It amazes me how much documentation exists on the citizens of the American Colonies. I greatly admire Lila Hyten-Stites (a William Caywood Hyten heir), Pat Douglass-Smith (Stephen Henson Hyten), and Gene Hyden for all the research that they had to do to come up with so much of the following information. Unfortunately when it comes time to identify the national source of the HYTEN family roots, it is still not possible to do it.
My family tradition said that the HYTEN name was English. There is some information that could support that theory ... the passenger lists of British ships arriving in America in the 1600's and 1700's. Nell Marion Nugent's Cavaliers and Pioneers lists Henry Hitton coming to Warwick River County, VA, in 1643; Hester Heytens arriving in Northumberland County, VA, in 1649; James Heyton into Accomack County, VA, in 1667; and James Heyton transported into Tower Norfolk, County, VA, in 1687. Any of these names are close enough in spelling to have been the beginning of the HYTEN family in America but there is nothing further about them in the records of the Colonies.
A March 9, 1731 ship's manifest lists William Highton on the ship Patapscoe, which left New Gate, England for Maryland captained by Darby Lux. This could be the beginning of the HYTEN name in America but it does not seem likely that this is true. I am not just saying that because that list is from Peter Coldham's English Convicts in Colonial America, Volume I. I reached my conclusion because the person I regard as the head of our family tree, Joseph Hyten, Sr., was probably born in 1731. Since neither a child nor a wife of William Highton are listed on that ship or any other during that time period, I feel that it is unlikely that they are related.
In Passengers to America edited by Micheal Tepper, on page 276 under the March,1774 sailings from Liverpool, England, is listed one Richard Hiton , 22, a butcher from Yorkshire who sailed on the York Packet to New York City. This arrival is probably too late to be one of the HYTENs I have traced.
I have tentatively concluded that Joseph Hyten / Hyton / Heighton, Sr. (to differentiate him from the next Joseph) is the head of our family tree. To reach that conclusion requires a little "creative" deduction. While it seems there is a path that leads one from Joseph Hyten, Sr. to Josiah Heighton and his sons who spell their name Hyten, it cannot be said for certain that this is a direct descendancy. At no point in actual records are the names of Joseph, Sr.’s sons given . It is only by location and time sequence that one can deduce the relationships.
The first mention of Joseph Hyten is in the parish records of King George's Parish of Prince George's County, Maryland, which is just south of Montgomery County where later my solid path of HYTENs begins. Therein is noted the birth on September 28,1773 of a daughter Cloe to Joseph and Sara Hyten. It is the only mention of the name HYTEN in those records.
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| Joseph Hyton is fifth up from bottom. This is first recorded document of a HYTEN. |
These two records could refer to the same Joseph. If so the daughter could be Cloe rather than Elizabeth. The problem with the one Joseph theory is that in the1776 census Joseph's wife is named Ann. It could be that there is one woman named Sarah Ann or Ann Sarah. It is also possible that Sara died between 1773 and 1776 and he remarried to a woman named Ann. More probably the 1776 Joseph is a different one from the one in the 1773 church records and it’s on that assumption that I proceed.
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| CHARLES COUNTY, MARYLAND, IS WHERE HYTENs FIRST APPEARED IN DOCUMENTS. |
More likely, this Joseph is a different Joseph, possibly one of the sons of the 1776 Joseph Hyten. One of the unnamed sons of the 1776 Joseph Hyten had a birth date between 1750 and 1758 thus making him the age right to fit the Joseph in the 1790 census. Following this assumption and information from Gene Hyden which I will note later, I named the 1776 one Joseph Hyten, Sr. and the 1790 one Joseph Hyten, Jr.
The problem is that there remains a challenge to these suppositions. In a remembrance written by Dr. William Henry Hyten on September 3, 1894, he says "my paternal grandfather (who was Josiah Heighton/Hyten) come (sic) to Maryland from Scotland, when a child." To fit this scenario Joseph, Sr. had to come to America somewhere in the early 1770s bringing with him a son Josiah Heighton/Hyten who was born around 1769. The person I identify as Joseph, Jr. is too young to be the father of Josiah. Then again Dr. William Henry Hyten could be wrong as Pat Douglas-Smith has researched the immigration-passenger lists of that period and did not find any HYTENs spelled any way on ships of that period.
The History of Pioneer Families of Missouri, 1876 Bryan & Rose, updated in 1935, Elwang & Lucas Brothers, says under Hyten:
"Joseph Hyten, of Maryland, married Prisilla Caywood and their son Josiah married Rebecca Caywood and settled in Maryland County, KY. in 1810. Their children were William, Stephen, and Otho (the name which my family tradition lists for Thomas Otho). Stephen H. was in the War of 1812. He married Nancy McGary and settled in Callaway County, MO in 1830."
There are two things wrong with this statement. First, I assume they meant Montgomery County, KY, since I don't think that there was a Maryland County. Secondly, I’m sure Josiah was in Kentucky as early as 1800.
Using this narrative reinforces the idea that there was a Joseph Hyten, Jr. and he was the father of the Josiah Heighton. I reached this conclusion because Joseph Hyten of the 1773 church records was married to Sara and 1776 Joseph Hyten, Sr. to Ann Cox. This Joseph, Jr. is married to Prisilla Caywood. (Note that the name Cox will come up again later.)
Gene Hyden, in the research of the Hyden clan, identifies two Joseph Hytens; Joseph Hyten, Sr. (1731-) who is married to Ann Cox (1736-), and also Joseph Hyten, Jr. who married Priscilla Caywood and had two sons, James (ca.1784-) and John. It is interesting to note that Arthur Leslie Keith’s The Caywood Family does not mention this Caywood marriage. What it does say is that the mother of Josiah’s wife, Rebbeca, was named Priscilla McDonald/McDanial Caywood.
From The Darnall Darnell Family I found out that the great-grandfather of Dr. William’s grandfather, Henry Darnall, was Edward Darnall (1671-1754). Edward came to the Colonies in 1688 as an indentured servant to Phillip Lynds. From Arthur Leslie Keith’s The Caywood Family I found out that Rebbeca Caywood Heighton/Hyten’s great-great-great grandfather, Stephen Caywood, came to the Colonies in 1670, also as an indentured servant.
As you work your way down these two family trees you find repeated entries with the names Dr. William Hyten noted. Three Darnalls married Turpins and three married Caywoods. Two Caywoods married Carringtons and both Darnalls and Caywoods married McDanials. Later generations of HYTENs would marry Darnalls, Carringtons, and McDanials. Also note that around 1690 the second of three Stephen Cawoods married Mary Cox ... the second reference to that name.
The Darnall-Cawood Family Tree in this chapter shows how closely the two families were interwoven up to the time they both married HYTENs.
The following two records are the first on file applying directly to the HYTEN family:
On May 19, 1787, a bill of sale was recorded in Montgomery County, MD, in which Joseph Heighton transferred to William Vears many household items as well as livestock and crops. That would seem to indicate that he was moving so I take this to be about the time he moved to Kentucky. This document that was signed by Joseph with an "X", indicating that he could not read or write thus could not verify that particular spelling of his name which was on that document.
What I consider the first direct documented mention of the Hyten family came in the will of Stephen Caywood which was filed in Montgomery County, Maryland on Jan. 17,1802 and probated on March 10 of that year. In it Caywood leaves a portion of his estate to his daughter Rebecca and her husband Josiah Heighton and their children William, Milly, Stephen, and Thomas.
In early July, 1992, I visited my son, Mark, who at the time was then a Navy test pilot stationed at Patuxant NSA at the southern tip of Maryland. This is about 30 miles from where my records of the HYTEN family begins so while I was there I did a little searching in the local records.
The August 31, 1776 census of St. John's Parish, Port Tobacco, Upper Hundred, lists Joseph Hyton and his family. This area is in Charles County, Maryland, just northwest of LaPlata, the county seat. St. John's Parish still exists near the intersection of Livingston and Bumby Oak Roads just east of Indian Head, MD.
None of the records I looked at contained any further reference to HYTEN in any of the recognized spellings. The land records of Charles County and neighboring St. Mary's County are very complete and well indexed. They did contain lots of Haydens as well as Heaton and Heydon. The latter might be of interest in that it was dated 1678 which could be our arrival time in the colonies if the 1894 recollections of Dr. William Henry Hyten are accurate. That man was Thomas Heydon and that first name Thomas is often repeated in the HYTEN family. Even without HYTENs these records were interesting because they contained the previously mentioned names Cawood, Carrington, and Darnell.
The name Cawood was prominent in all kinds of 1600 and 1700 records in both Charles and St. Mary's Counties. Among the 18th Century land records was Stephen in 1713 and 1751 and Rebecca Caywood-Hyten's father Stephen Caywood, Jr. in 1765, 1771, 1787, and 1795. The 1765 sale to a man named Berry was that of a piece of property called "Hull" which was "situated on the main branch of the Mattawoman". That's a creek which extends from Indian Head past St. John's Parish up north into St. George's County. The land was "from the will of Stephen Cawood grandfather of aforesaid Stephen Cawood bequeathed to his son John" who was Stephen, Jr.'s brother.
The 1771 £25 "sale" by John Ford was actually a lifetime indenture to the widow Sarah Cawood for some more Hull land "beginning at the end of Samuel Berry's land". Records show Stephen Cawood had Hull surveyed in 1675 and that it contained 600 acres, a substantial piece of land in those days. Other references indicate that Berry sold something to Cawood in 1704 so maybe they were neighbors trading land.
The St. Mary's County Debt (tax) Books of 1753 thru 1758 list Stephen Cawood owning "part of William's Purchase, 100 acres; part of Westham, 200 ac.; and Cawood's Expense, 157 ac." According to the 1774 tax of St. Mary's County, Stephen Cawood, Jr. was enrolled in the militia. He was also on the 1799 roles of the Chaptico Church (Christ Church Episcipal) which was also the parish of the family of Francis Scott Key who wrote the national anthem. This latter date conflicts somewhat with the 1790 Montgomery County (quite a distance northwest of St. Mary’s County) census which lists a Stephen Cawood family of 13 as well as Joseph and Josiah Hyten families. It could be a different Stephen Cawood since that was a very popular name in the family.
The 1787 and 1795 land documents deal with the same piece of land which was called Long Thought. It was in an area called Jorden's Swamp which is still on the St. Mary's County maps just east of Maryland Route 5 a few miles southeast of Waldorf, MD. The 200 acres were sold for 4000 pounds of tobacco. The buyer was Daniel McDaniel and that's another name that Dr. Hyten connects to the HYTEN family by marriage. What's really interesting is that the 1795 document was filed by a lawyer named Alexander Hamilton whom local historians tell me had to be the Alexander Hamilton from American history books.
Also in the Charles County records are Carringtons and Darnells. In 1748 Timothy Carrington transferred parcels of his "Carrington's Folly" to his sons (I guess) John and Timothy, Jr. "Carrington's Folly" was located in Port Tobacco, East Hundred, which is in the Waldorf area between St. John's Parish and Jorden's Swamp. Marriage records list Leonard in 1789, Levin in 1796, and Alexander in 1797. (Note that the Samuel Carrington family from Maryland and Kentucky married into the family of Stephen Henson Hyten in Missouri.) I think that was the same Samuel Carrington who witnessed Stephen Cawood's 1795 land document.
In 1816 William Caywood Hyten married Elizabeth Darnell, the daughter of Henry and Sally (Turpin) Darnell. Dr. Hyten says that Henry's ancestors came to Maryland in the 1600's. As I found the Darnell name in these old records, a most interesting possibility entered the HYTEN family tree.... that of royalty.
The first Henry Darnell (1645-1711) was the son of Phillip Darnell the secretary to Sir George Calvert, the first Lord Baltimore and founder of the Maryland colony. The holder of numerous government and military positions, Col. Henry Darnell was also a cousin of Charles Calvert, the third Lord Baltimore. Henry's mother, Mary Calvert, was a sister of Lord Talbot. At his death he left £3505, 105 slaves, and 26,000 acres. That land, a tremendous holding in those days, was in parcels spread all over between Annapolis and the Charles River to the south. It probably contained much of present day Bowie, MD.
His son, Henry II, (1682-1759) also served in various appointed posts. The 1776 census of St. James Parish (Ann Arundel County) lists him with two women and 110 slaves. That same year Charles County's census lists Benjamin Darnell in Bryantown Hundred, just south of Jorden's Swamp where Stephen Cawood lived, and Issac and Susanna Darnell in Port Tobacco, Upper Hundred, where the Hyton's were.
The history of St. George's County, just north of Charles County, says that Henry Darnell III from Upper Marlbough Hundred was attorney general (1744-1755) and naval officer of the Patuxant (1755-1761). He left the latter post and the territory under a cloud of suspicion over the mishandling of monies.
This Henry Darnell could have been Dr. Hyten's maternal grandfather Henry (ca.1730-1837). The dates don't quite fit but Henry held appointments including land surveyor which led him to acquire title to important lands in Lexington and then Louisville, Kentucky. The fact that he squandered these holdings fits with Henry III's money problems in Maryland.
Reality came crashing home after I told Lila Hyten Stites about my find. It seems she already had traced down our Henry Darnell. He was the great grandson of a Edward Darnell (1671-1754) who came to this country as an indentured servant in 1688. Benjamin and Issac whom I found in Charles County records are of this/our family. The Henry Darnells with great land holdings in St.George's and Ann Arundle Counties are probably of royal blood but not our blood.
Josiah Heighton (ca.1769) married Rebecca Caywood (?-1869) on Dec. 23, 1790, in Frederick County, MD. which is just north of Montgomery County. Kieth’s book says “Unconfirmed tradition has indicated that they were first cousins, a fairly commonplace occurrence in those days.”
They had four children. William Caywood Hyten was born in 1790 in Montgomery County, MD. His son, William Henry, said that his father was born in Hagerstown, Maryland, but that town is north of Montgomery County. Stephen Henson Hyten was born in 1795. Thomas Otho Hyten is listed in a family Bible as having been born in 1803 but since he is mentioned by name in the January, 1802 will of Stephen Cawood which was probated in March, 1802, it can be assumed that 1801 is a more likely birth year for Thomas Otho. A daughter, Milly, died young according to Kieth but it is not known where she fit in the birth order.
The exact location where they lived in Montgomery County, MD, which is just northwest of present day Washington, D.C., is not known. Stephen Henson Hyten recalled as a boy living at the edge of the Potomac, which borders Montgomery County, MD on the southwest. On Sundays at a place where the river was a mile wide, he would swim across holding on to a mare's tail.
After the 1802 will of Stephen Caywood there is no mention of HYTENs in Maryland records. As early as 1787, or as late as 1802 after the death of Stephen Caywood, the family of Josiah Heighton/Hyten moved through the Cumberland Gap into Kentucky. They went up the trail blazed by Daniel Boone into Kentucky's Montgomery County. Later members of the family were to follow Boone's footsteps into Missouri and Iowa.
Carrington family histories say that Samuel Carrington and his
wife Mildred McDonald-Carrington moved from Montgomery County, MD to Mt.
Sterling, KY in the Grassy Lick Creek area in 1804. In 1835 their son Thomas Carrington
and his wife Elizabeeth Caywood-Carrington (the sister of Josiah Heighton/Hyten’s wife Rebecca)
moved on to Indiana County, IN, where William
Caywood Hyten then lived.
Two of Samuel Carrinton’s children married Caywoods and two
married McDaniels.
The more I look at these pre-1800 records the more a muddle it all becomes. Every time I go over these records I come up with a new, slightly different explanation about the top of our family tree. The only thing that is sure is that from Josiah down through his sons, William Caywood, Stephen Henson, and Thomas Otho, I have clear and definite connections.
One might ask why publish a book about your family when such an important set of links is unresolved. At this point in time every avenue seems to have been searched and the answers not found. While I certainly will continue to pursue a more definite answer to this question of succession, I do not want to withhold all the other information I have while seeking information that I may not soon find.
All of this brings to mind something I once read about memories. The question was whether a memory could be “an original look at a point in our past or was it a recollection of a recollection”. In other words, were we just remembering the last time we thought about the topic rather than the original occurrence. In that case each successive remembrance has to have been colored by the time during which the thought was evoked. This means we can’t be sure that our memories are fully true.
In the case of trying to put these people together in an ordered family tree, I frequently find a past theory doesn’t fit with what is in front of me today. Because of this every time I try to accomplish this family tree it becomes more and more frustrating. Maybe one day in the process of reconstructing these thoughts I will put them together in a way which will provide me with the key to how they fit ... or more properly, direct me to the missing key.
On the "Hytens before 1800" page are several trees developed from the various sources of pre-1800 information. A good case can be made for connecting all the people listed but there are no real records to prove their relationships. For now that part of the HYTEN/HITEN family tree will have to remain a mystery.
NOTES:
While it is common I the now to say that families moved from Maryland to Kentucky or Illinois or Indiana because they objected to slavery, this notion is perhaps a bit romanticized based on modern political thinking rather than early pioneer realities.
The Hytens were poor farmers who apparently didn’t own land in Maryland. If they owned land in Kentucky, which I think they did, the records disappeared in 1800s fires. Poor farmers such as them found fault with slavery more because it allowed bigger farms to prosper while theirs struggled … and big land owner looked down on poor free men. Moving away from slavery put them on equal footing with other small farmers. The fact that many of these settlers brought with them a “free” black who worked for them basically as an indentured servant (one without pay) would indicate that all weren’t totally opposed to slavery.
That being said, family tradition was that Samuel Carrington moved because of the question slavery, while an 1824 Fleming County, KY, deed of sale is for William Caywood Hyten’s purchase of a slave.
The reason most people moved may have been more simple than a moral decision. Prior to 1750 in Maryland and 1800 in Kentucky there was no organized system of land registration. In other words, everyone was a squatter. When the territory got more heavily populated and formal government was organized, a system of recording land ownership was developed. The land had been made valuable by its development … so valuable that the poor farmers that squatted on it couldn’t afford to buy it. They were forced to move on to new territory. For most it wasn’t until they moved yet again (this time to Illinois or Indiana like the Hytens did …that they had enough money to buy cheap frontier land. It is there that their names first appear in land records in the 1820s to 1840s … and it is in these locations that the Hytens still reside.
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ReplyDeleteBob,
ReplyDeleteGreat article! I'm in the process of completely rewriting and extending the genealogy of the family of Samuel Carrington 1754-1818. I'm up to page 742 as of today, so it's rather extensive work. I've also run into much of the early muddy waters of the 1700, and even 1600s. We find many fingerprints on the window of time left by our fore-bearers in that era; unfortunately, none are well connected, and much inference is necessary. ...And I can say that I do have the strikingly beautiful Miss Nancy Hyten (1824-1895) who married our John Carrington (1817-1900) in Callaway County Mo on 7 Feb 1855. They are found on page 429 of the new book due out by 2016. (page numbers are subject to change without notice)
Cortland Carrington, 7th great grandson of Timothy Carrington, Charles County Maryland.