When he was approximately 23 years old, our ancestor Daniel Haston (originally Hiestand) married Christina Nave on September 28, 1773, in Dunmore/Shenandoah County, VA. I think we can say with confidence that she was the mother of Daniel’s first four or five children, at least.
And we can be sure that for the first few years of their marriage, including the birth of the first four or five of their children, they were living along Passage Creek in Fort Valley on top of the Massanutten Mountain between New Market, VA, and Strasburg, VA.
But…there are reasons to believe Christina died in VA, or maybe somewhere on the way to TN.
I do not believe Christina Nave is buried in the “Christina Grave” in the Big Fork Cemetery,
next to Daniel’s grave. But, I think his post-Christina wife is buried there!
Who was she?
John Sevier, the first governor of the State of Tennessee, knew, and he gave us the answer!
John Sevier, the first governor of Tennessee, came to Tennessee from the same area of Virginia that Daniel Haston came from. When he was governor, Knoxville was the state capital. Sevier owned a farm southeast of Knoxville, where he spent much of his time when he was not doing “governor stuff” in Knoxville.
To get to his farm, he took a ferry across the Holston (now Tennessee) River and took the road toward what is now Sevierville, TN. In doing so, he passed by the lot where Daniel Haston’s family lived.
According to his journal (see below), in 1796 he purchased garden products from Mrs. Haiston. Her name was Suza. Mrs. Haston’s name, at that time, was not Christina.
OK, I’ve known this much for several years, and it has made me suspect that Daniel’s second wife was someone named Suza, with her more formal birth name being Susan. But, is there supporting evidence to confirm this suspicion?
I was recently working on chapter 21 for Book 3 in the four-part series, The Heritage, Life, and Legacy of Daniel Haston. Chapter 21 covers the life of Daniel’s daughter, Lucinda Haston, and her husband, Jacob Mitchell. I noticed something that I had not seen before:
- Lucinda named her first daughter Susan!
- Lucinda’s first son (Lorenzo Dow) named his first daughter Susan.
- Lucinda’s second daughter (Rhoda Jane) named her second daughter Susan.
- And given the infant mortality of that era, it’s possible there were other girls who were given the name Susan in Lucinda’s family.
These multiple appearances of “Susan” in the family were certainly not coincidental–there was a reason behind it. And Susan was not a common name in the Daniel Haston family, nor the Mitchell family of Lucinda’s husband. And it’s common knowledge in genealogy that children were often named after their parents or grandparents.
I now believe that Daniel’s post-Christina wife was someone named Susan. And I think she probably was the mother of Lucinda and the later batch of Daniel Haston’s children. Lucinda was probably born in the 1790s, along with Isaac, Jesse, Jeremiah, and probably Catherine. Maybe others!
At the time of the 1820 White County, TN census, a female “of 45 years old and upward” (column 11) was living with Daniel. That means this woman was born sometime before 1775. Unfortunately, the census does not tell us the “upward limit” beyond age 45, so we don’t know how young she was. If that was Mrs. Suza Haston who sold garden produce to Governor John Sevier in the mid-1790s, she could have been the right age to be Lucinda’s mother and the mother of several of Lucinda’s siblings.
So, if I had to guess who is buried in “Christina Nave’s grave,” I would guess that her given name was Suza, a nickname version of Susan. But, I still haven’t a clue what her maiden family name was.
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