This post is a follow-up to the previous post which listed the proved children of Anthony & Margaret Haden. Other children have been ascribed to Anthony by various researchers. I have found nothing to support their relationship to Anthony, and in some cases, nothing to support their very existence. Dorothy K. Haden in John Haden of Virginia states there were probably other children of Anthony and Margaret.
If you've read the Blogs about Anthony, you know by now that I believe Anthony was not the immigrant, and may very well have had kin living in Hanover County, where too many records have been lost to do much meaningful research. The loss of records in Hanover County may have included deeds of gifts from Anthony to children that were recorded only in that county. Most of the proof for his children is found in deeds when Anthony was living in Hanover, but the child or the gift was land was located elsewhere and the deed was recorded in that county and survived.
The following list includes those persons who have been suggested by others as children of Anthony Haden.
A son BENJAMIN HADEN is perhaps the most controversial. Some say there was older son, Benjamin,born in England, said to be older than John. His descendants are supposed to have settled in Logan County KY and eventually Montgomery County, MO. Some descendants of this family ended up on the West coast - Washington, Oregon. This family has a strong tradition as being descended from Anthony and Margaret. The traditions surrounding Benjamin seem to have originated from a man named Joel Hayden of Wellsville, MO, who contributed a number of articles to The Hayden Family Magazine.If you've been following the Blogs, you know that I believe the material found therein to be about entirely different Haden, or Hayden/Haydon,families, and exceedingly unreliable. Joel Hayden is said to have died a widower with no children and all his papers were lost; his sources were never recorded. Some claim this Benjamin married a Jane Donaldson. Some have suggested this supposed Benjamin married a Margaret Douglas, a niece of Anthony's Margaret [who isn't even proven as a Douglas]. This lineage falls apart because it is based on a false lineage for Anthony's Margaret. No records to support the existence of Benjamin Haden of this age in the family of Anthony & Margaret have been found – indeed, no records have been found to support any of the traditions surrounding this man. No records have been found of the supposed wives. No evidence supports any of the children suggested for this Benjamin.
These researchers reliably trace their line back to Logan County KY, and I believe that part to be accurate, as far as it goes. The problem lies in Logan County, where their known ancestors there spell the name "Hadden". There were a number of proven descendants of Anthony Haden living in Logan Co KY at this same time, as this is my husband’s family line. However, there were two very separate and different families, Hadden and Haden, living some distance apart in Logan County, that have no recorded relationship with each other. Other Hadden surname researchers with whom I have corresponded do not have any Benjamins but they do reliably, and with documentation, trace the Haddens in Logan County, KY back to Virginia and to a Revolutionary ancestor, Elisha Hadden, not Anthony Haden. Interestingly, Elisha's wife was Margaret - but she was Margaret Stephenson.
Elisha Hadden served in the Revolution from Rockbridge County, VA and his rejected pension application R-4412 exists. At least two of the Elisha Hadden descdendants in Logan County KY were also named Elisha. As is so often the case, the spellings of Hadden, and Haden, and even another family named Haddox, in Logan County, seem to vary according to the clerk or tax collector [and according to the whim of transcribers and abstractors of these records].
The tax records for Logan County exist on LDS microfilm in very good shape, only a very few years are missing. Some years all the families were recorded with a common spelling, Hayden. Both the Hadden and Haden families used the given names William and Samuel often and had multiple generations of the same name - however, the given name Elisha does not occur anywhere in the family of Anthony Haden. The key to distinguishing the records was reasonably easy as the the Logan County tax records always gave the watercourse where the taxable property was located. The Hadens all lived on the Black Fork of the Gasper River. The Haddens lived across the county on Red River and became part of Butler County when that county was formed out of Logan County.
One of the Elisha Haddens did buy a 50-acre tract from William Haden at one point - in some places he has been recorded as Elisha Haden. Also, he or a cousin of the same name, lived in Simpson County in the next generation, as did William Haden's son Samuel. The records of Simpson County were lost to a courthouse fire and at least two censuses give mostly initials for given names, which has not helped in researching either family.
I spent many hours sorting out these familes in Logan County, KY, and can only conclude that early research, not completed in depth,encouraged the erroneous assumption of kinship. The first Benjamin Haden who was born 1762, in Anthony's family, was a grandson, son of his son John. This Benjamin's family is well documented in Virginia, most of whom remained there - none going to Kentucky.
Some have believed Anthony and Margaret Haden had a son THOMAS HADEN.
Several researchers thought he was the Thomas Haydon who settled in Spotsylvania County, VA and died 27 Jun 1782, who is really too old anyway to have been a son of Anthony and Margaret. He is more of an age to have been a brother to Anthony and was actually no relation at all. [This has been substantiated by DNA tests – these two families are not related at all.] Thomas of Spotsylvania also had a son named Thomas and,among others, William, John, etc....many similar names, but also names such as Elijah and Jarvis which were not ever used by Anthony's family. Thomas Haydon's son John married Lucy Dale Morgan and migrated to Kentucky, where he left a will naming his fifteen children. Unfortunately some have confused this John with John, the son of Anthony, who died in Campbell County, VA. Again, I believe this error to have come directly from that Hayden periodical.
However, a Thomas Haden was a witness to a deed of Anthony Haden's. This deed is recorded in Henrico County, 6 Mar 1761, and was from Anthony Haden of Hanover to Jacob Ferris, husband of Anthony’s daughter Ruth, for a slave woman and her two daughters, and was witnessed by George Clopton and Thomas Haden. A Thomas Haden's land was processioned in Hanover Co, 1763 and 1767. In previous processioning records, there was mention of John Hayden's "orphans". There are parish records in Hanover,providing support for a child of Thomas Haden, 1772-1774. William and Mary College Quarterly; Vol. 7, Series 1, p.105 “Marriage Bonds in Goochland County”, lists Thomas as witnessing a marriage in that county: 11 Feb 1778. Solomon Williams to Lucy Holland. Sec., James Williams. John Holland’s letter of consent to daughter’s marriage witnessed by John Massie and Thomas Haden. The latter, Lucy Holland, aged 21, Dec 6, 1779. But what happened to this man? Thomas Haden apparently doesn't appear again and I've never found anyone claiming descent. Was he a son of Anthony? Or perhaps a nephew? None of Anthony's proven sons named a son Thomas; it is a name not used in his family until many generations later.
Also living in Hanover County, with records continuing slightly later than those of Thomas, 1771-1788, was an Isaiah Haden. Isaiah is a given name not used in the family of Anthony Haden. I have never seen any suggestion Isaiah was part of Anthony's family, but if Thomas was, then I have to suspect Isaiah may have been as well. Isaiah's wife was an Ann, and they lived near the Haynes & Meads on the South Anna River.
One researcher suggested Anthony had two daughters named Elizabeth, one who died young, but again there is only one record that suggests this – Lost Links by Elisabeth W. Francis & Ethel S. Moore, 1975, p.373 – and it’s very ambiguous. I believe there was only one Elizabeth and we have the record when Anthony made the deed of gift to Elizabeth's daughter, Ann Rea.
Another daughter,youngest daughter JANE HADEN, said to be born about 1744, whose husband may have been a Hendley/Hundley, is listed in some records but I have found no proof whatever of her existence. Jane is also omitted from John Haden of Virginia. She seems to be somewhat younger than the others, maybe too young to be considered as part of the family.
I have left a possible son named Anthony until last. It would seem that Anthony & Margaret Haden would have had a son named for his father. Of course, many infants did not survive and there could well have been an Anthony that did not live long enough to create records. There are Anthony Hadens of the next couple of generations that show up in other places and cannot be traced back - they will be a separate Blog.
