George Hairston (September 20, 1750 to March 5, 1825) was a noted planter and politician in Virginia. He was a Colonel in the

American Revolutionary War The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was a major war of the American Revolution. Widely considered as the war that secured the independence of t ...

and a Brigadier General in the

War of 1812 The War of 1812 (18 June 1812 – 17 February 1815) was fought by the United States, United States of America and its Indigenous peoples of the Americas, indigenous allies against the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, United Kingdom ...

Family life

George Hairston was the son of

Robert Hairston Robert Hairston (1717August 3, 1791) was an 18th-century gentleman planter, politician, and military officer in the Virginia Colony. He was an elected representative in both the House of Burgesses and the Virginia House of Delegates. Family li ...

and his wife, Ruth Stovall Hairston, and was born on September 20, 1750, at their home of Marrowbone plantation in

Bedford County, Virginia Bedford County is a United States county located in the Piedmont region of the Commonwealth of Virginia. Its county seat is the town of Bedford, which was an independent city from 1968 until rejoining the county in 2013. Bedford County was ...

, (which latter became part of

Henry County, Virginia Henry County is a county located in the U.S. state of Virginia. As of the 2020 census, the population was 50,948. The county seat is usually identified as Martinsville; however, the administration building (where county offices are located an ...

). In 1776, George Hairston built

Beaver Creek Plantation Beaver Creek Plantation, under the ownership of George Hairston, was a large slave-holding tobacco plantation and the center of an empire in tobacco-growing and slave-trading built by the Hairston family, Scottish emigrants to Pennsylvania in the ...

, which remained his home. In 1790, George Hairston and James Anthony donated fifty acres of land for a courthouse and public buildings, which later became the center of

Martinsville, Virginia Martinsville is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States. As of the 2020 census, the population was 13,485. A community of both Southside and Southwest Virginia, it is the county seat of Henry County, althou ...

. He married Elizabeth Perkins Letcher on January 1, 1781, and they had twelve children. Elizabeth Letcher was the widow of Captain William Letcher of

Laurel Hill Farm Laurel Hill Farm is a private park and historic home located in Ararat, Virginia. The birthplace of James Ewell Brown "Jeb" Stuart, seventy-five acres of the owned by the Stuart Family was saved in 1992 by the J. E. B. Stuart Birthplace Preser ...

, who was killed by Tories in front of his wife in 1780. Their children were: Robert HAIRSTON b. 1 Apr 1783, d. 7 Mar 1852; Col. George "Old Rusty" HAIRSTON Jr.+ b. 27 Nov 1784, d. 13 Oct 1863; Harden HAIRSTON+ b. 23 Oct 1786, d. 23 Oct 1862; Lt. Samuel HAIRSTON+ b. 19 Nov 1788, d. 2 Mar 1875; Nicholas Perkins HAIRSTON b. 18 Oct 1791, d. 1824; Henry HAIRSTON b. 23 Jul 1793, d. 1825; Peter HAIRSTON b. 16 Jan 1796, d. 28 Oct 1810; Constantine HAIRSTON b. 17 Dec 1797, d. 12 Feb 1819; John Adams HAIRSTON+ b. 15 Mar 1799, d. 7 Sep 1849; America HAIRSTON+ b. 21 Feb 1801, d. 16 Mar 1826; Marshall HAIRSTON+ b. 4 Jul 1802, d. 20 Jan 1882 and Ruth Stovall HAIRSTON+ b. 6 Sep 1804, d. 20 Sep 1838. Through his mother, George was the fourth-great-grandson of Christopher Newport and a distant cousin of

Illiam Dhone or (literally meaning 'Brown William' in English) (14 April 16082 January 1663), also known as William Christian, was a Manx politician and depending on viewpoint, patriot, rebel or traitor. He was a son of Ewan Christian, a deemster. In M ...

and

Fletcher Christian Fletcher Christian (25 September 1764 – 20 September 1793) was master's mate on board HMS ''Bounty'' during Lieutenant William Bligh's voyage to Tahiti during 1787–1789 for breadfruit plants. In the mutiny on the ''Bounty'', Christian se ...

Revolutionary War

He was the captain of a company of Col. Abram Penn that, in March 1781, hurried from

to the assistance of Gen.

Nathanael Greene Nathanael Greene (June 19, 1786, sometimes misspelled Nathaniel) was a major general of the Continental Army in the American Revolutionary War. He emerged from the war with a reputation as General George Washington's most talented and dependab ...

at the Battle of Guilford Court House near Greensboro, NC. In "The Architectural Survey of Henry County", it states: "George Hairston established his Beaver Creek plantation around 1776. The next year he received appointment as a Henry County militia captain at the first meeting of the county court. He served as third captain under Major Waller at the Battle of Guilford Courthouse, and again joined Waller at the British surrender at Yorktown. During the 1780s he purchased and sold numerous tracts of land and worked his tobacco plantation with 29 slaves. In June 1791 George Hairston and James Anthony gave Henry County 50 acres adjacent to the courthouse, the tract that the Virginia General Assembly established as the town of artinsville, Virginiain December 1791." hr.virginia.gov/.../HR-061_Henry_County_2009_Survey_Report.pdf Architectural Survey of Henry County 2009. Page 18.

War of 1812

He served as a brigadier general in the War of 1812, commanding the 3rd, 4th, 5th & 6th Virginia and the 85th North Carolina (a colonel in NC) regiments. He saw much service and was in the engagement that repulsed

Robert Ross (British Army officer) Major-general (United Kingdom), Major-General Robert Ross (176612 September 1814) was an Irish officer in the British Army who served in the Napoleonic Wars and its theatre in North America in the War of 1812. Ross joined the British Army in 1 ...

who burned Washington DC and was killed at the

Battle of Bladensburg The Battle of Bladensburg was a battle of the Chesapeake campaign of the War of 1812, fought on 24 August 1814 at Bladensburg, Maryland, northeast of Washington, D.C. Called "the greatest disgrace ever dealt to American arms," a British for ...

Death and burial

He died on March 5, 1825, at his home,

, in Henry County. He is buried at the Hairston Family Cemetery-Beaver Creek Plantation Henry County Virginia. George left a will written on 7 March 1820. His estate was probated on 9 April 1827.

References

Bibliography

* DeMark, Susan. 1979. "Hairstons: A Family, a Corporation". Burlington County Times.
"Col. George Hairston’s Obituary"
The Richmond Enquirer. April 10, 1827.

Abstract: George Hairston was a captain in the American Revolution and an acting brigadier general during the War of 1812. The collection includes general orders and brigade orders, court martial proceedings, muster rolls, morning reports, and other records of the 4th, 5th, and 6th regiments of Virginia militia under Hairston in the service of the United States at and near Norfolk, Va. * Hairston Family Bible Record. 1750. Summary: Area covered is Henry County, Virginia. Other surnames mentioned: Saunders and Wilson. * Hairston, Elizabeth Seawell Hairston. The Hairstons and Penns and Their Relations. Roanoke, Va: ublisher not identified 1940. * Hairston, Peter W. The Stories of Beaver Creek: As Gleaned from Family Letters and Records. nited States P. Hairston, 2003. * Harris, John B. Peter Hairston the Immigrant. enry County, VA J.B. Harris, 2002. 82 leaves: chiefly facsimiles; 28 cm. * Records of Ante-bellum Southern Plantations from the Revolution Through the Civil War: Hairston and Wilson families. Kenneth Milton Stampp, Martin Paul Schipper, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Library. Southern Historical Collection. 1993. * Wiencek, Henry. The Hairstons: An American Family in Black and White. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1999. {{DEFAULTSORT:Hairston, George People from Henry County, Virginia Virginia militiamen in the American Revolution American militiamen in the War of 1812 American planters 1750 births 1825 deaths Virginia colonial people American slave owners American militia generals