The Dutch (Holland) Theory of Daniel's Roots

Beginning in 2009, DNA evidence has connected descendants of Daniel Haston to the Swiss-German Hiestand family and not to any English family. The material below is now practically obsolete, but it is presented here as a historical record of the pre-2009 attempts to establish an Holland-Dutch ancestry for Daniel Haston.

Evidence For the Holland-Dutch Theory:

1. There is some oral family history that claims ancestry in Holland.

"As a boy, when I asked my parents the 'Where did we come from?' question, I was always told that we were from Holland. That conjured up images of windmills, tulips, wooden shoes, and little boys plugging leaks in dikes with their fingers." (Wayne Haston) This statement is representative of other Haston descendents who were told that their ancestors came from the Netherlands.

2. There are names similar to Haston that appear to be native to Holland.

"It is my suspicion that Daniel's correct name may have been Heistan, which is a Dutch name, but I have no proof of this." (June 24, 1968 letter from Howard H. Hasting* of San Antonio, TX to Dave R. Haston** of Sparta, TN) Given the intellectual and educational sophistication of Mr. Hasting, it is likely that he knew the difference between Dutch (Hollander) and Dutch-Deutsch (German).
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Note: *Howard H. Hasting was an attorney in San Antonio, but before that he was a U.S. army officer (West Point graduate) who served as an assistant to the American judge on the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, which engaged in the trial of Tojo and other high war criminals. **Dave R. Haston, along with his wife Estelle, prior to their deaths, was one of the most prolific Daniel Haston family researchers.
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Other Holland names, such as Haasten or de Haasten, could be the antecedents of "Haston."

3. Daniel's and David's last names were confused for the surname "Holland" in White County, TN.

On the 1811 list of land owners for White County, TN there are entries for Daniel Holland and Joseph Hastin (Joseph's name appears just after "Daniel Holland"). In the list of taxables in White County for the same year, a David Holland is listed. It has been conjectured that the White County assigned the name "Holland" to Daniel and David because they (a) didn't know exactly what their last name was or how to spell it and (b) knew it started with an "H" and (c) knew that they came from Holland. It wasn't uncommon for people to take (or be given), as a surname, the country from which they originated (ex. England, Ireland, and Holland).
Source for taxpayer lists: Pioneers of White County, TN by W.J.H. Phillips (TN 976.89 White PH1) [from the White County Public Library].
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Note: Apparently, there were some Hollands who lived in White County in the early decades of the 1800s. However, when the transcriptions in the Pioneers of White County, TN book are compared to the original documents, it appears that some of the "Holland" surname confusion is the result of inaccurate transcriptions.

4. Some earlier descendents of Daniel were quoted as having said that Daniel was of Dutch descent.

A biographical sketch of Daniel's grandson, Pleasant Austin (son of John Austin, Sr. and Catherine Austin Haston) says that his mother (Catherine) was thought to have been of Dutch descent. Pleasant Austin was born on September 8, 1820 which was six years prior to Daniel's death. The Austins lived in the Lost Creek community, which is an extension of the Hickory Valley community in White County, perhaps five or six miles (down by the Davis Cave and through Big Bottom and around to Cummingsville) from Daniel's home place. Thus, he grew up close enough to his grandfather that he would have known him personally, and at the age six, should have had memories of interacting with Daniel.
Source: Page 861 of Goodspeed's History of Tennessee Illustrated (White, Warren, DeKalb, Coffee, & Cannon Counties) [published 1887 by the Goodspeed Publishing Company of Nashville, TN]. (This book was published about 13 years before Pleasant Austin died. Pleasant was 67 years old at the time of its publication.)

The classic "Dutch descent" quote (most often cited quotation) is attributed to William Carroll Haston, Sr., although the quotation was not specifically said to have been from him (note the phrase I have underlined in the quote), in the book where it is printed. In a biographical sketch of William Carroll Haston, published in A Biographical Record of the Cumberland Region by George A. Ogle and Company of Chicago (published in 1898), it is said of William Carroll Haston that "He was born here, March 2, 1829, and on the paternal side is of Dutch descent, his grandfather, Daniel Hastons [sic], being scarcely able to speak English. At an early date, he [i.e. Daniel] came to Tennessee, locating in Van Buren County, near the spring now known as Haston's Big Spring, where he purchased the land now owned by our subject."  It is true that William Carroll never met his grandfather, since he was the youngest son of David and was not born until three years after Daniel's death in 1826. On the other hand, it was he (William Carroll) who lived and died on the very property that was settled by his grandfather and would probably have had strong sentimental feelings, as well as "second hand memories" of his pioneer grandfather. William Carroll died about four years (1902) after the publication of the book that contained his biographical sketch. At age 70 at the time of the book's publication, it is very possible that William Carroll Haston was the source of the information given in his biography.

Landon Daryle Medley seems to have been referring to this Biographical Record of the Cumberland Region work when he said, "His (William Carroll Haston's) grandfather was Daniel Hastons, a Dutchman." (Page 257 of The History of Van Buren County, Tennessee: The Early Canebreakers, 1840-1940 (published in 1987 by Don Mills, Inc. of Salem, WV).

These are strong arguments for some kind of Dutch descent (Holland-Dutch or German-Dutch [Deutsch]), particularly since William Carroll Haston, Sr. was the grandson of Daniel through David, as was Pleasant Austin, through Catherine. The descendents closest to Daniel, to whom published statements exist regarding their ancestry, both point to a "Dutch" (whatever that may have meant) descent.

Notes: It is perhaps noteworthy that nothing was said about William Carroll's grandmother and her origin. The same is true of Pleasant Austin's mother's mother. Does this mean that whoever was giving this information didn't know about her or her roots, or that the interviewer/author just didn't ask about her (perhaps because the paternal ancestry was deemed to be more important)?

Evidence Against the Holland-Dutch Theory:

1. Those "vanity" biographical books of the 19th and early 20th centuries were often historically inaccurate.

Genealogical researchers are generally well acquainted with the "biographical sketch" books that were popular during the late 1800s and early 1900s. Writers would go into various communities and determine who the prominent citizens were (that is, the ones who could afford to buy their books...in many cases). They would gather information on these people, probably some times from the subjects themselves and other times from whoever was available and willing to share the information. Surely, the editorial criteria varied from publisher to publisher, but more often than not (probably, although I don't know that this has been proven by research) a subject with a strong ego and a bit of money could have his biographical sketch published. In some/many? cases, the subject probably had to put up a certain amount of money at the outset of the project. (It's not unlike some of the "Who's Who in America" books/schemes of today.) Thus, these books could be called "vanity biographies." Although they do serve a valid purpose for genealogical research, researchers need to remember that there was no historiographical passion for accuracy in this process. Thus, information contained in these works should be taken with the proverbial "grain of salt."

Also, notice in the William Carroll Haston, Sr. quotation that it was said of him that he was of Dutch descent. Who knows who the source was? His wife or children? Some neighbor? Or, someone in an office in Spencer who was acquainted him to one degree or another? The wording in the Pleasant Austin biography was similar in its vagueness of source.

Note: However, the information in this William Carroll Haston bio does generally seem to be accurate and quite detailed. William Carroll Haston was only 70 years of age at the time and could very possibly have been the source of this information.

2. Many people have attributed their understanding of the word "Dutch" (i.e. a Dutch person is a person from Holland) to statements made at a time or in a place where "Dutch" meant something completely different (i.e. a Dutch person was a German [or Swiss-German] person).

Throughout the history of our country, until recent decades, the word "Dutch" referred to persons of German descent. For example, in the Richard Green Waterhouse journal (Richard Green Waterhouse (1775-1827): Tennessee Pioneer by Elizabeth Waterhouse Layman), the author of the journal consistently refers to people of German descent (for example, the settlers of Lancaster and York Counties of PA, as well as others) as "Dutch." In certain parts of the United States even today, "Dutch" is still known to be a proper reference to Swiss-Germans.

In referring to an early long hunter, Kasper Mansker, who visited the middle Tennessee area before it was settled by white settlers, a contemporary of Mansker referred to him as a "Dutchman...reportedly born aboard a ship when his German parents were immigrating to America." (Page 10 of The History of Van Buren County, Tennessee: The Early Canebreakers, 1840-1940 [published in 1987 by Don Mills, Inc. of Salem, WV])

Thus, statements to Daniel and his ancestors "Dutch" descent may indicate that the person making the statement thought that Daniel's roots were in Germany, not in Holland.

3. To this point, there has been no viable theory that suggests an explanation for a pre-Tennessee Haston (or other possible Hollander surname) family with which Daniel might have been associated.

The other three theories of Daniel's roots, all suggest possible families in NC and/or in VA from which Daniel Haston of White County, TN may have originated. The Holland-Dutch theory has not been able to identify any particular pre-Tennessee, American family connections for Daniel.