Migrations

The Hoyt and Hathaway Families came from England and settled in Massachusetts. Over the years they moved to various States until they ended up in Michigan. They are a very typical American family and reflect the general population patterns of their time. They were farmers and were continually looking for better land to farm. Sylvia's branch of the family left Michigan and moved to Wisconsin, Kansas and Oklahoma. Due to her father's illness her family returned to Michigan. She saved old family letters that were written from all over the United States. The old family letters are from Iowa, Minnesota, Oklahoma, Kansas, California and of course Michigan. Prior to 1920 the majority of The United States population lived in small rural, farming communities. In 1920 the trend was to leave the family farms and move to the big cities. This is exactly what Sylvia did. She was born in Downs, Oklahoma and raised in Porter Township, Michigan. In 1921 she married and moved to the city of Detroit.

William & Charles Hathaway moved to Belvidere Township, Monoma Co., Iowa about 1853. This is a photograph of Onawa which was the closest city to the Hathaway farms.

Photograph courtesy of the State Historical Society of Iowa Special Collections.

The following letter was written by Experience Griffin. Experience was the daughter of Ensign Mitchell and Lucy Hubbard. She was born 13 Nov 1784 in New York. In the letter, she stated that she was age 75 and was recovering from a fall from her horse. She also stated that she was writing the letter on Thursday 13th of January 21. January 13 of 1821 was not a Thursday. The letter is full of misspellings and it is quite possible that the date is incorrect. Especially as she was hurt so badly from her fall that she could not get home for 12 days. She referred to her husband as having gone to Cansess and she is sure he is dead or extremely ill as she has not heard from him in over two months. Experience wrote to her sister Jainy. Jainy was Mary Jane (Mitchell) Reynnells. At the time the letter was written, Experience lived in Van

Wert County, Ohio and Mary Jane lived in Van Buren county, Michigaqn.

The following letter was written on 14 March 1875 by Mary Jane Twitchell of Long Prairie, Minnesota. Mary Jane was the sister of Experience Reynnells Hathaway. This letter is particularly sad as Mary is telling her sister about the death of her children. Mary had eleven children and seven of them died before she did. She was also worried about her son who went to Texas as she had not heard from him in a long time. Her son, George, did survive and Mary later moved to Kansas City, Kansas to live with him. Mary & Experience Reynnells were born in Ohio and moved to Michigan as children. Experience remained in Michigan and none of her children died before her. Mary first married William Perley and they moved to Lake City, Minnesota where William died. Mary married Horace Twitchell who also predeceased her.

Experience Mitchell married Benjamin Griffin on 7 April 1801 in Tioga County, New York. The Kansas Territory was opened up in 1854. Several members of the family did move to Kansas. Sadly, Experience was right. Her husband died on 27 December 1859. He is buried in Vendocia, Van Wert, Ohio. Experience died 2 May 1867 in Jennings, Van Wert, Ohio.

The letter was written in January 1860. I have assumed that Experience gave her correct birth date - 13 November. That may be part of the reason why she confused the date of the letter.

The following letter was written by Charles Hathaway to his brother Anson. Charles was living in Onawa, Iowa and Anson was living in Porter Township, Michigan. This is a beautifully written letter describing the death of Charles' wife Leona Osborne. She was age 48 at the time of her death, on 18 April 1876. In 1900 the average life expectancy of a white female was 48.3 years.

The Hathaway family left England and settled in Taunton, Massachusetts in 1633. The family spent many years living in Massachusetts and Conecticut ( at the time Connecticut was part of Massachusetts). My branch moved to New York and then to Michigan. William and Mary (Hyde) Hathaway left Danby, New York on 26 October 1836 and arrived in Prairie Ronde, Michigan on 13 November 1836. William died in 1838 of ague which was a malerial type of fever. At that time Michigan was very swampy and full of mosquitos and ague was quite common. Several Hathaway relatives migrated to Michigan and their rout was via the Hudson River to the Erie Canal, then Lake Erie to Detroit. From Detroit to Ypsilanti via a team of horses and finally from Ypsilanti to Prairie Ronde by foot over the old Territorial Road.

Belvidere Township was on the Mississippi River near the Minnesota border. Iowa was 95% farm land and experienced a huge population growth in the 1850's.

The above letter was written in December 1897 from Esther Frazee to her brother, William Hoyt. Esther made some comments about the fact that her brother, Hiram, was remarrying after the death of his wife. It is unknown what she said as someone cut that portion of the letter out. It is a pretty safe guess that her comments were not nice.

Esther also talked about walking into town and how dangerous it was. She always carried a loaded revolver because there were roving gangs of drunks and lots of wandering cattle and horses.

All the letters continually express lonliness and a wish for visits and news of the family. Esther stated that their Thanksgiving was very lonely and she expected Christmas to be the same. She could have traveled 30 miles to join some other family members, but stated that the 60 mile round trip in an open buggy over the rocky rough roads was very unpleasant.