Today I decided to write about an ancestor who shares my birthday.

Hannah Huxley would be my 7th great-grand aunt on my father’s side. For those of you also related to my father, the line goes as follows…

Glen S. Remington - Dad 
J M Remington – elusive grandfather
Dolph Remington – great-grandfather
Johnathan Munsel Remington – 2nd great-grandfather
Charles Remington – 3rd great-grandfather
Ezekiel Remington – 4th great-grandfather
Elizabeth Hastings – 5th great-grandmother
Elizabeth Huxley – 6th great-grandmother
John Huxley – 7th great-grandfather – who had a sister named Hannah 

Hannah was born February 3, 1681 in what is now Suffield, Hartford County, Connecticut, (then part of Massachusetts).  The town is on the western shore of the Connecticut River just south of Springfield, about halfway between Boston and New York City.

From A Day In The Lyceum

 According to the Suffield Historical Society:

The settling of The Town of Suffield as part of Massachusetts began in 1670. The first settlers were all land grantees, given land if they moved to Suffield and improved their land. Between 1670 and 1682, grants of 40 to 60 acres were typically given depending on family size and status. The 30 families identified here were all proprietors [original land grantees] of the Town of Suffield.

One of those early families was that of Thomas Huxley, who had been born in England around 1641, and Sarah Spencer of Hartford, Connecticut. [Note – Sarah’s father Thomas Spencer was another early settler of Suffield. The Spencer family reportedly can be traced to time of William the Conqueror in 1066.] Thomas came as a servant of John Wakeman but he prospered in the new country. In 1678 he was granted 60 acres of land in Suffield. This was not long after King Philip’s War, a bloody conflict between early settlers and Native Americans during which the original settlement had been burned.

The couple had 5 small children when they arrived (including my ancestor John) and soon had four more, including Hannah. The couple was most likely Puritan. Their lives would have consisted of hard work and Bible study. According to Suffield A Sketch published in 1895...

New England Primer

...one of the conditions of the charter was the 'support of Christian minister and a blacksmith’. Mr. John Younglove came as pastor in 1679, but there is no record of his ordination. The first church building was erected in 1680, very near what is now the intersection of the West Suffield road and High Street…Very soon after the settlement of the plantation the school master was sent for, in the person of Anthony Austin. He was a very satisfactory teacher…

So it seems that by the time Hannah was growing up there was at least some semblance of a real town.

On February 20, 1701/02, Hannah married Matthew Copley. They had ten children born between 1702 and 1721. As was typical of the time period, Matthew was involved in town matters. According to town records found in the Documentary History of Suffield by Clark W. Bryan Co., published in 1879, at various times Matthew was entrusted with the following duties:

Hogg Reeves*
Fence Viewers
Constable
Surveighor of Highways

 I didn’t find any record of when Hannah died. Her husband died in 1763. 

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Source:

Most genealogical material was found on the Early Families pages of the Suffield Historical Society. This site also contains information about the early Remington families.