Family History

The oldest member of the Hurst line of tree is John Hurst whose birth date is unknown, but who died in 1747. He had a son also named John, born in 1713 and died 1789. This second John married first Elizabeth and second Sibyl. It was through Elizabeth though that the Hurst line continues, as she and John had a son named James, born in 1744 and died 1829. James married Mary Gunnell, and together they had two daughters, Fanny and Amelia. Both Fanny and Amelia married William Francis Stanhope. While this sounds strange to our modern sensibilites, this was a fairly common practice at the time. What is likely to have happened is that Fanny and William married first, and after she passed away in 1814, Amelia, who was a widow, married her widower brother-in-law. Fanny and William had four young children together when she passed away, and in the eyes of early American society, they needed a woman to take care of them. A widowed aunt would be easier for the children to accept than an unknown stepmother, and it would keep Amelia from being without a husband, a win win situation so to speak.

After Fanny's death, William and Amelia moved to Kentucky, following the path taken by her brother Peter, who had come to the Bluegrass State in 1803. It was in Kentucky where Fanny and William's only daughter Elizabeth lived her life, marrying Edward Carter on April 23, 1830. Elizabeth and Edward had a daughter named Fanny, born in 1832, who married James Alexander Headley in 1852. Fanny and James became the parents of Joseph Carter Headley, the grandparents of Elisabeth Headley Garr and Frances Headley Carruth, and the great-grandparents of Elisabeth Garr Lawrence, Charlotte Garr Schubert, Frances Carruth Kerr, and Allen Higgins Carruth.