Family Tree Maker's Genealogy Site: Genealogy Report: Descendants of Joshua Hightower

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Descendants of Joshua Hightower

Generation No. 1

1. JOSHUA¹ HIGHTOWER was born Abt. 1670, and died August 1726 in Richmond Co., Virginia. He married ELEANOR CHARNOLD Abt. 1690. She was born Bef. 1675, and died Aft. 1734.

Notes for JOSHUA HIGHTOWER:
Name may have been Joshua I. Hightower

Last Will, dated 14 April 1726, proved 22 August 1726

WITN
Luther Malcolm Basham, 10352 White Rock Circle, Dallas, TX 75238
Nancy Jones Crawford, 2417 NW Powderhorn Dr., Kansas City, MO 64154
Hazel Hightower Smith, 1240 Tuma Trail, Las Cruces, NM 88001
Richard Tell Davidson, 515 Agee Ave. NW, Camden, AR 71701

Moore, Joseph Henry Hightower. A History of Clayton County,
Georgia 1821-1983, p. 285:

"The Hightower family is of English origin. According to
standard dictionaries of Anglo-Saxon surnames, the
progenitors of the family were dwellers in or near a high
tower. The first recorded member of this family in America
was Joshua Hightower, who settled in Richmond co., Va., in
the latter 1600's. He is considered by historians to be the
ancestor of the numerous Southern branches of the family."

*********

LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT OF JOSHUA HIGHTOWER
Will Book 5 - Pages 14, 15
Richmond County, Virginia

In the Name of God Amen this is the last will and testament
of Joshua Hightower being in perfect Sence and Memory at
this time Blessed be God for it -

Item - I do Bequeath my Presious and Immortall Soul to God
that gave it and My Body to be buried with a Christian
Buriall at the Discression of My Wife -

Item - I give one Feather Bed and furniture to My loving
Wife and one flock Bed and Furniture both as they Now are
and Thirteen head of Cattle and foure pewter Dishes one
bason and one Dozon of Pewter Plates one Tankard three
Porergers one Chamber Pott one Great Iron Pott and one small
Pott with the hooks - belonging to them -

Feather bed Bolster Beadsted and Furniture and two Pewter
Dishes five Plates and two Porrergers and one Middlen Pott
and Pott hooks and two Cows and their Increase one Called
lovely and the other Crown Rose -

Item - I give and Bequeath to My Son Thomas Hightower one
Gray Mare and Colt and their Increase -

Item - I give unto My other four Children Tenn shillings a
Peice they not haveing any other Part of my estate -

Item - I give unto my loving Wife a Part or Parcell of Land
as I now live on as least of M. Robert Baylis and -- after
her Decease to My Son Charnall Hightower - Lastly I make my
Wife my full and whole Executrix of this my last will and
Testament giveing her all the rest of my Estate heretofore
not given and it is my Desire that my wife see this my last
will performed as Wittness my hand this 14 day Aprill 1726-

his
Joshua (J) Hightower
mark

Signed Sealed and Delivered in the Presence of us -

Test:
Cha: Dobyns
Henry Williams

At a Court held for Richmond County this day of August 1726

This Will was Proved in Open Court by the Oath of Henry
Williams one of the Wittnesses thereto and admitted to
Record -

Test. M: Beckwith CCt

Estate Inventory is in Will Book 5, p. 16-17, Richmond
County, Virginia

*********

The following was written by Hazel (Hightower) Elliott Smith
on September 20, 1987:

"Some of the data I have recorded can be verified with court
records; some a result of research through Bible records,
and some my researched opinion.

First, let me say, I yet cannot verify our Hightower
immigrant ancestor, but am of the firm conviction we are
English descent, the Isle of Wales.

'Friendship' - one of the earliest passenger ships on
record, embarking from England, took nine to ten weeks to
complete the Trans-Atlantic crossing and the passengers on
board were under obligation to the Governors of the American
Plantations.

Year 1653, the 'Friendship', with William Perse, as its
commander, arrived with one of its passengers by the name of
John Hitower (Hightower). According to the Passenger Ship
Search and Attestation report, he had come to Virginia on
land transactions.

In view of the foregoing statement, Hightower descendants,
now into the many thousands, would be pleased to claim him
as their immigrant ancestor. Who knows? He very well could
be? However, in spite of the ever ongoing diligent research
of the hundreds of avid descendant/ researchers, proof has
not surfaced.

The best we can do is speculate and continue the search.
This John Hightower could have been the father of a son
Joshua, then residing in England. Perhaps a young man,
maybe one with high aspirations to come to America, and his
father, John, was instrumental in seeing his son, Joshua,
realized his dream.

At any rate, it is a known fact, one Joshua Hightower had
been in Richmond County, Virginia, owned property there,
indicating residence prior to 1698. A suit was filed against
his estate in 1698 -and it is of record in Court Order Book
2, Richmond County, Virginia. "Attachment granted Thomas
Newton against estate of Joshua Hightower by declaration
returnable." Since the suit was filed against his estate is
a clear indication this Joshua Hightower was deceased, and
that he had been a resident of Richmond County, VA.
According to Clayton Torrence's VIRGINIA WILL AND
ADMINISTRATION, 1632 -1800, this Joshua Hightower was not
recorded as having a will, therefore, he died intestate.

Since no records had been kept by the State of Virginia,
prior to 1700, as to marriages, births and deaths,
researchers are at a loss to determine ancestry of the
Joshua Hightower that was residing in Richmond County,
Virginia in 1698, with a suit filed March, 1698, Court Order
Book 2, p. 389 wherein an action was brought against Joshua
Hightower by Giles and James Webb, executors of John Webb,
deceased.

The foregoing statement is clear indication there is a
Joshua Hightower, very much alive, residing in Richmond
County, Virginia. It seem logical to use the foregoing data
to link John and the two Joshuas.

John Hightower, believed to have not resided in America, but
having bought land in Richmond County, Virginia, in the
early 1650's and a son of his, Joshua Hightower who died in
1698, being the first resident of the Hightower family in
America. Whether he was our immigrant ancestor is yet to be
proven. My researched opinion is that he, indeed, was our
immigrant ancestor and the Joshua Hightower named in the
suit filed in, 1698, by the Webb brothers was the Hightower
I claim to be the husband of Eleanor and the father of six
children, two of which he named in his Will, probated in
1726, in Richmond County, Virginia. Numerous Court cases
are of record in Richmond County, Virginia, 1698 -1726,
naming this Joshua Hightower.

Clayton Torrence's VIRGINIA WILLS AND ADMINISTRATIONS,
states the earliest entry recorded is the Will of one Joshua
Hightower, Richmond County, Virginia, in 1726.

According to the State Archivist, Louis H. Manarin, Virginia
State Library, Richmond, Virginia "... statewide, this 1726
Hightower listing is the earliest".

Therefore, we feel safe in beginning a compilation, naming
it the:

"FIRST HIGHTOWERS OF VIRGINIA AND THEIR DESCENDANTS"

*********

The following statement was written by Walter A. Walker:

"After the Revolution, the great migration of Virginians
carried the Hightowers to various regions south and west. By
1800 there were about thirty families of their descendants.
Some moved to Virginia counties farther west; others to the
newly opened sections of the Carolinas, Georgia, Tennessee,
Kentucky, Alabama, Mississippi, and Texas.

For many years I have collected Hightower records from all
available sources, in an effort to trace all lines down to
recent times, for publications as a general genealogy of the
Hightower family. It is strongly indicated that all
Hightowers of the country are descended from that early
family of Richmond County, Virginia.

The earliest Hightower family of whom we have records lived
in Richmond County, Virginia, before the year 1700. There,
in 1698, the estate of Joshua Hightower was administered,
suggesting residence of Hightowers there sometime before
that date.

In 1726, a Joshua Hightower died in Richmond County, leaving
a wife, Eleanor, and six children. His eldest son, Charnel,
married Sarah Glascock in January 1727/8, and reared a large
family. From 1720 to about 1750 three Hightower families
lived in Richmond County, close neighbors and closely
related--the families of Charnel, John and Joshua. We do
not yet know just how these three men were related, John and
Joshua could have been brothers; Charnel, the son of Joshua
who died in 1726, a cousin.

About 1750 these three families moved to Amelia County, to
the part that in 1789 was cut off and made Nottoway County.
They settled in the southeast corner of the county, near the
present city of Blackstone, where Nottoway, Brunswick and
Lunenburg Counties meet. Though some lived in each county,
they still were near one another. They continued in that
region, close together, until the period of the
Revolutionary War.

Fortunately, for the genealogical record, the names, birth
dates and names of the parents of the children born in
Richmond County, Virginia, between 1700 and 1750 were
recorded in the Farnham Parish Register, a copy of which is
to be found at Warsaw, Virginia.

Notes for ELEANOR CHARNOLD:
No proof of surname. Some have suggested CHARNOLD

WITN
J. D. Patterson, 6616 Gaston Ave., Dallas, TX 75214

Children of JOSHUA HIGHTOWER and ELEANOR CHARNOLD are:

	i.	JOSEPH² HIGHTOWER.
	ii.	JOSHUA HIGHTOWER.
2.	iii.	JOHN HIGHTOWER, b. Abt. 1692, Amelia Co., Virginia; d. September 04, 1764, Richmond Co., Virginia.
3.	iv.	AUSTIN HIGHTOWER, b. Abt. 1698, Richmond Co., Virginia; d. February 06, 1784, Chatham Co, North Carolina.
4.	v.	CHARNEL HIGHTOWER, b. Abt. 1700; d. Abt. 1762, Brunswick Cty., VA.
5.	vi.	THOMAS HIGHTOWER, b. March 20, 1712, Richmond Co., Virginia; d. Abt. 1761, Anson Co., North Carolina.

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