Hannah Fugate

http://www.indiana.edu/~oso/lessons/Blues/TheBlues.htm#pedigree

Hannah ? married Benjamin FUGATE and had children

• Martin FUGATE {born with Methemoglobinemia or blue-skinned} married Mary WELLS

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Fugate Forum : posted by Mary Fugate The "Devers" was a guess by David Faris, based on the fact that one of her children was named "Charles D." and back in Russell Co. there was a Charles Devers living nearby. Extensive search of the early records has failed to make that connection, or even to put Charles Devers in North Carolina where Hannah was said to have been born.

Fugate/Dever Article Fugate Family Newsletter Volume XIV-3 –  November 1992

“Was Hannah a “Dever”? [by Mary D. Fugate]

During the summer, I corresponded with a descendant of CHARLES and JANE DEVER(S) who owned the land next to WILLIAM FUGATE on Moccasin Creek in the 1790’s.   Jane and her son Charles sold that land to COLBERT FUGATE in 1798 after Charles had died.   Jane was then living in Lee Co. VA and son Charles Jr. had moved to Grainger Co. TN.   There has been some speculation that HANNAH, wife of BENJAMIN FUGATE of Russell Co. and later of Clay & Perry Co. KY, might have been a daughter of Charles Dever.   This speculation seems to have been predicated solely on the fact that she named her son “CHARLES D.” (although you can find almost as many records that call him “Charles B.”, which has never been fully explored.)

Hannah Fugate, according to her death record in Breathitt Co. in 1853, was born in 1753 in North Carolina.   The 1850 census also gives her birthplace as North Carolina.   That being the case, the first step in proving Charles Dever of Moccasin Creek as her father must be to locate him in the early 1750’s.   We also need to establish his approximate age.   Mrs. Nealy has provided the information to estimate this.

Charles Dever(s) is well documented, with wife “Jenny” or “Jane” in Augusta Co. VA on the “North River of the Shenando” in various deeds and court records between 1748 and 1769.   In 1799, he is recorded in a deed in Rockingham Co. (formed 1778 from Augusta).   The first appearance of his name found so far in the Moccasin Creek area is on a 1785 petition to divide Washington Co.   These records seem to indicate that Charles Dever must have been born by 1725/30, and that he was living in Virginia, not North Carolina, when Hannah was born.   He was also apparently still living in Rockingham Co. at the time when Benjamin Fugate must have met and married Hannah, and we have found no record of Benjamin in Rockingham Co.   In that case (unless he can be shown to have spent some time in North Carolina), Charles Dever cannot have been Hannah’s father, and seems too old to have been her brother.   If Hannah named her son after him, it must have been because he was a neighbor and friend.

Unfortunately, the only recorded child of Charles and Jane Dever is the son Charles Jr., who is included in the deed of sale of the Moccasin Creek land.   This could mean that they had no other children, but that is unlikely for a couple who were married as song as they apparently were.   The deed refers to a “will” (no doubt in Russell Co.’s missing first Will Book), so the fact that only Jane and Charles Jr. are named on the deed only means that the land was left specifically to them in the will.   Any other children cold have been dealt with separately.   Charles Jr. was born ca. 1769-71 according to his appearance on the personal property tax lists, so was possibly the youngest child.   This certainly leaves room in the family for daughters born between 1750 and 1770 who could have married the Fugate brothers.

Two other Fugate wives have been considered as possible Dever’s.   One is UNITY, wife of ZACHARIAH.   We know much less about her, since she did not live long enough to be recorded in the 1850 census.   Her first child was born ca. 1783, so she must have married Zachariah about 1780-82.   Charles Dever is not listed in the Personal Property Tax lists of Washington Co. among the Moccasin Creek families in 1782, although Zachariah had his own household by then.   So it is doubtful that Unity was a daughter of Charles Dever.

The last possibility is JANE, wife of WILLIAM FUGATE, whose land bordered the land of Charles & Jane Dever.   William & Jane Fugate moved to Lee Co. about 1797, when they sold their Russell Co. land and were called “of Lee Co.”   Jane Dever was on the 1796 Personal Property Tax List of Lee Co.   There is absolutely no evidence that Jane Fugate was a daughter of Charles & Jane Dever, except the coincidence of first names and the fact that the two families were living next to each other between 1785 and 1788 when William & Jane must have married, and both moved to Lee Co. about the same time.

I asked Mrs. Nealy for the names of Charles Jr.’s children in case he might have used some name common to the Fugate families, but none of the names were unusual enough to make that connection.   There were no “Unity”, no “Hannah” –  not even a “Jane”.

In conclusion, it seems to me that until some other evidence turns up –  either of placing the Dever family briefly in North Carolina, or at a later period somewhere near where the Fugate’s lived, we must give up on the theory that Hannah, Unity or Jane Fugate were daughters of Charles & Jane Devers