| Notes |
- "The ancestor of the Hite family in America was Hans Jost Heydt.... Hite's name appears in many variations (not unusual in his times): Heid, Heite, Heydt, Tyte, and finally, Hite. His first [middle] name was written Jost, Just, Yost, or Joist.
"Hite (said by many to be a baron) was a wealthy nobleman, born in Strasbourg, Alsace, Germany, who sold his ancestral estates and fled to Holland because of religious persecution. There he married Anna Maria DuBois, daughter of Louis Du Bois, a French Huguenot, and refugee to Holland from Wicres. He was a kinsman of Louis Du Bois (b. 1626, d. 1695), one of the founders of New Paltz, who led an expedition against Indians in 1663; was in Colonial Forces against Indians in 1670; and was a descendant of Macquaire DuBois, Count De Roussy, A.D. 1110. [There is controversy about the identity of Hite's wife. Jones, Connor, & West in their 'German Origins of Jost Hite' state that Hite's wife was Anna Maria Merkle. I have chosen the latter because of more recent scholarship and because the Hite Family Association seems to endorse it]
"The Hite's first daughter, Mary (our ancestor) was born in Holland.
"In 1710 Jost and his family sailed from Rotterdam to New York on his own ship, the brigantine 'Swift,' with the schooner, 'Friendship,' bringing with them on both ships, sixteen families of Germans and Dutch as tenants on the lands he intended to acquire. For several years they lived in Kingston on the Hudson River.
"In 1716 Jost Hite settled on a large tract of land in or near Germantown, near Philadelphia. There, at the mouth of Perkiomen Creek, he built and operated a mill for the manufacture of woolen cloth, said to have been the first of its kind in this country.
"Perhaps Jost became restless. Maybe he was inspired by stories of the great Shenandoah Valley, told by his old Dutch friends, John and Isaac Van Meter, who had visited the Valley frequently while trading with friendly Indians. The Indians called the valley 'Senedoes,' 'the daughter of the stars.' Beautiful, winding rivers full of fish; forests; fertile soil; and many varieties of wild game animals tempted Jost to buy 40,000 acres from the Van Meters in 1727-28, and later another tract of 100,000 acres, west of the mountains.
"On the other hand, the historian John W. Wayland thinks that Hite might have had an earlier acquaintance with the Shenandoah Valley. 'There is a tradition that he was with Alexander Spotswood, the Virginia governor, in 1716, when the latter led his company of adventurers in the famous expedition across the Blue Ridge and commemorated the achievement by giving to each of his gentlemen companions a small golden horseshoe studded with gems.'
"In Pennsylvania and Maryland the Indians, maddened by the encroachments of the white settlers, were raiding and murdering colonists. Petitions by Hite and others for protection were ignored by Governor Gordon.
"Whatever the reasons, in 1732 Jost Hite, with his family; his sons-in-law George Bowman, Jacob Chrisman, and Paul Froman, with their families; Robert McKay, Robert Green, William Duff, Peter Stephens, and several others -- totalling sixteen families -- left Pennsylvania. Members of the ox-drawn caravan cut their own road, and followed Indian trails from York. They crossed the Potomac about two miles above Harper's Ferry at Pack Horse Ford.
"The Hites built a cabin and fort on Opequon Creek, about five miles south of Winchester. Thus, they became part of the strong fabric woven by the daring pioneers of this country.
"Later, Jost and his son, Col. John Hite, built 'Springdale,' a limestone mansion (still existing), across the 'Great Waggon Road' (now route 11) from a dam and grist mill, and one and one-half miles northeast of the present town of Stephens City.
"After home steading in Virginia, Hite devoted himself chiefly to buying and selling lands, acquiring thousands of rich acres in different parts of the Valley. He was affectionately known as 'Baron Hite,' or 'The Old German Baron.'
"James Richard Wilkins points to the heavy responsibilities on Hite's shoulders: 'A new country, Indians, forest, wild animals, a new Colonial government to deal with, plus all the uncertaintite of feeding, clothing and housing his settlers in this new land....'
"Grants of acreage required certain numbers of settlers. Hite recruited Germans, Dutchmen, Scots, Irish, and English with enticing offers of land. It was even rumored that some quotas were met by giving cows, pigs, and other animals names!
"According to John W. Wayland, historian, Thomas, Lord Fairfax visited Jost Hite on his first trip to Virginia in 1736. Until 1746 or thereabouts, the exact boundaries of the Northern Neck, Fairfax's domain, were not clearly defined, and many of the earliest grants made in the Valley by the royal governors at Williamsburg lay within Fairfax's holdings. Fairfax objected to the manner in which many of these early grants were laid out, and an argument arose between him and Hite.
"In the celebrated case, May 3,4, and 5, 1786, one of the lawyers for Fairfax was a young man, John Marshall, later Chief Justice of the Supreme Court (to whom we are said to be related). One of his opponents, arguing for Hite, was the talented Edmund Randolph, who was later Attorney-General of the United States under President Washington.
"Two points were at issue: (1) whether the titles of Hite, and his associated and successors, should be made good; and (2) whether Fairfax's title as proprietor to the Northern Neck of Virginia should be recognized as valid. In its decision, the court sustained the Hite claims, but did not invalidate the title of Fairfax. Marshall clearly foresaw the chaos that would result if Virginia should confiscate the Fairfax grant, and devoted his main efforts toward preventing such an outcome, declaring that such action would destroy every land title in the commonwealth. Hite's victory in winning the right of his people to retain title to their lands was not fully confirmed until after his death in 1760.
"In 1748 George Washington, with a group of surveyors, visited Springdale; and from 1756 to 1759, while Washington, in charge of the frontier defenses, had his headquarters in Winchester, he doubtless was frequently a guest at the Hite's home.
"For twenty years or more the Indians gave no serious trouble to the Valley settlers, but in 1754 there were frequent and devastating raids, in which the Indians were often led by French officers. The chain of widely separated frontier forts was inadequate, and many settles fled eastward across the Blue Ridge. Old court martial records at Winchester show that Jost Hite's sons and the sons of George Bowman were among those who tried to uphold the militia organization.
"Jost Hite and his first wife had eight children. She died in 1738, and in 1741 he married again, the widow Neuschwanger, with whom he made a definite premarital contract, which might have been the model for others, later. No evidence has been found of any children born of this second marriage. The wording of his will and contracts indicates that Jost was a devout Christian. His name appears on a list of members of the German Reformed Church in or near Philadelphia between 1735 and 1755.
"The following story is told by historian James Richard Wilkins. When Jost died in 1761, a controversy developed about his burial site. After his grave had been dug at Long Meadows, his son Isaac decided that he should be buried at Opequon Church. An old slave, 'Vash,' who dug the grave, exclaimed, 'It's bad luck and a curse to move Massa Jost's grave after it dug. Massa Isaac, ain't you heard dat to change a man grabe site after it's dug will put the curse of the wanderer inter his blood from generation to generation for ever and ever?' The curse may have had some validity!" -- Bond, Marian Saunders. Some ancestors, pp. 34-39.
" In 1711, Jost and Anna Maria Hite and their children where living in Kingston, in the New Paltz region of New York, By 1713, it had become clear to the settlers that they were not going to receive what had been promised to them. The promised 40 acres turned out to be a 40' x 50' lot, large enough for a log cabin and an inadequate-sized garden -- and they were indentured to the Crown for life. Since Governor Keith of Pennsylvania made the settlers a much better offer, in 1714, Jost purchased 150 acres on the Skippack Creek -- about 15 miles west of the inhabited part of Germantown, Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania. They built some boats, packed their belongings, and went down the Susquehanna River, trekked cross country to Skippack Creek. In 1716 Jost bought more property: in 1717 he was paying quitrent on 174 acres at Skippack where they lived for a couple of years. In 1718 he purchased 600 acres a mile or so to the west, on the Perkiomen Creek for 125 pounds. The water flow of the Perkiomen was better for a grist mill. On top of a Gentle slope above the Perkiomen Creek, Jost built a field-stone 16' by 18' one-room cabin with an oak beam ceiling above which was the loft used for sleeping. Beneath the main room with the oven fireplace, there was a root cellar. The roof was covered with hand-split wood shakes. The fireplace side of the room was paneled. There seems to be no doubt at 'Pennypacker Mills' (greatly renovated with additions at the turn of the 20th century and now open to the public) that the paneling was part of the original cabin. This leads one to believe, that although Jost and his family when in Kingston, were on the Governor of New York's subscription list in 1710, he was a man of some substance ten years later.
"A month after an '11-Indian attack on a nearby community in April of 1728 -- fought off by about 20 German framers, Yost Hite and 76 other settlers of Falckner's Swamp, Schippac and Goshenhoppen, in Colebrookdale' signed a petition to the Governor of Pennsylvania requesting help. It doesn't seem likely that Jost's decision to leave Pennsylvania was due to the possibility of Indian attack. He was very much aware that the Governor and Council of Virginia were encouraging settlers to move to the Virginia frontier to serve as a buffer between the Indians to the west and the eastern-inhabitants-of- Virginia, In January of 1730, Jost sold his plantation of 600 acres which included the gristmill and a still for 540 pounds.
"Jost and 16 families left Pennsylvania in the autumn of 1731 -- traveling west and south through York on the Indian Trail across the Pennsylvania-Maryland border. The difficult trek south was made with the infant Joseph and Jost wrote 'for the greatest and most Difficult Parts of the way they were Obliged to make Roads' and once settled 'Obliged to life in their waggons til they Built some small Huts to shelter themselves from the Inclemency of the Weather and so far distant from any settlement but especially from any such as could supply them with any Provisions or Necessaries, they could scarce procure any one thing nearer than Pensylvania or Fredericksburg....' When they reached the Potomac River, they forded it at 'Pack Horse Ford,' about a half-mile down stream from where the ferry crossed at Shepherdstown." -- Hite Family Newsletter, fall, 1992
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Taylor Family Genealogy
1685 - 1761 (74 years)
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