History and Descendants John Bruffey Slaven (1723) and Elizabeth Stuart (1743) Family Record

The History and the Descendants of John Bruffey Slaven (1723) and Elizabeth Stuart (1743) is somewhat like recording the history of Highland and Pocahontas Counties, both straddling the Alleghanies, during the 18th and 19th centuries. Emigrants from several European countries poured into America, all seeking a better life, anxious to escape religious precaution and freedom to become whatever you chose. Many followed the roads west, crossed the Shenandoah Valley, climbing the mountains to find their opportunity for a better life in the mountainous regions of Pocahontas or Highland County. John Slaven, the Irishman, built his first cabin on Cheat Mountain and by patient and remarkable muscular power carved from the wilderness large tracts of land shown on some early maps as the "Slaven Plantations".Today, ancestral blood flows in the veins of many current citizens of this early pioneer. Now, a couple centuries later, John Bruffey Slaven and Elizabeth Stuart can proudly claim to be progenitors of more than 5000 descendants recorded herein and scattered across America. This book my best be described by the Hebrew prophet who told his fellow citizens of ancient Israel the importance on knowing from hence we came. “Tell all your children -- and let your children tell their children, and their children another generation.” Or as Thucydides told his fellow Greeks a thousand years ago “Both justice and decency requite that we should bestow on our forefathers an honorable remembrance.” William Price, author of Historical Sketches of Pocahontas County West Virginia (1903) said “Persons knowing but little of those gone before is very likely to care but little of those coming after them.” This book hopes to be in tune with these points of view. Read more