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My Family Research Page |
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The Highland
Herrells, Herals, Heralds, Hearls |
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I have searched about forty years for the ancestors of
my Hearl family but cannot get back of 1795.. I find John Herrell in the
census of Burke, Yancey and Mitchell counties of western North Carolina.
According to the ages given in the census, John was born about 1795 and
was apparently a son of Hugh Herrell of Rowan, Burke counties in western
NC. John Herrell married Annah Campbell and they had five or more children, Rebeckah, Hugh, Mary May, Simon and Lucy.. Rebeckah married Henry Street, Lucy married T.B. or T.D. Campbell, Hugh married Lydia Charlotte McIntire, Simon married Elizabeth Miller and Mary May married Henry Grindstaff.. Simon, Lucy and Rebeckah apparently lived their lives in Yancey and Mitchell counties NC. Where Henry and Mary May Grindstaff lived is uncertain. Hugh and his family moved by covered wagon to southwest Virginia about 1858. (This date is based on the census records of Yancey co., NC. and Washington co., VA.) Hugh and Lydia Charlotte Herrall (Heral) had fourteen children, one died at birth and three others died young . Only two sons lived to adulthood and married, Joseph Hamalton Heral and William Y.C. Herald..  Hugh
Herrell (Heral) at left, was born in 1820 and died 1899. He lived near
Big Rock Creek in Yancey co. (later Mitchell co) North Carolina.. When he
moved to Washington co., Va., he bought a farm in Poore Valley where he
and Charlotte are buried. Hugh served in the Civil War with the
Virginia Reserves.. While he was away at war one of the armies took all of
the corn leaving no feed for his hogs so his wife and the women in the
neighborhood slaughtered the hogs and cured the meat.. He pursued the idea
of drilling for oil on his farm and searched for other minerals there but
was not successful. Later his son, William, arranged to get a test well
drilled but found no oil or gas.. Just Water!Joseph Hamalton Heral moved to Washington co., VA with Hugh and Charlotte Heral and met Mary Jane Roberts, d/o Henry Roberts and Elizabeth "Betsy" Warren.. Henry Roberts gave them a four hundred acre farm for a wedding gift in 1876.. They built a house and remained on the land until their deaths. Both are buried on a high hill overlooking Rattle Creek and the North Fork Holston River.. Their two children Milton Houston Heral and Mary Jane Heral are also buried there. This picture of the Joseph Heral home was taken about 1976. The house is still in use by the present owner a descendent of Joes' sister, Vinnie Heral Roberts. Joseph and Mary Jane Heral 
took the children of John K Roberts and Vinnie to raise after they died of
typhoid fever within two weeks of each other and the five children were
small. Joseph Heral was a very strong man and once when he found a
yearling steer which had eaten stagger weeds and was 'down' in the river
bottom, He got it on his back and carried it up a steep hill to the barn
where he planned to treat it but when he slid it from his back two of its
legs broke and he lost it after all . Later his strength proved to be the
death of him when he threw a three hundred pound hog over a fence and had
a brain hemorrhage and died. He was only fifty four years old when he
died...Milton Houston Heral was the only living child of Joseph H. and Mary Jane Heral, his younger sister, Mary Jane, died at birth. Milton Houston Heral met Mary Ellen Sledd and the two ran off and got married when he was about fifteen years old and "Molly" was thirteen. They had seventeen children, fourteen of whom lived, married and had children. Milton and Mary had about 80 grandchildren.. 
The Children of Milton Houston Heral and their spouses are named on this memorial erected by their descendents. This stone is in the Hearl-Hagy Cemetery at Greendale, Va. Click on the picture at left to access larger view.
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