William G Hearst

Grandfather of newspaperman William Randolph Hearst and father of U.S. Senator George Hearst.

Vital statistics

• Son of George Hearst (1764-1822) and Jane Pressly
• Born William George Hearst, about 1795 within or near Abbeville County, South Carolina
• Died 1864, Franklin County, Missouri (age about 68 years old)
• Married Elizabeth Collins in 1817, Franklin County, Missouri.

Biography

William G. Hearst was the son of George Hearst, Sr., who as a small child in October 1766 arrived in America with his parents and many siblings, on a ship of as yet unproven name in the harbor of what was then Charles Town in the royal colony of South Carolina. His grandfather John Hearst, Sr. (as well as his uncle John Hearst, Jr.) were provided benefits from the Act to Encourage Protestant Immigration including 400 acres for the grandfather and 100 acres for the uncle, with the land being described in the respective royal grants for these two men.

100 acre royal grant for John Hearse, Jun'r. dated "this second day of March, Anno Dom. 1768 in the Eighth Year of our Reign."

The first 100 acres of the acreage was for the head of the household and for any child of that head 16 years of age or older (in his own name), with 50 acres each added to the total for dependents including wife and children. Thus the grandfather had either a wife and seven children or (far less likely) eight children with no wife. The exact date of arrival is unknown and perhaps unknowable, but the Council Journal for the royal colony, which is still extant and held at the South Carolina State Archives, provides a list of passengers of one of several ships arriving that includes the father and son's names and then acreage assigned to each under the clear misspelling of John Hearse, Sen'r. and John Hearse, Jun'r.

There have been other theories of a Virginia origin for John Hearst, some promulgated by one or more genealogical treatises either obtained by or made for the Hearst publishing family or made separately for one or more of the biographies of William Randolph Hearst. A more recent 1991 W. R. Hearst biography "according to a Google books overview, cites unpublished memoirs of Senator George Hearst as the original source of the fact of a direct origin from Scotland three generations before into somewhere in America, but also a father for Sen. Hearst with a Scottish accent and the absurd claim of, or joke by, Sen. Hearst that his great grandfather owned nine slaves, but only ten acres. These claims of a 17th century arrival or the other earlier made ones being of Virginia Hurst origin are in error for this Hearst family. Although these claims are impossible to eliminate from a possible and currently primary published theory, the documented arrival of the original American immigrant antecedent John Hearst family (for William Randolph Hearst, all his American-born Hearst ancestors and all his American Hearst kin) and the young (but at least sixteen years of age) Hearst namesake on some date just prior to October 26, 1766 cannot be disputed due to the ability to locate this family, and no other similarly named family in the area of South Carolina where each set of representations places them.

Children of William George and Elizabeth Collins Hearst

• George Hearst (1820-1891) - One of six children of couple, three sons and three daughters.

References

• http://homepages.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~amcolan/index.html

• http://books.google.com/books?id=kMuc9Lb-3mkC&source=gbs_navlinks_s