The Breshears

Regarding the Breshears family lineage, there is one reason in particular to acknowledge and honor our ancestral heritage. From the original ancestor to immigrate to America, the Huguenot refugee Robert Brasseur (c. 1595-1667), down through ten subsequent generations to Edd (and Lucille Chandler) Breshears, there has been at least an intermittent spiritual legacy that is to be cherished. By all indications, Robert Brasseur was among those early settlers whose principle reason for leaving his homeland and settling in colonial America was the search for religious freedom. Although religion was often a factor that influenced many early immigrants to settle in the colonies, most were motivated more by the economic and social opportunities that life in America offered. In the case of Robert and at least his immediate descendants, there is ample evidence that they were devout Christians to the point that some of them were subjected to social discrimination and even social ostracism due to their association with minority nonconformist groups such as the Puritans and Quakers. But after the first two generations there is little evidence that this nonconformist spiritual heritage was perpetuated. Indeed, by the fourth generation and the time of Samuel Brashear Sr. (1673-1740), many if not most Brashears had become conventional Anglicans. How long this tradition continued is uncertain, but it is likely that by the time our branch of the family moved across the Appalachians into Tennessee and eventually Missouri, some if not most had become free-will Baptists. The sparse family records do not indicate what might have precipitated this conversion from Anglicanism to a more evangelical faith. The transition might simply have been a pragmatic concession to the prevailing religious sentiments in a particular geographical area as the family migrated farther westward, leaving behind the culture of traditional southern Anglicanism, or it could possibly have occurred as the result of a spiritual awakening of an influential ancestor whose life was impacted by a local revival in conjunction with the Second Great Awakening. But until the spiritual conversion in 1893 of my grandfather, Nathan Joseph Breshears (1863-1936), and his subsequent ministerial career, there is nothing in the family records that specifically denotes any active involvement in a particular church or denomination. Regardless, it seems likely that there was at least some association with the Baptist faith in his heritage. More importantly - and what we do know - is that by the providential grace of God, Nathan Joseph's faith was transmitted to my father, Edd Breshears, and by extension to me, my siblings, our spouses, children and grandchildren. And for that our lives have been most blessed. Soli Deo gloria