EIGHT GENERATIONS OF THE VIRGINIA BRANCH OF THE FARIS FAMILY IN THE; UNITED STATES OF AMERICA The prestige which ancestry gives Alas, by time grows dim He only is a king who lives As God intended him. ;.l.l.!, ~ ;.l.l.!, To those who come afte~ Descendants of William Faris and wife, Dorothy Johnson Faris, of Virginia, this book is dedicated by kindred. COMPILED ANO PUBLISHED BY NELLIE L. FLACK SEATON, ILLINOIS The Old Stone Church, Elm Grove, West Virginia. 11tltE wish to thank all who helped in any• w. ay to secure this da.ta. It was our ltltl hope to complete this in 1916 after our return from a trip thro' W. Va,, but since obliged to delay until war is upon us, it seemed fitting to put it out in as simple a manner as possible. We ·mention a few who served their• coun­ try as soldie}1 but many others just as brave, we had no records of. Wish all could have been given proper credit, as many of the cousins are now training in various camps or enroute to France while others are already there. We know these records are very incomplete and ask our readers to overlook errors when they think of the task of recording about 3,000 names and even more dates. THE AUTHOR. William Faris, 1793-1873. Robert Faris, 1801-1867. Sarah Faris Bell, 1803-1882. John Faris, 1805-1862. Rosannah F. Maxwell, 1812-1887. Adam Faris,, 1813-1894. It has been ap~ly said that the preface to any book is- always possil)le to locate any wp.o can give information concerning their the iast part written[ and should be the first part read, and the emigi;ant ancetitors or the appro:Xima.te date of their coming to purpose of this intr1.dnction is to acquaint the reader with the this country. general histo:y'y mid traditions of this branch of the Faris family ·. It' must not be understood that these snpposed cousins are and to explain the geneological tables which follow. only to be found in the Southern states, for many families of them This book dQes not purport to be a complete history .of the a:re known to have emigrated from Kentucky, nearly a century entfre :b"aris family hut treats only the descendants of William. ago, to what is now Indiana and Illinois and from thence their and Dorratha (Johnson) Faris in the U. S. A. constituting in all; descendants have scattered to all parts of the country. eight generations down to the present time. ·· · · / Neither must it be supposed that all bearing the Faris name 'J_'he exact birthplace of William and Dorratha (Johnson)' came to this country .from Ireland and Great Britian. Some of Faris cannot be located but .are definitely known to have been the best families spelling 'the name thus; clearly trace their an­ in Counties Down, or Antrim, Ireland, which was also the pro­ censtry back to the French Hugenots, many of whom came direct bable birthplace of their eldest son John Faris, who seems to have to the Southern colonies prior to the Revolution. emigrated, with his parents, to what is now Berkeley County, The traditions of these families, when taken together with West Virginia, in 1763, when about four years old, although there those of our own supposed cousins and of our own branch of the is some conflicting tradition to the effect tµat the actual date of family; tend to prove that prior to their dispersion, during the emigration was some years previously and that John Faris was religious persecutions of 1680-1683, the ancestors of all these born on the high seas while his parents were enroute to this coun­ branches lived together in Scotland, happily and harmoniously, try. "worshipping God according to the dictates of their own con­ Tradition also says that William Faris did not come to this science.'' country alone, but that three of his brothers came with him and · At the time of this calamity, their lands were, seized and later scattered to various points in the South, while Wm. Faris, their homes destroyed and they were forced to flee to other lands after three years service in the Colonial army during the war of to avoid sharing the fate of David Farrar, who, with many others, the Revolution, moved north to what is now Ohio County, West suffered martyrdom in 1683, and whose true name, tradition con­ Virginia, where he and his wife lie buried.in the Old Stone Church tends, was David Faris, the spelling "Farrar" being a misreading cemetery at Elm Grove with six generations of their descendants. of the original long-hand records in connection with his martyr- Thus we find the Faris name much more common in the dom. • Southern states than in the North, which is doubtless due to the Thus one branch of the original Scottish family creached three brothers having reared families whose descendants are the American Colonies through France and our branch through scattered throughout the southern states. Ireland, and, while sojourning for two or three generations, in Many of these descendants have traditional information different countries, between Scotland and America, doubtless that they also are of Scotch-Irish ancestry, but it has not been created some variation in thought and habits, both the Scotch -Dorothy Gaston, 1796-1880. Dorothy Faris Gaston, 1797-1874. James Faris, 1802-1876, Samuel Davis Faris, 1798-1853. Mary Faris, 1803-1881. Eleanor Yates Keady, 1808-1881 THE FARIS FAMILY IUSTORY 9 Hugenot and the Scotch-Irish br.anches came to this country as non-essential since we know from written reoords that for more simple God fearing peoples who found here the religious liberty than two ·hundred years past our immediate branch of the family they had so long coveted and who helped to win, in the war for has been a militant exponent· of those~ human rights for which Independence, that civil and political freedom which we today the United_ States has been drawn into the world war against enjoy. - German autocracy and Miutarianism. - But was Scotland the original source of the clan Y Tradi- . William Faris, our -first ancestor_ in this country, as has tion refuses to answer and we can only fall back on general his­ already been mentioned, was a soldier of the .American Revolution tory and conjecture which seem to answer in the negative. The and Jost his son David fa the last battle of that war during the name is not Scotch but Arabic, and to this day is not common in siege of Yorktown. any other part.s of the world except throughout Syria and .Arabia . After the close of the War he received a patent for 100 .A few Syrians bearing the name and using our spelling theref-0r, acres of land as per copy of grant reproduced herewith and re­ are to be found engaged in trade in the larger cities of the Unit­ moved to "Roney's Point" near the present town of Elm Grove, ed States. West Va., where he later assisted in founding the historic "Old Students of Arabie history say the name was common Stone Church,'' and although this edifice was later torn down, among the professors and scientists of the great universities that the material was again used in building the present "Old Stone evolved and reduced to practice the science of mathematics and Church,'' on the same site and in this structure his descendants gave to the world much of its modern civilization. continued! to worship for more than 125 years from its founding, With the aid of the newly developed sciences of Mathe­ or until 1914, when the present Church organization abandoned matics and Astronomy, Navigation pushed rapidly 1:>eyond the the old building for a mo,re modern and pretentious one in the city early feats of the PhoeniciaDB, and, while na authentic record of of Elm Grove. the exodus is extant, it is believed there was a migration . from For an inspiring narrative, the reader is referred to the .Arabia to the west coast of Scotland during the 9th Century, or history of The· Old Stone Church, compiled and published at Elm some 200 years before the Norsemen are supposed to have first Grove in 1907, immediately following the celebration of the 120th discovered .America. anniv~.rsary of its founding. Why these people were_ impelled to go West and whether or :From this book it will be noted that p,ractically all of the not they were indeed. our forebears, of thirty generations back, Farises in that section of the country took a prominent part in must remain matters of conjecture, but their recorded history f-0r the founding of a temperance society in 1829, and tradition says two centuries past does show that the Faris clan has been con­ that one of the first big barn raisings to be accomplished wholly tinually "moving West" and that they are more attached to each without liquor, accident or improper hilarity was by the writer's other than to any particular locality. It is furthermore almost grandfather,_ Adam Fa.ris, in 1836. impossible to find a Faris who does not love good horses, and this, That the job was well done is attested by the fact that·this taken with their love of family and home ties, their modesty and barn is still standing and when last visited by the writer in 1912, simplicity of life, and the placing of stalwart honesty and spiri­ was in an excellent state of preservation, after 76 years, and ap­ tual welfare above the amassing of worldly gain, would seem to .parently good for half a century more.