Nobody
in our Hause line could write until late in the nineteenth century, so any family
histories handed down through the generations would have been delivered orally,
with each teller trying to remember the story as recited from the previous generation.
So you can imagine how much the story changed over the years. Details were fudged
or forgotten, and more action, intrigue and melodrama were added to thrill the
kiddies at bedtime.
Because of this, the true story of Johan
Christian Hauss—born in 1666; escaping religious and political persecution
along the Rhine River by way of Queene Anne's Palatine immigration in 1710—was
passed down orally from one generation to the next, over 200 years, and became,
"The first John Hause was born in Germany in the year 1690, and when an infant,
on account of Religious Persecutions, he was transported by his 'cousin', Queen
Mary II, of Great Britain, House of Stuart, Daughter of James ll and Anne Hyde,
born 1662, married William, Prince of Orange at the age of 17, reigning 15 years,
and died in 1694 of Small Pox, leaving no children. A kind, meek, and noble Queen."
You
can see how the story changed:
- Biblical drama was added—45 year-old Johan (or 20-year-old Johan, Jr.) somehow became a baby during an emigration that actually happened in 1710, in a Moses-inspired flight from the evil rulers.
- Royal intrigue was then added by making Johan a 'cousin' of Queen Mary II.¹
- Pathos was added as the "kind, meek and noble Queen" died of Small Pox.
I'm
sure the children hearing this account from their grandmother or grandfather in
the nineteenth century were spellbound. (Hey, it's thrilling to me, too, until
I remember that it isn't true!)
The unfortunate fact is that
much of our family history has been lost, forgotten, or in some unfortunate cases,
even swept under the rug over the centuries. You can see the predicament for our
ancestors as they tried to be part-time genealogists: With only fifth-and-sixth
generation oral accounts of events that happened two hundred years before—recollections
of recollections of recollections—they had to guess, assume, and create a
family history as best they could, and through this process, many myths developed:
THE
ENGLISH MYTH:
The
most persistent myth is that the origin of our family is English. Our ancestors'
detour from the Palatinate, through England, to America, has confused the family
history: "Six sons came to America from England together," according
to family tradition refuted in "The
House Family of the Mohawk." We know today the identity of those sons,
and that they came from the Palatinate with their father, Johan
Christian Hauss, traveling through England. But that comes in the age of information,
with hundreds of genealogists building an electronic database together. Previous
generations had to guess at our origins from a much more limited pool of data.
Carleton
Marchant Hause, Jr., remembers his grandfather, Carlisle
Hause, sitting him down along the bank of Vaughn Lake in upper Michigan and
telling him the family's history. Being young, distracted, and wanting to fish
(kind of like he still is sixty-some years later), Carleton didn't listen to his
grandfather much that morning. But what he does remember is that Carlisle
showed him a tablet written by Melissa Hause (it's now lost, but it was much like
this one, kept by another
relative). Carleton's grandfather also told him that a Hause had been the first
sheriff in one of the Pilgrim colonies of Massachusetts—he thought Carlisle
said it was "Jamestown."
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The family Coat of Arms is a blue shield with a gold chevron on which are three red cinquefoils, and an ermine canton. The Crest is a stag's head emerging from a crown.
In 1635, British passenger lists reveal that 29 year-old Richard Hawes or Haus (depending on which list you read) arrived in Massachusetts during the great Puritan migration from England. He brought with him his wife, 26 year-old Ann, and their children: two year-old Anna, and 6 month-old Obediah Haus.² A 19 year-old Robert Haus also arrived in the same year.³
Another American settler by this name was EDMUND HAWES (sometimes spelled Howes, or Haws), who brought his wife and children to New England in 1635. Edmund was descended from Thomas Hawes of Shirley, a man "skilled in the law" who bought an estate in Solihull in 1311. The Estate remained in the Hawes family for the next 250 years. (Today it's a converted restaurant on the once quiet lane joining Church Hill Road to Libbards Way.)
The Hawes' placed a tablet over the front door—WHV 1576 'Hic Hospites in Coelo Cives'—'Here we are guests, in heaven citizens'. The WHV initials are those of William and Ursula Hawes, descendants of Thomas, alongside the date that the house was completed.
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Then in 1635, Edmund Hawse—or Edmund Jr.—sailed for America aboard the ship James, listed as "Edmund Haus," and settled in the town of Duxbury, near Boston.
If that isn't strange enough, Carlisle Hause was also right that this Edmund Haus was the first Pilgrim sheriffs! He was the first Constable of the Plymouth colony of Duxbury in Massachusetts, starting in 1642/3, and serving well into the 1650's. His death cannot be ascertained, as he lived until the colony's assimilation into the Massachusetts Bay colony. The last mention of Edmund Hawes is in a list of freeman from June 1689.
Edmund was responsible for the standard weights used for measurement in Yarmouth, which suggests that he was probably either a merchant or a learned individual. He was probably well-organized, as he was selected to help inventory several estates and assisted the treasury accounting several times.
Then on June 5, 1677, a JOHN HAWES was elected constable of Yarmouth. This was probably Edmund Hawes' son.
But here's where Carlisle was wrong—we aren't related to Edmund. It's easy to see why there was confusion. Our family surname was often spelled as "Hawes" or "Haws" in legal documents of the time, right up until 1900. In fact, the Morris Fant Hawes line, descended from William Hause, still spells their name that way today!
Keep in mind that no family history in our line of the Hause family has ever said we came from Massachusetts; they all claim we're from Germany. The earliest writing on our line places "John Hause" in Germany in 1690. Beyond this, Carlisle's grandfather, Laban Hause, the husband of Melissa, couldn't even remember any Hauses past his grandparents, so much of what Melissa and/or anybody else came up with in our line at that time would have been from rudimentary research—or just flat-out speculation.
It also has to be remembered that the world was a lot smaller then. Everybody at that time thought "Hause" or "Hawes" was a rare name—and didn't realize there were thousands upon thousands of people out there with the same name, but from different lineages. So Carlisle basically had no family history to go on, and was speculating from what facts he could find. (And now Carleton has ammended his story and says that Carlisle may just have said, that a Hause had been the first Pilgrim sheriff, and not necessarily a Hause related to us. Thanks a lot, Jr.)
A
SECOND GERMAN HAUSE LINE:
Another
line of American Hauses descends from MICHAEL HAUSE (sometimes spelled Haas or
Haus), who came to America from Germany about fifty years after Johan. Although
they came out of the same area of Europe, whether they were somehow related to
our line is unknown. This Hause line is based mainly out of Colorado today.
In
1753 or so, this Michael Hause married a woman named Anna Marie. Their son Wilhelm
(b 1779) married Catherine Hull. The son of that union was Jesse Hause (b 1806),
who married Ruth Ann Graham Weiss Hause. She had been married to some Weise guy
in Pennsylvania, making this all even more confusing.
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William and Mary had four sons and a daughter, and they moved north of Denver, Colorado, to the Fort Lupton area. William bought large tracts of land, and so he left each his children large homesteads to farm there.
One son was Earl D. Hause, who married Elizabeth Walter (and whose great-granddaughter did this genealogy). Their children were Earl Malcolm, Derryl Douglas, and Ada Virginia, Lois Elaine and the mother of the genealogist of this family was Wilma Elizabeth—who went by Betty and married William Brown.
This genealogist writes to us: "My uncle found there were only 2 or 3 basic Hause families, and he was always trying to tie or figure out how we connected to one in New York. They had the same first names williams and johns (in fact this family's William and our family's William lived at the same time, and both gave us a "Jesse Hause" in the same year!), and this is common in families.
"I read something that said all the Hauses are related and they took the name because their name was spelled phonetically when they arrived, so they have got hawes and haas and even hayes. I think there is a connection also.
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"I have one (web) page I did a couple years ago just on the Allen genealogy, as it is on both sides of my dad's parents' families—they turned out to be 4th cousins!
"It's all connected to the ETHAN ALLEN family: Cousins and brothers I descend from—and I found another line to Princess Diana. It's the Strong line, which also moves into the Allen line at some point.
"I have a lot on the Allen line, so I looked your connection up—lol—maybe we are double cousins. When you go back far enough, that happens. My Uncle Malcoms wife ended up being related to my dad's mother's family, so that's funny. Lots of fun things in genealogy."
So, fittingly, another "Allen" mystery dogs another yet Hause genealogist. And she's right—at some point, we're all related. So it's all valid, it's all relevant, and it's all a lot of fun to uncover.
As Irene Wenk-Poley says, "Let me know when you trace us all back to Eve."
NOTES:
TOP PHOTO: Illustration by unknown artist of a street in Solihull, Warwickshire, England. This village is the ancestral home of an English Haus (or Hawse) line.
¹—No
genealogists have ever found a royal ancestry in the Haus family. (Although to
be fair, Queen Anne's husband was a Palatine, so you never know—besides,
if this "cousin" story is somehow proven true, it means I'm related
to Princess Di, so I'm open to any proof. There may be an inheritance waiting!)
²—POPE,
CHARLES HENRY. The Pioneers of Massachusetts, A Descriptive List, Drawn from Records
of the Colonies, Towns and Churches, and other Contemporaneous Documents. Baltimore,
MD: Genealogical Publishing Co., Inc., 1998. 550p. Page: 221
³—SAVAGE, JAMES.
"Gleanings for New England History." Third series, volume eight. In
Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society. Boston: Charles C. Little
and James Brown, 1843, pp. 243-348. Page: 262