Articles Related to the Haston-Hastin-Hastain MidAmerica Gathering
“Westward migration was inextricably linked to upward mobility and material success.” And Jesse Haston was a case in point.
The Missouri Territory became a major target of emigration after the War of 1812.
Between the end of the War of 1812 and 1820, Missouri’s population grew from 25,000 to 65,000. As early as 1811, Tennesseans extolled the benefits to be derived from the lands in “Upper Louisiana,” as Missouri was then known. “It is I assure you, the finest [land] I ever saw,” exclaimed one excited Nashville resident in 1811. “Come out, we’ll go there & git as rich as we please.” Several years later, another Tennessean sang the praises of the beauty and agricultural advantages of Missouri, with “grass as high as a man’s head.” By the late 1820s, Tennesseans began leaving the state in great numbers, but Jesse Haston was several years ahead of them.
This kind of hype probably filled Jesse’s head as a teenager growing up along the banks of Cane Creek and the Caney Fork River in White County, Tennessee. Soon after he married his neighborhood sweetheart, Jane Terry Gillentine, he set out to follow his Missouri dream.
Source: Tom Kanon, Tennesseans at War, 1812-1815: Andrew Jackson, the Creek War, and the Battle or New Orleans. (Tuscaloosa, AL: The University of Alabama Press, 2014), 192.
Of Daniel Haston’s sons, Jesse was the most unique in several ways…
- He was the first son of Daniel to move west of the Mississippi River, 20 years before the next children of Daniel.
- He was a slave owner, the only son of Daniel Haston to own slaves.
- He became a wealthy man, probably the wealthiest of Daniel’s children.
- He had three wives and 21 children!
- One of his sons was a Mexican War veteran who, along with his fellow soldiers, accomplished a fantastic feat.
- One of his grandsons became a very popular minister.
- One of his grandsons received the Congressional Medal of Honor for heroism in saving the lives of some of the sailors on his ship.
- A town in Montana was named for two of his grandsons.
- One of his sons was a genuine “cowboy” in the literal sense of the word, much like cowboys you see in old western TV shows and movies.
- He was the only child of Daniel, as far as is known, to have been murdered.
I will share these stories with you at the October 9-10, 2026 MidAmerica Hastons Gathering at the Ebenezer Historical Society in Greene County (near Springfield), MO.
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