Fresh Start

Just how did we begin to associate  a new year with a

Fresh Start?

Starting the new year in January was partially done to honor the god Janus, for whom the month was named. Since Janus had two faces, he was able to look back into the past and forward into the future simultaneously, making him a great spokesperson for the holiday we celebrate today as New Year’s Day. ₁

That visual surely syncs with the life forces of genealogy and history—looking back into the past and then facing forward into the future, armed with what we have learned from our ancestors’ journeys. It’s a Fresh Start for family history writing!  

The 2020 year begins with Heir Unapparent’s tidbits of posts coming your way. Among our lines are the assorted heroes and scalawags and everyday folks, some of whom were faithful to their families, associates, and communities—and some who struggled to fulfill responsibilities. And some had just plain bad luck. Or good luck!  You will cheer for some while others will break your heart.  

Previews of  Future Ancestories₂

Maternal Line = Smith

• John Price the Immigrant, also known as Ancient Planter, left England circa 1611 for Jamestown. His Fresh Start resulted in our particular Price ancestor line remaining in Virginia until 1854, many of them living in burned counties, making research on John Price descendants (our ancestors) a challenge.₃ But what a remarkably powerful American journey—from 1611 until  our direct line left Virginia for  Texas circa 1853--almost 250 years later.
• John Price (1584-1638) is my 8th great-grandfather in my maternal line.

• The Hathaways had been in the Morristown, New Jersey area for several generations by the early 1700s. Part of the extended Hathaway family’s forges armed the Continental Army and were at least two-generation members of the historic Morristown Presbyterian Church chartered under King George II. The Fresh Start out of Morristown was probably forced when the counterfeit ring formed by one of our Hathaway ancestors was exposed with certain justice about to fall upon him. (Counterfeiting was a common practice at the time of rebellion against the punishing monetary policies of the Crown.) 
• Abraham Hathaway “The Patriot” (1755-1831 ) scouted for Washington in western Pennsylvania during the mid 1770s and was among the first families to settle in the Northwest Territory, migrating in 1799 to what would become Miami County, Ohio. We will learn that the Hathaways' blacksmith tradition carried through succeeding generations in Ohio and beyond.
• America250: Abraham Hathaway is DAR Patriot Ancestor AO52983.
• Abraham Hathaway is my fourth great-grandfather.
• William Newton Hathaway (1843-1921) , the beloved father of Myrtle Luella (Hathaway) Smith (1883-1968) whose children used the affectionate term, “Granny,” for him.  Granny purchased Virginia (Smith) Hail Crosland’s first violin, a used one in dubious condition—and the rest as they say ‘is history.’
• The Hathaway line is the only non-Confederate line in Heir Unapparent's direct lineage. 
• Newton is my maternal great-grandfather. 

• Christoph (“Stophel”) Kettenring (Ketring/Kettering/Catron), 1716-1793
• He was one of several brothers who left the German provinces where oppressive rule and class structure limited their mid-1700 futures. Looking for a Fresh Start, Christoph arrived in Philadelphia on The Chance in 1765, and his extended family spread across the colonies. Christoph is my 5th great-grandfather.
• In 1780, two of Christoph’s sons signed the Cumberland Compact in the wilds of the Cumberland wilderness and were among the first pioneers of what would become the state of Tennessee in 1796.
• His son, Johann Franz Ketring, is my 4th great-grandfather; the DAR Patriot database lists him as Francis (Catron) Ketring (1755-1819), an America250 DAR Patriot 155516-SUP.
• By the third generation of Christoph’s arrival in America, his grandson, John Catron, was selected as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States by Andrew Jackson in his last presidential decision. Judge Catron’s wife, Mathilda, was the cousin of President John Knox Polk's wife, Sarah. Neither marriage produced children, which is not to say that Judge Catron had no children.
• Judge Catron was the cousin of my 2nd great-grandmother, Eliza Ann (Catron) Smith (1815-1907). Eliza’s recollections were recorded by an earlier Smith family historian. Eliza was instrumental in establishing the Cumberland Presbyterian church in Honey Grove, Texas.

• The Heackers left the Prussian Empire in the early 1840s for Philadelphia for a Fresh Start.   
• Their eldest son, William Joseph Heacker—a physician, escaped conscription by the Prussian military machine only to end up in Kentucky where he was influenced by his new friend, John Breckinridge to join the Confederate cause. (Breckinridge was a Kentucky politician who served in both Congressional houses and was later the youngest ever Vice President of the United States, resigning in haste as the Civil War commenced to assume a Confederatea military position.)
• Escaping the Prussian military machine but enmeshed in the political and military Confederate battles in which he served as both spy and surgeon, Dr. Heacker emerged from the battle surgical tents an advocate of  germ theory. 
• Later settling in Grainger County, Tennessee, one of his daughters claimed Heacker was known as the state’s first bacteriologist. 
• A proponent of eclectic medicine (publishing widely in the Eclectic Gleaner), he operated a large residential sanitarium, Mineral Hill, near Bean Station, Tennessee to which clients traveled for his medical advice.  
• William Joseph Heacker (1832-1915) is my 2nd great-grandfather. He is the maternal grandfather of my maternal grandmother, Myrtle Luella (Hathaway) Smith (1883-1968).

Paternal Line: Peel

• The Ulster Scots (AKA ScotsIrish) Peels and Gambles, allied through marriage were  linen weavers of Presbyterian heritage. They left the Ulster Plantation in 1771 with extended family for the colony of Georgia. 
• Their journey aboard the Britannia was traumatic, arriving in January of 1772 not at the newly established arrival port of Brunswick outside Savannah, but at the slave lazaretto on Tybee Island where they were quarantined for at least 40 days. Twenty-nine children were lost to pox aboard the ship. 
• Rumblings of rebellion met them as they made their way to Queensborough, the land reserve set aside by the Georgia colony’s government for the ScotsIrish immigrants. What to do?  ”Are we loyalists?  Or  are we patriots?” Do we run for the hills or do we stand and fight?
• Did they wonder if this was indeed a Fresh Start? Did they doubt their decision when faced with Creek attack to the north and west, loss of promised land, and loyalty decisions that threatened their lives either way?  The ScotsIrish migration to the colony of Georgia was small in number, disproportionate to their lasting contributions.  
• Note: The ancestral Georgia homeland sits in the path of Sherman’s March to the Sea and is thus considered a “burned county”  for traditional research purposes. Digital research continues to broaden the Richard Peel and Mary Gamble story.
• Richard Peel (1740-1806) and Mary Gamble (1745-1834) are my 4th  great-grandparents in my paternal line and the source of my maiden name, Peel. Despite their Covenanter Presbyterian heritage, by the third generation, the Peels became Methodists and established a lineal heritage of Methodist ministers and laymen. From Georgia the Peel descendants migrated to Alabama, Mississippi, and then to Texas in the late 1860s.

• The last immigrant to arrive on the eastern shore in my direct paternal Peel ancestral lineage is Alfred (“Allie”) Edmund Brady (1844-1922) who ‘ran away from home’ at age 16. 
• Living  just outside Birmingham, England, he hopped a canal boat for a steamer to the United States, arriving at Castle Garden in 1861 where he served not only the Union forces but the Confederate forces as well. 
• A double veteran of the Civil War conflict stands in conflict with his family heritage: Bradys met as early as the late 1600s at the Balby Quaker Meeting House in the southern Yorkshire area of Balby, England. 
• Alfred Edmund Brady would remain a man of contradiction, action, and strong opinion--whether right or wrong-- throughout his life. His immigration story within the context of his English family of origin forms an important family chapter in British empire history.
• He is a more recent connection to the motherland of my particular genetic composition, which is just under 100% British (England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland).  
• Allie Brady  is the father of my beloved paternal grandmother (Viola Brady Peel, 1890-1986) and is thus my great-grandfather.  

While the foregoing previews are male-centric, they are provided for research purposes to interested family. Future Ancestories will include extensive profiles of the women who co-wrote our family history—some of them flying solo while doing so.

For the family!

Beth Peel Leggieri, Heir Unapparent


Notes

1. The two faces of Janus:  https://www.mic.com/articles/163481/how-did-new-year-s-eve-start-the-history-and-tradition-explained
2. Previews do not include footnotes.  Ancestories will be documented when published on this blog. 
3. “The phrase "burned counties" was first used for research in Virginia where many county records were destroyed in courthouse fires, or during the Civil War”. An example of relatively early use of the phrase “burned counties” is found in a regularly featured periodical article which first appeared as “Records from Burned Counties,” Virginia Genealogical Society Bulletin, 4, issue 3 (July 1966) (FHL Book 975.5 B2vs v. 4)

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Revised March 27, 2026