THE SHIFLETS: WHO ARE THEY
AND WHERE DID THEY COME FROM?
Submitted by Catherine Lynn Shiflett cathy_shiflett@prodigy.com


What's in a name?

      What's in a name? A great deal if it happens to be Shiflet, Shiplet, Shiflett, Shifflett or any other variation of that spelling. The Shiflet name for whatever reason seems to attract much curiosity, and an article speculating about the origin of the name appeared in The Cavalier Daily on October 24, 1991. 1

      Instead of providing an answer to the question of where the name originated, the article was derogatory, stating “Researchers have found Shiflet's Hollow was probably a community of rough mountain people with little education.” The article told of intermarriages and alcoholic violence from the Greene County area of the Blue Ridge Mountains, and speculated as to whether the Shiflet name is French, German or take your pick. The article went on to state that because of the unusually high concentration of Shiflets in the Charlottesville, Virginia area (approximately 450 in the phone book), the family has been the subject of much teasing and negative rumors.

      As copies of that article reached Shiflets living outside Charlottesville and the State of Virginia, the speculation and joking tone of the article was met with surprise and resentment. It did not take long for Shiflets across the country to begin working to find the truth and restore respect for the name, no matter how you choose to spell it.

The Cavalier Daily article brought out four main questions:

  • When did persons named Shiflet first arrive in America? The rumors around Charlottesville had always been that the numerous Shiflets, Shifletts, Shiffletts in the area were descendants of Hessian soldiers who had escaped into the Blue Ridge Mountains while held as prisoners of war at Albemarle Barracks during the Revolutionary War.

  • What is the true background of persons of the Shiflet name? The article in The Cavalier Daily painted a picture of the first Shiflets to arrive in Virginia as rough, bad-tempered men who had fathered more of the same.

  • Why is the name spelled so many different ways? Are the Shiflets related to the Shiffletts? If there is no difference between the groups, why does one Charlottesville resident proudly sport an automobile tag that reads: 1F - 2Ts. There is even a photograph of the tag on file at the Albemarle Historical Society.

  • Why are there so many Shiflets, Shifletts, Shiffletts in Charlottesville and the surrounding area?
          With regard to the above questions, I believe some of the confusion occurred when people tried to give simple answers based on stories that had been embellished a good deal over the years. In an effort to really answer these questions, however, I did some research and you might be surprised what I found.

    The Truth About the Shiflet Name

    I. When did persons named Shiflet first arrive in America?

          There is absolutely no foundation to the idea that Shifletts were runaway Hessian soldiers who fled into the Blue Ridge Mountains. The fact is that Shifletts may have been coming to America nearly a century before the American Revolution began. The earliest record I have seen is 1683,2 and surely there are others. Early records of persons arriving from England at Williamsburg indicate that Shifletts (sometimes spelled Shriflet, Siflett, Sislet, etc. in the records) were coming to Virginia as early as 1701.3 Tax and land records clearly show that John Shiflett was a resident of Orange County, Virginia by 1736,4 and Thomas Shiflett served in the military during the French and Indian War in the 1750's,5 stating on the muster roll that he was a resident of Louisa County, Virginia. By the time the American Revolution took place, there were several Shiflett families in Virginia, well established and raising large families.

          So where did the notion come from that Shifletts were runaway Hessians? Perhaps because in the early 1800's German immigrants did come into the mountain areas of Virginia. There were certainly marriages between persons of German descent and the Shiflets, one in particular being Thomas Shiflett to Susan Wygant in 1807, at which time her father, Peter Wygant, signed the bond indicating that he was German.6 Later, Mennonite and Church of the Brethren congregations were established in the area. Some of these churches held their services in German,7 so no doubt many people in the area spoke German fluently and others spoke or understood it to some extent.

          Bear in mind that the idea that Shifletts were Hessians had to have taken root many years following the Revolution. By then memories had faded regarding the true events and heroics of the Revolutionary period, and the idea was probably first proposed following the War of Northern Aggression (Civil War). Because of the devastation following the Civil War, mountain families in Virginia, like other families throughout the South, banded together and were fiercely protective as a matter of survival. It was probably true that residents of the mountain areas of Virginia were suspicious of strangers (carpetbaggers), were clannish by sheer necessity, and some made moonshine and sold it in order to support their families.

          Also after the Civil War, many long-time Virginia residents moved west rather than stay and try to scratch out a living or pay the high taxes demanded during Reconstruction. Shiflets, by and large, seem to have stayed put and did what was necessary to protect their homes and one another. If the result was such notoriety that people dared not venture into the mountain areas uninvited, then I would say the Shiflets of Bacon Hollow succeeded in their efforts of self-protection. Consider also that certain religious sects established in the area about that time did not believe in using the courts, but rather preferred settling disputes among themselves. Also, they did not believe in serving as government officials or in drawing attention to themselves.

          So, when Shiflets were given the undeserved reputation as Hessians, an especially bad designation to carry in the State of Virginia, they became branded. Because they seem to have withdrawn into their mountain habitat and had limited contact with outsiders, the rumors went unchecked and were added to. How could anyone think well of people thought to be descendants of anti-American mercenaries? The idea of Shiflets as Hessians was even spread by county officials. A reply from E. Maupin, **[who is actually Eva Maupin] Clerk of the Albemarle County Circuit Court to an inquiry from a Shiflett researcher from Arkansas dated September 10, 1953, stated in part:
    "There are deeds to Shifflett in the old records. They were well to do landed owners then, but as the years passed on, Heshion troops or run-a-way Revolution Soldiers took that name and lived in the Mountains, I am told, and that crowd, who are no kin to the original Shifflettes, still carry that name here."
          It was apparently unknown to Mr. Maupin **[Should be Ms Maupin] at the time he wrote this reply, but some Maupins married Shiflets as well as Ballards from the Piney Mountain area, and some of that group removed to Kentucky. Chester Johnson has done a good deal of research on the Ballard and Maupin families and can verify the close relationship of these families to the Shiflets.

          In order to put to rest once and for all the idea that the Shiflets of Virginia came to America as Hessian invaders hired by the English during the Revolution, listed below are brief sketches of the military records and other information on several Shifletts and a partial list of their relatives who served with distinction in the struggle for American independence, either in the Colonial Line or state militias.

    1. JOHN SHIFLETT - Albemarle County Militia. [See Chester Johnson's posting of Primary Sources regarding John Shiflett].

    2. BLAND SHIFLET - Blan Shiflet's application (S.15641, U.S. Archives), dated 1833, states that he was a resident of Albemarle County and served many tours of duty during the Revolution: (1) one month at Albemarle Barracks under Capt. Zachariah Herndon; (2) one month under same command as first tour; (3) one month, same location as first tour, under Capt. Benjamin Wheeler; (4) same location as first three tours under Capt. Holman Rice; (5) militia enlistment of two months under Capt. Isaac Davis during which they marched to Hanover County and at Anderson's Mill joined the Army under the command of General Mulinburg, then to Spotsylvania Courthouse, then to Culpeper County to join General Wayne; (6) drafted for a second tour of two months and served under Capt. John Harrison, marching to Williamsburg and there joined General Washington and marched from there to the Siege of York and was discharged October 1781.

    3. THOMAS SHIFFLETT (Jr.) - In May 15, 1790 Thomas Shifflett, Jr. married Elizabeth Lamb.8 This couple moved to Madison County, Kentucky about 1800. In an affidavit which accompanied Elizabeth Lamb Shifflett's application for a widow's pension (W. 8718, U.S. Archives) for Thomas Shifflett Jr.'s service in the Revolution, she originally stated that her husband was from Orange County, but that was questioned by the authorities. She corrected it to read Albemarle County. In support of this change, a friend of Thomas Shifflett, Jr., Is[h]am Lane, who served in the same regiments for various tours of duty supports her claim in an affidavit, and says, "I was from the County of Orange and he was from the County of Albemarle both in the State of Virginia. I have known Thomas Shifflet ever since my earliest recollection. We did not reside more than one mile apart altho in different counties." Mr. Lane further explains that Mr. Shifflett was actually a resident of Albemarle County very near the Orange County line, and his family and the Lamb family were living in the same "neighborhood". If, as Mr. Lane avers, he had known Thomas Shifflett since his earliest recollection, then Thomas Shifflett grew up in Albemarle County in an area previously included in Louisa County.

      [Lila Siggins of Cody, Wyoming recently sent me a note that says: “Thomas and Patience Shiflett and Richard Lamb family attended Buck Mountain Church in the late 1790's. Richard's daughter Nancy Lamb married Isham Lane on the 6th of March 1790.”]

    4. BENJAMIN SHIFLET - In the Estate of Stephen Shiflett, on December 12, 1776 a cash payment was made on behalf of Benjamin Shiflett, deceased, son of Stephen Shiflett for wages due him for services as a soldier under Captain Joseph Spencer.9 Joseph Spencer was Capt. Culpeper Minute Battalion, 1775.10

      Benjamin Shiflet not only served, but apparently gave his young life for American independence. It has not yet been proved, but there is a possibility that his father, Stephen Shiflet, and his uncle, James Powell, who both died about 1776, also served in the Culpeper Minute Battalion.

      The Culpeper Minute Battalion was originally organized as a 500 man battalion from Culpeper, Fauquier and Orange Counties by county lieutenant James Barbour, and included one company of riflemen. By late August of 1775 these counties became the District of Culpeper, number ten among Virginia's sixteen military districts.11

    5. RICHARD, THOMAS, JOHN SHIFLET - Several Shifletts are mentioned in the pension application affidavit of Martin Dunn who served several tours of duty during the Revolution. Mr. Dunn states that he was born near Barboursville in Orange County in 1763 and was therefore a very young man when he served the American cause. He says that Albemarle and Orange joined near the point where he was born and his father lived on the Albemarle County side. Mr. Dunn names other soldiers in his affidavit who served with him during a tour in 1781 under Capt. John Hunton. Mr. Dunn states that among the privates with him were “John Shiflett, Richard Shiflett, James White, John Hall, Johnathan Monday, Laban Rothwell, William Johnston, Mickeus Carr, George Beaver and Thomas Shiflett”.12

    6. JOHN SELF - Served as a private in the Virginia Militia and later moved to Kentucky.13 John Self's daughter, Peachy, married on September 2, 1819 Garland Shiflett, son of Richard Shiflett.14

    7. FRANCIS POWELL - Francis Powell was a Revolutionary Soldier who volunteered from Amherst County, Virginia, under General Washington at the beginning of the war and under General deLafayette he was in the battles of Bunker Hill, Brandywine, Camden, Cowpens, Guilford Court House and the siege of Yorktown. Francis Powell moved with his wife, Nancy Whitehead, and their children to Elbert County, Georgia about 1797.15 Lucretia Powell, wife of Pickett Shiflet, was the sister of Francis Powell. Francis Powell was surety for the bond of marriage of Lucretia Powell and Pickett Shiflett in 1795.16

    8. JOHN McMULLAN - In 1797 John McMullan (born in Ireland in 1740) sold his 310 acres of land17 in Swift Run Gap, Orange County, Virginia, and moved with his second wife Elizabeth (Stowers) and children to Elbert County, Georgia. Three of his five children from his first marriage (to Theodocia Beasley) came with them: Patrick, Catherine Shiflet (wife of Powell Shiflet) and John. He left in Virginia two children from his first marriage: James and Mary.18 John McMullan was a private in the Revolutionary War. He volunteered in a mostly Irish unit for the duration and was at Valley Forge and other major battles.19 According to information handed down in the McMullan family, he was a tailor by trade and cut out and made the first military suit worn by George Washington after he was made Commander-in-Chief of the Army.20 The family still owns the large tailor's chest John McMullan brought with him from Ireland.

    9. LEWIS STOWERS - Lewis Stowers, Sr. (born in Orange County, Virginia in 1763) was a soldier in the War of the Revolution and moved his family afterwards to Elbert County (later Hart), Georgia. He was one of eight children born to Mark Stowers (born 1734 in Henrico County, Virginia) and Hannah Briant. His wife was Joice Shifflet, daughter of Stephen and Elizabeth Shifflet.21
          The above list should satisfy anyone who reads it that Shiflets did not come to America as paid mercenaries. They were proud patriots and many members of their family were as well. With that question firmly answered, let's move on to the next one.

    ______________________________

    ** changes made at the request of Annette Kastner

          1 Lisa Guernsey, "Shiflet, Shifflet, Shifflett, Shifflette. . .", The Cavalier Daily, October 24, 1991.
          2 Passenger Ship Search and Attestation from Holmes-Corey, Ltd.: Bl. Shiflett sailed on the "Providence" from Whitehaven to America, arriving in New York 1683. Ord. No. 765281.
          3 Passenger list of the ship #34;Nassau#34;, The Huguenot , Publication No. 29, p. 125.
          4 Orange County, Virginia, Deed Book (1738-1741), p. 90.
          5 Virginia Troops in the French and Indian Wars (1754-1761), p. 381.
          6 Harry M. Strickler, compiler, Old Tenth Legion Marriages, p. 105.
          7 "Church of the Brethren" and "Mennonites": Encarta, 1993.
          8 N. R. Murray, Orange County, Va. Marriages, p. 51.; Some Virginia Marriages 1700-1795, Vol. 9, p. 16.
          9 Orange County Will Book 3, p. 20.
          10 William H. B. Thomas, Patriots of the Upcountry, Orange County, Virginia, in the Revolution, Orange County Bicentennial Commission, 1976, p. 89-92.
          11 Eugene M. Scheel, Culpeper: A Virginia County's History Through 1920, Culpeper Historical Society, pp. 55.
          12 John Frederick Dorman, Virginia Revolutionary Pension Applications, Volume 32, Washington, D.C. (1979), pp. 13-16.
          13 A. C. Quisenberry, Revolutionary Soldiers in Kentucky, p. 62.
          14 J. Vogt and T. W. Kethley, Jr., Virginia Historic Marriage Register - Rockingham County Marriages 1778-1850, Iberian Press (1984), p. 199.
          15 M. W. Hiden (Mrs. Philip W.), "The Antecedents of Richard Powell of Amherst County, Virginia", Tyler's Quarterly, Vol. 30, Number 1 (July 1948), p. 49.
          16 Lucretia Powell was the much younger sister of Francis Powell. She was 70 years old in the 1850 Federal Census for Elbert County, Georgia, and therefore would have been born in approximately 1779. Francis Powell is said by Mrs. Hiden [Note 15] to have been born on February 21, 1756.
          17 Orange County, Virginia, Land Tax Book, 1782, p. 203.
          18 Capt. Edward R. Dittmer, USN, The Heritage of Wilkes County, North Carolina, Volume II, 1990, page 199. Of the five children of John McMullan and Theodosia Beazley born between 1770 and 1778, he states: (1) James McMullan married Edith Kendall in 1796 in Orange Co., VA and lived in Orange (now Greene) Co., VA where he died in 1842, fathering seven children; (2) Patrick McMullan married Sarah Walker in 1792 in Orange Co., VA and moved to Georgia; (3) Mary McMullan married William Lewis Powell in 1796 in Orange Co., VA, lived in Orange (Now Greene) Co., VA and was the mother of ten children. (4) John McMullan, Jr. married Jane Dula in 1797 in Wilkes Co., NC and they also probably moved to Georgia; and (5) Catherine McMullan married Powell Shiflett in 1797 in Orange Co., VA and they moved to [Elbert] Co., GA.
          19 John McMullan (1740-1817) served in Colonel William Johnson's 11th Virginia Regiment and was granted land for his service on Swift Run, Orange County, Virginia. He is buried in the McMullan Family Cemetery #2, off highway 77 on Liberty Hill Road (County Road 20) to County Road 19, six miles south of Hartwell, Georgia. The Cemetery is near bottom of hill on left in farm yard [and John McMullan's grave is marked by a large upright stone]. Georgia Revolutionary War Soldiers' Graves Volume One (Appling - Lanier Counties),, compiled by H. Ross Arnold, Jr. and H. Clifton Burnham, page 340.
          20 John William Baker, History of Hart County, 1933, p. 178.
          21 Baker, p.186.

    Continue to Part Two

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    This page is part of the Shiflet Family Genealogy Website and is maintained by:
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