of Ralph Van Cleve, in Henry County, Kentucky, on July 21, 1808. Lydia and Ralph had been married by 1770, however, which would make her too old (having been born around 1750) to be the supposed new wife we see living with George Staton in 1810, 1820, and 1830. Return to text

¹⁹See the USGS map for Ladoga/Indiana for this area.

²⁰It is also possible that George Staton returned to Kentucky in order to die there, and perhaps he is buried at the Good Hope Meeting House where he attended services while he lived in Henry County. This church no longer exists; its burial ground may be the one called Hopewell Cemetery but there is no certainty of this. See slide 12923, taken in 2008, for a view of this cemetery. Ragsdale died before the 1850 census, and the information about him (and about the Statons) in Montgomery County is inconclusive. See slide 11947 for a view of Ragsdale's property in 2006. Return to text

²¹I have found no evidence that George (or Simeon) Staton had a military record during the Revolutionary War, the military conflict that seems most plausible for his supposed service. It may be that he served in militia forces, or in some other conflict we cannot identify. Return to text

²²This name is possibly spelled Hasten. Some sources identify her as Catherine Crippen instead.

²³Interestingly, a son also named Thomas married the same day his father's will was probated, March 23, 1778. Return to text

²⁴ These are dates when his will was written and proved. Return to text

²⁵Their marriage is dated 1710 by some researchers and April 25, 1715, by others. Return to text

²⁶The younger Joseph may have been born about 1687 to 1689 and died on April 25, 1715; on December 5, 1724; on December 5, 1726; or in 1741 – all of these dates can be found in various accounts.

²⁷Thus one account, which gives Joseph's birth year as 1663, must be incorrect in this aspect at least. Return to text

²⁸Another account gives the date as March 18, 1690. Return to text

²⁹This John Staton, whose wife was named Mary Damron, died between May 13 and December 1, 1789. These Statons lived in Tillotson Parish of Buckingham COunty, Virginia. Return to text

³⁰Other possibilities for her family name are Allen, Martin, and Cave. Barnett seems most likely because she and Peter Chastain named a son Barnett, a name that continued to be used in the Chastain family for generations. (The youngest son of George Chastain and Rebecca {Staton} Chastain was named Barnett, which is also a clue that it had been his mother's family name.) Several Barnetts are found in Albemarle County, Virginia, at about this time, but there is no evidence linking any of them to Sarah. Because Peter and Sarah named a son Robert before they used the name Barnett, a man named Robert Barnett might be considered the leading contender for Sarah's father. The Robert Barnett in Albemarle County, however, does not mention a daughter named Sarah in his will. Other contemporary Barnetts include James and John. Return to text

³¹So says the Chastain family association's book; I could not find William Chastain in the printed index to Virginia tax rolls for this period, but this may be due to the use of a spelling variation that is not obvious in the index.

³²See the USGS map for Ferrum/Virginia for this area. Return to text

³³Another complicating factor is the fact that Chastains not only were numerous but repeated the same given names until sorting them out is a bewildering task. The members of the family frequently added nicknames or the fathers' names so that they themselves could keep all those with similar names straight. As late as 1967, Chastain was still the most numerous last name in the Washington County, Indiana, telephone book. Return to text

³⁴Hunt's Creek is a branch of the Slate River. The location of this property – first 400 acres and then 396 more – was near the present Buckingham Baptist Church and New Canton, Virginia. See the USGS map for Arvonia/Virginia. Peter received the first grant on December 1, 1740, and the second on August 16, 1756. A Peter Chastain also received a grant of 69 acres on both sides of Bear Creek in Charlotte County on August 1, 1772. I have not seen this property attributed to the Peter Chastain who was the presumed son of Pierre Chastain, Sr., but Charlotte County is south of Buckingham County – and in the direction of South Carolina. Return to text

³⁵A minority opinion holds that Middy Archer's family name was Allen. Another researcher states that her name was Ann Middy Isham. Two Archer males who lived in proximity to the Chastains would seem to be good candidates for Middy's father: John (died about 1717) and George (died by September 1738). Some researchers believe, though, that the Archer family, which was from Maryland, got to know the Chastains through business contacts. Return to text

³⁶Peter Chastain witnessed the will of William Allen in 1751. Return to text

³⁷Judith was the widow of a man named Gevedon.

³⁸The South Carolina districts were short-lived administrative divisions that preceded the present counties. Ninety-Six District was in the western part of South Carolina. Return to text

³⁹Charlotte Judith likely was descended from Jacob Amonet of Loudoun in Poitou, who, along with Pierre Chastain, Sr., was a member of the original group of Huguenot settlers of Manakintown (described below). Return to text

⁴⁰One source states that Anne was born in Germany in 1684, after her parents had fled from Sédan. Return to text

⁴¹There was a Vignes in the Huguenot group that immigrated to Virginia in 1700. This family might be related to the de la Vigne family that ended up in New Amsterdam and became part of the Vanderpool line. It is interesting to note that the Vanderpool and Chastain lines, joined in 1837 with the marriage of James Vanderpool and Sarah {Chastain} Vanderpool, both have important Huguenot roots. Return to text

⁴²See the USGS map for Midlothian/Virginia and slides 08715-08740 (taken in 1996)for Manakintown and the Chastain family sites there. The site was 10,033 acres after being surveyed. Return to text

⁴³Without meaning to sound too cynical, it might be noted that Byrd retained ownership of the land surrounding Manakintown, in case the Huguenot community grew, and also owned the only mill nearby. If the Huguenots were successful in serving as a buffer against the Indians, moreover, Byrd would profit from the increased safety – and value – of the land he still owned. Return to text

⁴⁴The parish was originally in Henrico County, but part of Manakintown was assigned to the new county of Goochland in 1727. Return to text

⁴⁵The present church, built in 1895, does hold a pew from the original church. Pierre Chastain's property was recently (2004) divided, and the portion with the house was sold. His original house and the later brick addition are in fact two essentially separate structures with their own foundations and a weatherproof passageway linking them. A corn crib that Pierre built in 1712 still stands between the house and the river. Return to text

⁴⁶Anne was buried the next day, April 4, 1723.

⁴⁷Mary was the daughter of Moise and Magelene Verrueil. She died between 1729 and 1733. Return to text

⁴⁸See slides 08715-08740, which include views of Pierre Chastain's grave site as of 1996. This site is no longer accessible, owing to a sale of the Chastain property, and development of this portion seems likely. Return to text

⁴⁹The name is sometimes spelled Sublette.

⁵⁰The former Huguenot church where they presumably were married is now the Roman Catholic church of St. Charles. Return to text

⁵¹A 17th-century map in the Library of Congress shows two towns named Littlebury, both of which are in Essex. One of them, just south of Chipping Onger, is in the southern portion of Essex and so relatively close to London whereas the other is close to the border with Cambridgeshire. My guess is that the Soblets lived in the former town. This Littlebury is not shown on modern maps, having been absorbed by the larger town of Chipping Ongar, as it is now spelled. Incidentally, Littlebury is a surprisingly common surname in the South during the 18th century; one wonders if this reflects the fact that many refugees spent some time there.

⁵²Abraham Soblet's will was presented at court on June 6, 1720. A small community near Manakintown today is called Subletts, and the use of this name probably is a tip that the Soblet family lived nearby. See the USGS map for Midlothian/Virginia. Return to text

⁵³One source gives the date of this marriage as August 11, 1601. Return to text

⁵⁴A list of the Chastains who served as notaire royal includes a Jean in 1611-1647. This may indicate that Jean should be placed between Jacques and the earlier Estienne in Pierre Chastain's line, but the evidence is too ambiguous to list Jean there. Return to text

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