Poe Archive

BACKGROUND
The following excerpt was taken from, “Rochester History”:
“Mathias Hutchinson (1795-1894), son of Thomas and Ann Cary (Walker) Hutchinson was born in Solebury Township, Bucks County, Pennsylvania. A Quaker farmer, he grew up on the family farm in nearby Newtown, where his friend Edward Hicks (1780-1849), a carriage-maker, sign painter, and back country Quaker preacher, also lived. (Hicks was an untrained primitive artist, whose fame today arises from nearly 100 versions of 'The Peaceable Kingdom'.)

On September 6th, 1819, Hutchinson set out on horseback and, with Hicks and their friend Isaac Parry (1773-1857), an elder of Abington Quarterly Meeting (Friends' congregation), traveled through north-central Pennsylvania, over the Centre Turnpike, and north along the Susquehannah Trail, into western New York, then into the British colony of Upper Canada, returning home via the Mohawk Valley, Hudson river, and eastern Pennsylvania–an arduous journey of 1,940 miles. In the spring of 1821, Hutchinson and his parents moved to Cayuga County, New York; he became the Clerk of Scipio Monthly Meeting; served two terms, as a Whig, in the New York State assembly (1853, 1854). He was married in 1830 to Hannah C. Doty, a Dutchess County Quaker, at Clinton, New York; and he died on his Ledyard Farm.” [1]

Mathias kept a diary of his trip and excepts from it may be found online at the Central Library of Rochester and Monroe County, New York: http://www.libraryweb.org/~rochhist/indexh.htm

THE LETTER
Mathias Hutchinson wrote this letter to his cousin, Ann Johnson Paxson (1792-1883) and her husband Thomas Paxson (1793-1881) in 1865, when he was 70 years old. It is essentially a family tree. The connection between Thomas Paxson and Mathias Hutchinson is as follows: Thomas Paxson was married to Ann Johnson, whose parents were Samuel Johnson (1763-1844) and Martha Hutchinson. Martha Hutchinson was the sister of Thomas Hutchinson, Mathias' father.

MATHIAS HUTHINSON FAMILY
Paternal grandparents: Mathias Hutchinson (b. 7 Jul 1744, d. 1823) [2] and Elizabeth Bye (b. 13 Sep 1742). They were married 2 Apr 1765. [3]
“Matthias, a descendant of the first settler, born in 1743, was a remarkable man in some respects, and wielded considerable influence. He carried on mason-work and plastering extensively, and used to walk twenty miles to work in the morning and be the first man of the scaffold. Such energy brought its reward, and he became wealthy. He enjoyed the confidence of his fellows, and was appointed justice of the peace, and afterwards, associate-judge, which he resigned about 1812. About 1865 he married Elizabeth Bye, whose mother was Elizabeth Ross, sister of Thomas Ross the Preacher. Mr. Hutchinson owned the fine farm now William Stavely's, where he died in 1823, at the age of eighty. He was a soldier in the French and English war, and was near Wolfe when he fell of the Plains of Abraham.” [4]

Maternal grandparents: Emmanuel Walker (b. 7 Mar 1736, d. 1793) and Ann Cary (b. 1 Aug 1741, d. 1793). Mathias notes in his letter that his grandparents died in the yellow fever epidemic that struck Philadelphia in 1793, a calamity that killed as many as a hundred people a day.

Parents: Thomas Hutchinson (b. 20 Feb 1766, d. 8 Nov 1846) and Ann Cary Walker (b. 18 Jun 1767, d. 31 Dec 1831).

Wife: Hannah C. Doty (b. 15 Oct 1806, d. 20 Nov. 1844).

HANNAH C. DOTY FAMILY
Parents: Isaac Doty (born in Clinton, Dutchess Cty., N.Y. 18 Dec 1762, d. 26 Nov 1842) and Elizabeth Carpenter (b. 13 Jul 1765, 18 Feb 1845). They were married 22 Jan 1782. [5]

Siblings: Amy Doty (b. 24 Oct 1782), Phebe Doty (b. 17 Jan 1786), Margaret Doty (b. 10 Jan 1788), Isaac Doty (b. 25 Feb 1790), Robert Doty (b. 4 Feb 1792), Anna Doty (b. 19 Apr 1795), Sarah Doty (21 Apr 1797), George Washington Doty (b. 14 Jul 1799), Elias Doty (b. 14 Jul 1799), Elizabeth Doty (b. 1 Jan 1802, D. 12 Dec 1868), Samuel Doty (b. 4 Jun 1804), and Susan Ann Doty (b. 5 Oct 1808, married Elias Carpenter, her cousin, 8 Oct 1835). [6]

Paternal grandparents: Elias Doty (b. abt 1732) and Amy Dean (born abt. 1735). Elias' parents were Samuel Doty and Charity Mudge. [7]

Maternal grandparents: George Carpenter (d. 26 Nov 1842 in Clinton, N.Y.) and Lucretia Golding (d. 18 Feb 1845 in Ledyard, N.Y.) of Dutchess County. [8]

PAXSON FAMILY
Thomas Paxson (1793-1881) was married to Ann Johnson (1792-1883) in 1817. They had the following children:

Samuel Johnson Paxson (b. 1818, d. 28 May 1864). He was editor and proprietor of the "Doylestown Democrat," from 1845 to 1858. He married Mary Anna Broadhurst in 1840.[9]

Albert S. Paxson (b. 1820). From 1851 to 1856 he was local editor and general manager of the "Doylestown Democrat," owned and edited by his brother, Samuel Johnson Paxson. He was elected to the office of justic of the peace in 1873 and served for ten years. He was married to Mercy Beans in 1844. She died in 1849 and he remarried Levinia Ely in 1854.[9]

Hon. Edward M. Paxson (b. 3 Sep 1824). Judge Paxson married, April 30, 1846, Mary Caroline Newlin, of Philadelphia, daughter of Nathaniel and Rachel H. Newlin, of Delaware county, Pennsylvania. She died at Bycot House, June 7, 1885. He married (second) December 1, 1886, Mary Martha S. Bridges. He served as a chief justice for the state of Pennsylvania for eighteen years.[9]

[1] “Rochester Recollected: A Miscellany of Eighteenth-and-Nineteenth-Century Descriptions”, edited by Pat M. Ryan, “Rochester History”, Vol. XLI, Nos 1 and 2, p. 8, January and April, 1979. Online at the following address: http://www.libraryweb.org/~rochhist/indexh.htm

[2] Davis, W. W. H., A. M., “The History of Bucks County, Pennsylvania”, p. 305, Doylestown, Pa.: Democrat Book and Job Office Print, 1876.

[3] Church: Buckingham Monthly Meeting Authorized Marriages, 1730-1810: Bucks County, PA.

[4] Davis, W. W. H., A. M., “The History of Bucks County, Pennsylvania”, p. 305, Doylestown, Pa.: Democrat Book and Job Office Print, 1876.

[5] “The Doty-Doten Family in America; Descendants of Edward Doty, An Emigrant by the Mayflower, 1620”, p. 518-519, compiled by Ethan Allen Doty, Brooklyn, N. Y., 1897.
http://books.google.com/books?id=PR9KAAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover#PPA519,M1

[6] Ibid, p. 519.

[7] Ibid, p. 509.

[8] Ibid, p. 519.

[9]Davis, William W. H., A.M., “History of Bucks County, Pennsylvania [New York-Chicago: The Lewis Publishing Company, 1905],” Volume III, p. 154-157.
http://www.pagenweb.org/~bucks/BIOS_DAVIS/edwardmpaxson.html