27 - David Haston Married 14 Year Old "Peggy" Roddy
Yeah, I just created the title for the dramatic effect, but it was true. On May 5, 1800 (one day short of David Haston’s 23rd birthday) he was issued a marriage bond to marry Margaret “Peggy” Roddy in Knox County, Tennessee. Perhaps his bride was his 23rd birthday gift to himself, since the actual marriage often occurred a day after the bond was issued.
As you probably know by now, David Haston was Daniel’s oldest son. He was born in Shenandoah County, VA, probably up in Powell’s Fort Valley in the Massanutten Mountain where Daniel’s family lived for the first several years after his marriage to Christina Nave.
David’s bondsman for his marriage was Isham Bradley. As far as I can tell there was no familial relationship to Isham. He and David were probably just best buddies. David had been the bondsman for Isham Bradley’s wedding two years earlier to Susanna Matlock. And Isham Bradley followed the Hastons to Middle Tennessee a few years later.
Now, back to David Haston’s bride–Margaret “Peggy” Roddy. Yes, she was only 14 1/2 years old when she married 23 year old David! “Was that legal?,” you ask. Yes, in fact there was no legal statue regarding marriage ages in Tennessee until 1899! “Was that normal?,” you ask. Well, it wasn’t unusual. Men generally didn’t marry until they were old enough to establish themselves with a place to live and a job of some sort. And it was very common for girls to marry in their early teens. Anyway–it worked out fine because David and Peggy seem to have had a very good marriage, had 13 kids, raised some of their grandkids, and lived together 57 years until she died in 1857. How many husbands and wives today stay together until “death do us part,” 57 years of living?
David and Peggy Roddy Haston are my Great-Great-Great Grandparents and I’m very proud of them!
Who were Peggy’s parents? For who-knows-how-many-years, Haston family researchers have tried to find the answer to that question and have often “guessed” incorrectly that she was the daughter of Colonel James Roddy who lived in Jefferson County, TN. Not so, no way!.
Do you remember the story of David Haston cutting the cow tails off Nathaniel Hays’s horned cows? Peggy Roddy was the sister of three of the Roddy kids who were called to testify against David. Those kids were the children of Philip and Mary McComiskey Roddy who lived near Daniel Haston’s family, “south of the Holston River, opposite Knoxville.”
There is so much I have learned about this Philip Roddy family over the past 20 years! But I’ll hold that until a couple of articles later. Stay tuned!
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