McCallister's McAlisters (and some other good families)

The Heavrin Family

It took Thomas Heverin and a friend four days to walk to Dublin from the hamlet of Cullen in County Tipperrary Ireland. The year was 1679, May 14 1679, to be exact. Thomas was 16 years old and had determined to move to the American colonies. To remain in Ireland was a no-win situation. Catholics could not own land, even if they could have afforded it. Most families, including Thomas's, lived from hand to mouth. He chose Maryland because he had heard that bound servants received more land there when their bond was up than in the other colonies. And he wanted his own land. He sailed on the frigate St. George, a two month trip.

In Maryland, Thomas was bound to Bartholomew Ennalls, a planter in Dorchester County Maryland in the area known today as the Delmarva Peninsula. Thomas learned farming and particularly, tobacco farming. Ennalls deeded Thomas his 50 acres in 1694 after 15 years of indenture. With men outnumbering women three to one, Thomas did not marry until 1712. Son William was born two years later. Thomas and wife died in 1732.

William Heverin moved up the peninsula in 1739 and bought land in the Appoquinimink Forest, about 15 miles east of Old Bohemia (St. Francis Xavier) Catholic Church, near today's Dexter Corners. Part of this farm is now within the Black Bird State Forest. In 1740, the farm was patented by the land office in New Castle Delaware, and was named Crispin's Ramble by William. William married Matilda Ann Hill at Old Bohemia, where he was a communicant. They had 10 children. William died, and was buried at Crispin's Ramble in 1782.

William's youngest son, Benjamin, served in the Delaware militia during the Revolutionary War and saw action at Wilmington and Brandywine. Benjamin married, and after his father died, moved west to the Uniontown Pennsylvania area. Three of his brothers and a sister also moved to that area. Benjamin's family continued to grow and son William was born in Pennsylvania in 1790. Within a few years however, Benjamin and family, along with 3 of his brothers and their families all moved to central Kentucky, primarily at the urging of their friend Ben Hardin. After a stint in central Kentucky, William Heavrin (1790) married Henrietta Riggs and later, moved his family to Union County Kentucky. The overland trip to heavily wooded Union County took two weeks.

In 1824, William purchased 137 acres for a farm, paying $2.00 per acre. William and Henrietta parented three sons and four daughters. But in 1842, William and Henrietta separated and Henrietta moved to the opposite end of the county. The details of this separation are murky at best. William remarried in 1850 to Jane Whitfill, by whom he had one daughter. William died in 1859 and is buried at St. Ambrose Cemetery just over the hills from the farm he established there 35 years before. William Heavrin (1790) is my maternal third great grandfather and the progenitor of all the Heavrins that call Union County home.

The church at the top of the page is Old Bohemia (St. Francis Xavier) Church where the Heavrins communicated after William's move to Crispin's Ramble. The parish was started by the Jesuit order and records begin in 1704. No longer an active congregation, the facility now (2005) is a mission church of the Diocese of Wilmington DE. The cemetery remains open and still accepts burials.