Hezekiah Archibald Shuttleworth (1843-1890)
Picture: Mount Pleasant, Delaware County, Indiana, March 1888 - Left to right - standing, top left is my 2nd great-grandfather Hezekiah Archibald Shuttleworth with his wife, my 2nd great-grandmother Elizabeth “Betty” (nee Felton) Shuttleworth holding in her arms my great-grand aunt Elvina “Ella” Shuttleworth (I remember when Aunt Ella gave me five silver dollars — how I wish I still had them!), the little girl standing, bottom left, is my great-grandmother Roseland “Rose” Shuttleworth.
Hezekiah Archibald died less than 2 years after this photo having never fully recovered from his military service in 1863 protecting the western parts of Virginia, what became WEST Virginia that same year.
Hezekiah Archibald Shuttleworth
My family tree is most certainly not unique in that it is replete with namesake successions in various family lines of Thomases, Johns, and Williams along with multiple generations of Marys, Margarets, and Sarahs. But, what about Hezekiah Archibald? According to a cursory search on Ancestry, the name Hezekiah Archibald isn’t found in many family trees, and is only found in one family line of mine.
The first time I heard the name Hezekiah Archibald I was 9 years old. My Nana, Rosemary Betty Murray from my Beginnings post, was helping me with a family tree project that I had for school. I had never heard such a name and I confess it made me giggle — her mother’s father — her maternal grandfather, my great-great grandfather, was Hezekiah Archibald Shuttleworth (1843-1890). She never knew him as he died at the age of 47, on Christmas Day in 1890, when Nana’s mother, Roseland “Rose” was only a little girl. Beyond his name, I did not learn any more about him that day.
Phillip Shuttleworth’s (father of Archibald Shuttleworth, great-grandfather of Hezekiah Archibald Shuttleworth and my 5th GG) land record entry — 537 3/4 acres in Monongalia County, Virginia (now Marion County, West Virginia) 9 March 1798
Picture: lva.virginia.gov
Other than his name, I knew very little about my paternal 2nd GG Hezekiah Archibald Shuttleworth (1843-1890) until I began doing my own ‘reasonably exhaustive research’ in genealogy. Nevertheless, in regard to his name — the name that made me giggle and the name that stuck with me long after the simple family tree I made in the 4th grade (1979) — I learned early on in my genealogy research where the name came from: Hezekiah Archibald is the namesake of not one, but both of his grandfathers, two of my 4th GG — his maternal grandfather, Hezekiah Moran (1793-1871) and his paternal grandfather, Archibald Shuttleworth (1777-1859). Their grandson, Hezekiah Archibald, was born in 1843 in Monongalia County of what was western Virginia, now WEST Virginia. Each grandfather, born in Maryland, had settled during their youth about a decade apart in Monongalia County: Archibald Shuttleworth on land granted to his father, Phillip Shuttleworth (see above) in the late 1700s, and Hezekiah Moran (see below), coming with some of his siblings in the early 1800s with their own land grants.
Hezekiah Moran’s (grandfather of Hezekiah Archibald Shuttleworth and my 4th GG) map along Whiteday Creek in Marion County, West Virginia, formerly Monongalia County. Notice that J. Shuttleworth’s land, Hezekiah Archibald’s father’s, is just beside H. Moran’s.
Historical marker:
Hezekiah Archibald Shuttleworth lived up to his name. Born a son of Joshua and Mary (nee Moran) Shuttleworth 23 December 1843, part of the third generation of Shuttleworths that had come to western Virginia, he worked and protected that land. At the age of 19, in 1863 — in the midst of the War of 1861, what we now refer to as the Civil War — he served as a rifleman for 10 months in the western Virginia Militia, a Union sympathizer, he pledged his allegiance to the Union on 20 June 1863. The newly proclaimed state of West Virginia — no longer western Virginia, but WEST VIRGINIA was admitted to the Union, including all the western counties and the lower (northern) Shenandoah "panhandle". At the war’s end, in the summer of 1865, at age 21, he came to Delaware County, Indiana on his own. In 1871 he married my 2nd GG Elizabeth “Betty” Felton in Mount Pleasant, Delaware County.
After marriage my 2nd GG Hezekiah and Betty Shuttleworth made a series of land purchases, ending with a prime piece of farm land of 183 acres in Mount Pleasant, Perry Township of Delaware County, Indiana. They had a total of 8 children, the last one born in 1891 after Hezekiah Archibald’s death at the age of only 47. He never fully recovered from his time in the militia, though not injured he did suffer with bouts of debility brought on from one of the diseases that proliferated during the time of the Civil War . There is no death certificate to identify what he suffered from, just a note in the Delaware County Local History Cards that indicates “he never entirely recovered his health after the war.” Prior to his passsing, he and Betty had 19 years of marriage and 8 children: Martha, Charles, Richard, Mary, Lewis, Roseland, Elvina and Margaret. They regularly attended the United Brethren Church in Mount Pleasant, where Hezekiah served as a trustee for many years.