William Hurst

William Hurst was the son of George Hurst who served in George Washington's 1st Virginia Regiment during the French and Indian War.

Descendants from two of William's children assert that William served in the Revolutionary War. There are records of at least six William Hursts who served in the U.S. military during the Revolutionary War. None of them can be proven to be this William Hurst. If he served in a state militia, it is possible that no records exist. Because William never applied for a pension and the War Department's muster rolls are incomplete, his military exploits, if any, cannot be traced.

Following the war, it is believed that William settled on Lunice (Looney) Creek in the South Branch Valley, Hardy County (now Grant County), Virginia. About 1785, he married Margaret Elizabeth Sims, daughter of John Sims and his wife, Frances.

William Hurst and his young wife lived in the South Branch Valley for about ten years. Times were good here in the center of the early frontier cattle industry. Early settlers had discovered that the narrow valleys and steep mountainsides could be utilized advantageously to raise cattle.

The newest agricultural methods were used to build the industry and improve the breeding stock. At that time corn feeding of cattle was unique to the South Branch. Many frontier cattlemen from settlements in Kentucky and Ohio sent their cattle to the South Branch to fatten them for the eastern markets.

Whether a farmer, merchant or drover, the Wappatomaka resident usually prospered economically and a strong bond was created between the settlers.

Hardy County land records (Hardy County Land Book #4, pp83,84,353) show that William Hurst bought 103 acres on Fork Mountain Sept 9, 1795 for five shillings from John Spillman and that he sold the same land to Daniel Sites July 11, 1798 for 150 pounds. The sale included all houses, buildings, orchards, herds of animals, waters, primroses, renter profits and other profits from the entire estate. It should also be noted that George Hurst (Horst) purchased land in this area from John Spillman in 1795. Could George have been a brother or possibly the father of William Hurst??

It is believed that the first six children of William and Elizabeth were born in Hardy County. In the 1790s, William and Elizabeth left the productive South Branch Valley to seek new opportunities further westward on the frontier. For twenty years prior to their movement, settlers from Wappatomaka had migrated to the northwestern Virginia frontier where they found rugged wooded mountains, deep fertile valleys and flowing streams; a bountiful hunters' paradise.

The Hurst family established their new home somewhere along the Cheat River in Monongalia County, becoming part of a sparsely populated frontier settlement. Social and economic inequalities did not exist in the early frontier communities because all the settlers faced the same conditions. A deep feeling of camaraderie developed and the sense of mutual dependence for their common security linked them all in unity. While offering much that was good, homesteading on the Cheat River in the1790s also had its difficulties, dangers and tragedies. It was in this type of setting that the seventh and eighth children of William and Elizabeth were born.

In the summer of 1802, William Hurst died, his will was signed in Monongalia County June 18, 1802 and probated in July 1802. It named his wife, Elizabeth as the administratrix. After William's death, Elizabeth and her young children, migrated to the West Fork River area in Harrison County. Her brother, William Sims, had settled there earlier, near McWhorter's Mills. Family tradition states that, after William Hurst's death, the younger children of William and Elizabeth were raised by others, working for their board and clothing.

Harrison county records indicate that Elizabeth remarried twice. She married Benjamin Gibbs  on March 1, 1803, then after Gibbs' death, she married Isaac Winans on June 21, 1809. Winans died in 1812. His estate wasn't settled in 1827. It is unknown what happened to Elizabeth after Isaac Winans died. An Elizabeth Winans was a witness at a trial Sept. 12, 1820. The 1830 and 1840 Lewis County censuses show an older woman in the home of John Hurst, who could have been his mother, Elizabeth Sims Hurst Gibbs Winans.

The children of William and Elizabeth Sims Hurst were John, Catherine, Nancy, Margaret, Sarah, Samuel, Daniel and William.