Hubbell Pioneers - Virginia
A Revolutionary War Soldier Returns to Virginia
Justus Hubbell
Historic Virginia is the site of the first permanent English settlement in America. Jamestown was established in 1607 on the James River. The first citizens of Virginia barely survived their first few years in the primitive surroundings. By 1610, the 60 who did survive a “starving winter” were ready to leave the area when supplies and new settlers arrived. With this help the settlement was able to keep going. Tobacco was exported by 1614 and it proved to be Virginia's savior. Five years late the early colonists had a representative legislative assembly.
From 1624 until the Revolutionary War, Virginia was under royal rule, but disenchantment had developed by 1765. The new democracy's leaders, Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington and others fanned the fires of independence. Independence was secured by the defeat of Ben. Cornwallis at Yorktown, Virginia.
After the war, Virginia led in the drafting of the new Constitution and was the birthplace of four of the early Presidents of the United States. Virginia celebrated its 200th anniversary in 1987.
The first presence of Hubbells/Hubbles in Virginia seems to have been during the Revolution when some Hubbells served in military campaigns there. One of these was Justus Hubbell, whose descendants claim him as the family's Virginia pioneer. The most reliable, and very scholarly, study of a large segment of the descendants of Justus has been undertaken by Mrs. Baldwin Maull, a long-time member of The Hubbell Family Historical Society.
In her Genealogical Notebook of Flora Davis Maull, she states: “Family tradition is that Justus served with General Nathanael Greene in Virginia campaigns. Justus liked the country so well that he decided to move from New York to Virginia. He took his family to Virginia where he was granted 282 acres of land in 1781 on the south fork of the Holston River, near Chilhowee, now Wythe County.”
Many early records were lost during the Civil War when court houses were burned, and repositories of public records suffered from the ravages of war. However, The Hubbell Family Historical Society's files contain letters from members of that very large group of Virginia and Kentucky Hubbells (mostly Hubbles) who are descendants of Justus.
By age 47 (in 1779) it is likely that Justus was no longer serving in the Army and had moved permanently from Connecticut (or New York) to Virginia. As of 1779 the war still had two years to go before Yorktown.
The western counties of Virginia were remote from the main areas of struggle so it seems probable that Justus was no longer fit for fighting when he secured his 22 acres and he and his wife, Waitstill Bishop, then 33, built their frontier home. They had nine children.
In L. P. Summers’ Annals of Southwest Virginia there are references to other early Hubbells: Daniel Hubble of Botecourt County, Jonathan Hubbell and Ithamar Hubble of Montgomery County, and Thomas Hubble of Loudoun County.
The interesting pension application file on Ithamar indicates he was born in Newtown, Connecticut, in 1762, and that he went to Missouri in 1797 with two brothers and a sister, all as yet unidentified. No mention is made of Virginia in his application.
The move from Virginia to Missouri was the result of some Spanish intrigue. Concerned about the French presence along the Mississippi, and fearful of a British attack from Canada after Yorktown (situations which could adversely affect their hold on the territory), the Spanish administration, which began in 1771, advertised in Virginia communities and in Kentucky and Tennessee for American settlers whom they welcomes with land grants which became “lavish” after 1796. Those who departed had to make a long and dangerous trek to a foreign country where and entirely different language was spoken and whose laws and legal system were quite different.
The exact relationships between some of the early Virginia Hubbells/Hubbles has not been established, but Hubbell Pioneers has some interesting speculations.