I’ve just completed my SAR (Sons of the American Revolution) application with the help of our cousin Becky Earnest. We are privileged to be eligible to join either the DAR or the SAR thanks to Becky’s years of research in learning about our ggggGrandfather, Nehemiah McAshan (b 1750 in Va, d 1787 or 1802). His daughter was Mary “Polly” McAshan, who married John Benning Moore and became our gggggrandmother. They are both buried in the Moore family Cemetery in McCalla.
Nehemiah provided the Continental Army with beef and pork, not a lot, but it is documented and qualifies us all as being descendents of a Revolutionary War Patriot. The other thing he did, which further qualifies him as a patriot and I find more interesting are the petitions he signed in 1786 and 1787.
Prior to the Revolution, in Virginia you had to belong to the Established (Church of England) Church. “Dissenters”, mostly Presbyterian and Baptist , could not hold office and suffered at the hands of the authorities (who were Anglican). After the Revolutionary War, Virginia (Thomas Jefferson wrote it) passed a law in 1786 saying that no man should be forced to worship in a particular way. This became the First Amendment to our Constitution. Since the Established Churches were supported by taxes, the non-Episcopal people of Virginia expected that the property of the established Churches should be liquidated and used to pay the huge post-Revolution debts all the states had. The Virginia government though was still run by entrenched Anglicans, and instead, they transferred all the property to the newly-formed Episcopal churches. Our ancestor, Nehemiah McAshan, signed at the very top two petitions to have the property sold and the funds given to the government. I don’t know the details of how it worked out, but I know it was solved by 1799.
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8 comments:
Hmm...interesting. McAshan - Scot? Very interesting and thanks for the post!
Jeremy, I have become very interested in our early American ancestors- Where did they come from? Why? What was their life like? I've been reading several books simultaneously: Leyburn's "The Scotch-Irish", Gilberts "Westering Man" and a couple of others. I got really interested in this by reading James Webb's "Born Fighting". Our early American ancestors were Scots-Irish, sometimes called Scotch-Irish. According to Leyburn, they are a totally different breed of people from the Scots, and are pretty different culturally being unlike the Scots or the Irish. They were little more than wild animals until the late 1500's/early 1600's when John Knox brought them religion. They made an incredible change in just one generation. They then went to Ireland (Ulster) for around a hundred years, then came to America.Religous freedom was very important to them-not just being allowed to worship as they chose, but also not to have to bear a government established religion, which they had endured for so many years.
Love, Mike
Really? Wow. I always thought we were straight english (I thought we had some German as well). It is good to understand about our ancestors, and after these next two grueling weeks, I would like to read about it as well.
Love,
J
We believe our Moore ancestors were
here in the mid-1700's. We believe John Benning Moore's (1771-1857)father was named William Moore and he was born ca 1750. We believe they came from Ulster as one of the many thousands who left Ulster because of the Test Act and other religous issues.Becky has always believed there was Huguenot influence, possibly because of the Bonaparte middle name. We know when the English sabotaged the successful wool business the SI had developed in Ireland, they switched to flax and imported workers to create the Irish linen industry.The Huguenots would likely have been in that bunch I think-maybe a grandmother. The Scots-Irish tended to travel in family groups (as tribes.)I have also read that the SI would marry outside of the SI culture wihtout hesitation.
One year at the Costa Mesa Highland Games I met the black Drum Major of Clan McLeod Bagpipe Band, and I aked him bluntly what was a black man doing in kilts.His gggrandfather was a SI immigrant who was indentured as an overseer and married a slave,whose freedom he was able to buy. I have also been doing a bit of rsearch on the Clark side, and Papa Clark's ancestors from South Carolina were most likely SI. I have a tape recording of Mama and one of her relatives who tells her about the Johnsons in Scotland being cattle thieves (they all were because there were no fences), so I bet her family was also SI.
SI though, are neither Scotch nor Irish culurally. It is said though in "Westering Man" that the SI culture became the culture of America.
Love, Mike
thank you for all the great research, Uncle Mike.
Michael, I am enjoying finding out all about our family's history. It is interesting as we study much of our country's history in fourth grade. Keep us informed!
Sharon, Whitney, and Jeremy,-Thanks for the comments, but I really really enjoy this stuff. Its like a huge detective story. I enjoy thelittle tidbits that I discover, especially this: A huge number of the SI who came here, beginning in the early 1700's were indentured to land owners who paid theirs and their travel expenses, and usually gave themboth land and cash as well as tools to work the land in exchange for their several years of indenture. Therefore, I assumed they were poor people-not so! According to one of my books, they were more likely to be pretty affluent as the Ulster Plantations had done very well. They indentured themselves to (a.) preserve their capital, (b.) learn all they could about farming in trhe New World from someone with experience (c.) decide what to do long term.
Love to All, Mike
Michael,
I'd be interested in reaching Becky, it appears I'm from the Hundley McShan side of the tree.
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