Surname Saturday - Louthan, Red Headed Hero Of Scotland

I inherited a collection of letters written between 1948 and 1961.  The sender was researching his Louthan family.  All of the respondents had the same story and it is revealed they received there information from Ann Eliza Louthan who heard it from her Aunt Polly.  Ann Eliza died in 1925.  Henry Thompson Louthan's daughter, Mary Tyler Louthan was one of the senders.  She eluded to her father having trunks full of letters that she was going through and that he had researched heavily in Virginia for his Louthan ancestors.
Going through these letters while scanning them to a file on my computer, I searched on FamilySearch and Ancestry.com to identify the senders.  I was able to trace back the Louthan line from which the writer descended .  All of the respondents believe that all Louthan descendants are related.  Of course, not one cited any sources other than  "from Ann Eliza from her Aunt Polly."
In 2000, I received a manuscript of the Louthan family.  It contains the original genealogy written by W. B. Louthan of Helena, Tama Co., IA in 1878.

"Family tradition holds the following account of Henry Louthan 1st given by Henry Louthan 1st great grandson John Bowles Louthan to his son Wallace Binkley Louthan on January 3, 1878."

About 1737, Henry Louthan, a red head hero of Scotland, emigrated to America and settled in the stated of Virginia, Fredric County, then one of the British colonies.  He being at that time a single man, but soon afterwords married a damsel of the New World. After the birth of four children, Elisabeth, Margaret, George, Henry, she died. Then he married the second wife, she bore him three girls and six boys.  They settled in Ohio.  The children of the first wife were all above the average size.  Georges weight 250 lbs, Henry 225, and not inclined to corpulency.  They remained many years in Virginia.  Georges family consisted of Walker, Henry, George, John and Mollie.  The two latter remained in Virginia.  The other three moved to Missouria.

The writers of this manuscript question some of the details in this written account.  "The statement that Henry 1 was a red-headed hero of Scotland is unsupported and was once questioned by an Orange County, California genealogy group in one of their publications."  "The Henry Louthan 2nd mentioned as son of Henry Louthan 1st was born some 26 years after Henry Louthan 1st emigrated to America and would clearly be the son of the second wife, not the first. Of course it is not uncommon for their to be more than one child with the same name, especially if the older one died.  Names for Henry 1st wife's have been given as Mary and Nancy.  Nancy being the second.

I set out to place the Louthan head of households in the census across the US beginning with 1790 and going to 1840.  Except for the two in South Carolina in 1790, nothing shows up before 1810, records having being destroyed in Virginia during the Civil War.

Name	Year	State	County	Township
Elijah Lauthins	1790	South Carolina	Spartanburg	Not Stated
John Lauthins	1790	South Carolina	Spartanburg	Not Stated
Richard Louthum	1810	North Carolina	Guilford	Greensboro
Moses Leathen	1810	North Carolina	Orange	Hillsborough
Thomas Louthen	1810	Virginia	Harrison	Not Stated
John Louthan	1810	Virginia	Clarke	Not Stated
John Louthan	1810	Virginia	Frederick	Stephensburg
Henry Louthan	1810	Virginia	Frederick	Berryville
Henry Louthan	1810	Virginia	Frederick	Pughtown
Lucy Louthan	1810	Virginia	Frederick	Not Stated
Henry Louthan	1810	Virginia	Frederick	Eastern District
George B Lothian	1820	New York	New York	Ward 6
Jonathan Louthen	1820	Pennsylvania	Westmoreland	Fairfield
David Louthen	1820	Pennsylvania	Westmoreland	Fairfield
John Louthan	1820	Virginia	Frederick	Eastern District
George Louthan	1820	Virginia	Frederick	Eastern District
Henry Louthan	1820	Virginia	Hampshire	Not Stated
Walker Louthan	1820	Virginia	Hampshire	Not Stated
Henry Louthan	1820	Virginia	Smyth	Not Stated
Thomas Louthen	1820	Virginia	Harrison	Not Stated
John Louthan	1820	Pennsylvania	Beaver	Ohio
An Louthen	1830	Pennsylvania	Beaver	South Beaver
James Louthan	1830	Pennsylvania	Beaver	Ohio
James Lowthen	1830	Pennsylvania	Beaver	South Beaver
Samuel Lowthen	1830	Pennsylvania	Beaver	South Beaver
Jonathan Louthen	1830	Pennsylvania	Westmoreland	Fairfield
David Louthen	1830	Pennsylvania	Westmoreland	Fairfield
Moses Louthen	1830	Pennsylvania	Beaver	Ohio
George Louthan	1830	Ohio	Butler	Hamilton
James H. Louthan	1830	Ohio	Butler	Lemon
Hiram Louthan	1830	Ohio	Columbiana	Hanover
Moses Louthan	1840	Ohio	Columbiana	Hanover
Henry Louthan	1840	Ohio	Columbiana	St. Clair
Moses Louthan	1840	Ohio	Columbiana	Clarkson
Moses Louthan	1840	Ohio	Summit	Green
John Louthan	1840	Ohio	Miami	Elizabeth
George Louthan	1840	Ohio	Wayne	Dover
Mathew R Louthan	1840	Ohio	Lake	Perry
Parker Louthain	1840	Ohio	Shelby	Not Stated
John Louthain	1840	Ohio	Shelby	Not Stated
James Lowthen	1840	Ohio	Wayne	East Union
Margaret Louthen	1840	Tennessee	Claiborne	Not Stated
John Lothen	1840	Tennessee	Hickman	Not Stated
Henry Louthan	1840	Missouri	Shelby	Not Stated
Isaac Lathan	1840	Missouri	Howard	Franklin
Walker Louthan	1840	Missouri	Marion	Liberty
Isaac Lawthian	1840	Missouri	Howard	Not Stated
Bessie Lothin	1840	New York	New York	Ward 10
George B Lothian	1840	New York	New York	Ward 6
Geo Louthan	1840	Indiana	Porter	Not Stated
James Louthain	1840	Indiana	Tippecanoe	Jefferson
John Louthain	1840	Indiana	Tippecanoe	Jefferson
Joseph Louthain	1840	Indiana	Tippecanoe	Wabash
William Louthane	1840	Indiana	Putnam	Not Stated
Absolom Louthan	1840	Illinois	Jo Davies	Pleasant Grove

The Tennessee Louthans are documented in two issues of "Reflections, The Quarterly Newsletter of the Caliborne County Historical Society" summer edition 1987 contributed by Dolores Ham who at that time resided in Orangeburg, SC.  

Much speculation has been made regarding the origin of the Louthan/Louthen families.  There was always talk of an "Irish" connection in my branch of the Louthan family, probably  because of the frequency of redheads!  As I have researched the Louthan family, it seems more likely that the family was a participant in the great Scotch-Irish immigration of the early 18th century.  However, evidence of their residence abroad or of their arrival in America has not yet been found.

...it is sometimes stated that Henry Louthan had two brothers, one of whom stayed in NY and another whose destination is unknown.

The challenge to the Louthan puzzle is handwriting and phonetic spelling in old records.  A lazy 'n' sometimes appears to be an 'r', 'ou' is sometimes written as 'ow' and 'S' is always confused with 'L'.  I had this happen to me when I was in high school.  I had filled out an order form in cursive and the package arrived with my surname spelled Southan.

On FamilySearch I did find indexed records of the surname Louthan in Scotland.  And red hair is a trait I inherited as did my brother.  This far removed from the original immigrant, that trait isn't really a factor to consider since there are red heads in nearly every one of my extended family lines, both maternal and paternal.

Will this puzzle ever be solved??  Hard to say.  This is an example of a One Line Genealogy that ignores all of the other lines and so people are lost along the way.  Records prior to 1810 are difficult to find and presents a challenge to this researcher.   The treasure of an old Bible from that time would be nice to find.

I certainly will not run out of research to conduct on the Louthan surname, in America and in Great Britain.