|
Sarah Halkins, Holkins or Hawkins Byington 1808 to 1870
This photo was sent to me by Jay Burrup. Thank you, Jay for your contribution to this web page. Jay also sent me this photo of the headstone on our Grandmothers grave.
Written by Fay Byington (used with permission.) The information is Taken from the Byington Family History Book. Optical character recognition was used to copy this document. The history of the Byington family would not be complete without a sketch on Sarah Hawkins or Holkins, the wife of Hiram N. Byington.
119 There was considerable good farm land and much timber land with hard woods and forests of hemlock and pine. It was at this place that the Holkins and the Terry families decided to make their homes. The town was founded by Captain John Pease in 1654. He was the father of the first girl born in the town. Her name was Margaret. The first boy born in the town was Isaac Kibbe. Isaac Kibbe built the first meetinghouse which is now the town hall. Dr. Ebenezer Terry was the first native physician of Enfield. He married Mary Helme a daughter of Sargeant Christopher Helme. His daughter, Penelope Terry, as her fathers pupil assisted him in his profession. In her obituary it stated that she practiced for thirty-three years and was present at the birth of 1,389 children. The first marriage in the town was that of Captain Samuel Terry to Hannah Morgan, daughter of Captain Miles Morgan who fought against the Indians in 1675. The first Congregational Church is looked upon by architects as one of the finest examples of the Colonial style in New England. It reminds the traveler of those beautiful parish churches in London, England. 120 THE TOWN HALL OF EN FIELD
FIRST CONGREGATIONAL
CHURCH. However, the first house of worship was built of logs in 1684 and stood in or close to the cemetery. Jonathan Edwards, on July 8, 1741 preached his famous Enfield sermon, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”. This sermon was the high tide in a revival known as “The Great Awakening”. At that time they paid the preachers in beef, pork, grain and tobacco. In this payment in kind wheat was rated at 4 shillings (one dollar) per bushel, rye at 3 shillings (75 cents) Indian corn at 2 shillings (50 cents), beef at 2 pence (4 cents) pork at 3 pence (6 cents) and tobacco at 18 shillings ($4.50) per hundred pounds. Joseph Holkins, Joel Holkins, Samuel Terry, Selah Terry and the Sweetland family names are mentioned many times in the town and vital records of Enfield. 121 Joel Holkins was paid $5.62 for helping build the bridge over Grape Brook Joel Holkins married Elizabeth Sweetland of Bolton, Tolland, Conn. They had the following children who were all born in Enfield:
Sarah Holkins
11 July 1856
mar. Huldah Allen died
1767 mar. Hannah Olmstead
These are the brothers
and sisters of our Joseph Holkins. In the History of Enfield, a public
document gives the settlement of Joel Holkins’ estate by the administrator on 20
Jan. 1807. It mentions children Samuel, Joseph and Lydia (Chandler).
William Holkins
born abt. 1792
We have no record of
this family until we find them in the records of the Western Reserve in Ohio. In
these records it states that Joseph and Mehitable came from Enfield, Connecticut
in 1821. mar. Joseph Chandler 1789 122’ Sarah would have been about thirteen years old when they made the perilous drive from Buffalo on the ice. They arrived at Erie, where they were taken in by the Olmstead family The daughter Mehitable did not come until 1822 when she arrived from Lima, New York with her husband John Titus. John died and she married John Brown of Ashtabula. We know that some of the other children came with Joseph and Mehitable to the Western Reserve. We find them mentioned in an early census. They are living in Klngsville, Ashtabula County in the 1823 census. It lists white males over the age of twenty—one. Those appearing are
Joseph Hawkins
Hiram’s brother, Zina,
married Huldah Webster in Kingsville Ira Hawkins was listed as an invalid in one of the census records. He died and his wife Esther married Doctor Ensign and moved to Madison and lived to a ripe old age. Joseph Hawkins Juniors first wife was Lucia Pond. They were married in 1830 in Ashtabula. He married second a girl named Julia. They were in the 1850 Census. These tidbits of information prove that our Hawkins and Byington families were living near each other in the early times in Ohio. 123 The early settlers of the Reserve were a rough, hardy intelligent set. They believed in God, in good order and education. They were always ready to start a church or a school, and to help each other on any and every occasion. Books were scarce, but the Western Reserve boy did not think himself a man until he• had at least mastered the three R’s. The early Reserve teacher was usually from the best blood and talent of the New England states
Most of the settlers,
by this time, had log cabins with huge fire—places which would take a log of
almost any thickness and from six to ten feet in length. Over the chimney was
set a pair of deer-antlers on which hung the rifle, powder horn and bullet
pouch. From the joists above hung bunches of dried herbs, little bags of dried
fruits, pumpkin, sacks of nuts and jerked-venison. The soap of the pioneer had to be made by himself or family. The wood ashes were leached. The lye obtained was boiled with fat in large iron kettles until the soap was of the proper consistency The soap-boiling, the hog killings, the log rolling, the wood chopping and quiltings and a little later the corn husking and parin bees were red letter days to the young people. These were days full of excitement and good fellowship-- the only recreation they had together. Men and boys would cheerfully walk from ten to twenty miles to attend a cabin raising, returning often after night, through the woods with their lighted torches of pine knots or hickory bark. There were no classes in those days. The rich and the poor dressed alike. The clothing of the men consisted of homespun, or deerskin hunting frocks, and pants made of buckskin. The women attired alike in homespun of their own making Near most of the settlements, the pioneers built a stockade where they could go in case of an Indian raid. 124 When the pioneers first came, the Indians controlled the country. The ones around Ashtabula County were under the charge of the great chief Ottokee. General St. Clair and his army were sent to protect the forts which extended to Lake Erie. They were met by the combined Indian forces under the command of the chiefs Tecumseh, Little Turkey, Turkey Foot and Blue Jacket, who were closely watching and concentrating their forces in advance of the army. The General did not expect to meet any great force until he arrived at the Maumee Rapids, but they were surprised by an overwhelming force of savages at what is now called Fort Recovery, where he met a most unfortunate defeat. Every officer and more than two-thirds of the men engaged were killed or wounded. The official report showing 550 killed and 200 wounded, the remainder scattered in the forest. 125
Scattered through the
Reserve in its earliest days were many professional hunters who were “Indian
Slayers”. These were men of strong passions, whose hate of the Indian race had
been engendered by wrongs received either to themselves or their relatives and
friends. These men never hesitated to put an Indian “out of the way” as they
called it. 126
One old Indian was a
bitter and unrelenting enemy of the whites. When drunk, he would take out a
string of 18 dried, white linens tongues and shake them. This he did at a place
where Williams was camping. After the Indian had left camp William said I think
I’ll go and kill a buck. The report of a rifle was soon heard but William’s
brought no game. The old Indian was never seen again. Many old settlers declared
that toward the end of William’s life he was afraid to go out after night,
through fear that spirits of some of the many savages he had killed would
capture him. 127 “To dress it and keep it” providence gathered a select people from New England and eastern New York to settle this beautiful wild area. It is on the southern shore of Lake Erie, first settled in 1803 by Eldad Harrington and his wife Samantha.
Octavia Fobes was the
first white child born there. She later had sisters Amanda, Rosamorid and
Louisa.
By virtue of a
warrant, Jonathan Warner appeared before the judge, and after witnesses being
heard, it is my opinion that the said Warner pay the sum of seventy-five cents
and costs, for raking eight cocks of hay on the Sabbath, notwithstanding the
said Warner hay might have been injured by a heavy thunder shower.
Emily Newton Whitman
of Ashtabula recorded this episode: 128
All of these families
suffered the same hardships of this time and became prominent citizens in the
community. In 1814, Jonathan Hart and his wife Anna Webster and White Webster
and his wife Phoebe Hart came to the Reserve from Litchfield Conn. The next
winter Elijah Webster and his wife Martha Clark, the father and mother of Anna
and White and their daughters, Olive, Huldah and Maria, followed with horses and
sleigh, crossing from Buffalo on the ice. Huldah, the daughter of Elijah Webster
and Martha Clark was the one who married Zina Byington the brother of our Hiram
Norton Byington. The Webster family was an influential and prominent family of
Kingsville. Jesse Byington came as a surveyor of land in 1808. He did not stay
in Ashtabula but moved on to Plain Township in Franklin County, Ohio.
These were only a few
accounts of the happenings in the area where Sarah Hawkins and her family lived.
The people who converted this wilderness into a land of happy homes were our
ancestors. Wouldn’t it have been nice had they (Oh, so many questions) kept a journal? Sidney Rigdon came into the area in 1828 preaching the Mormon faith. Some of the first persons to be converted were Oliver Snow and his family, Symonds Ryder, Ezra Booth and many others. Eliza Snow, afterwards so noted as the Poetess among the Mormons, led the way. Her parents and sister were also made members. It must have been around this same time that Hiram and Sarah heard about the church. They could have been converted by Sidney Rigdon while he was preaching in the area. They were there until 1830 when son Hyrum Elliott was born. We do not know the exact date they left Ashtabula. Their next move was to Kirtland, Ohio, at the time the heart of the Mormon Church. We find them living there near brother Zina and his wife Huldah. Zina owned a farm. I did not find any land deeded to Hiram and Sarah. They lived here while the church was growing and they were building the Kirtland temple. The persecutions in Kirtland were so great that the Saints were required to flee the city. Sarah must have packed the wagon with their few belongings and with her husband and children left the area. What great faith she must have had. Her family had not wanted her to join the Mormons. What did she think now about joining with this sect that were being driven from their homes? 131 They joined the Kirtland Camp on the 6th of July. The company consisted of 515 souls, 27 tents, 59 wagons, 97 horses, 69 cows, and one bull. They all started together and every wagon kept its place. Sometimes the weather was good, sometimes bad. At times, the tents would blow over in rainstorms at night then all within beds, people and all, would get as wet as drowned mice.
Nauvoo was a beautiful
growing community. The Saints were building another temple. The women were busy
drying and preserving food for winter, spinning and weaving the wool into yarn
for clothing. In the houses friends and neighbors sat together peeling apples,
peaches and pumpkins. These were strung on strings and hung in the loft or at
the ceiling to dry. The children had time to play games. Singing games were
popular at this time London Bridge is falling down, This is the way we wash our
clothes, and Here we go around the mulberry bush.
The temple had been
completed and stood majestically on the highest point in the city.
After the Prophet fell
from the curb a man stepped up with a long, glittering knife to behead the
Prophet. As he raised his arm to commit the awful deed, a flash of lightning
came from heaven and paralyzed him. He could not move, and had to be carried
away inert as a corpse and the mob fled from the scene in terror. The Prophet
and his brother were taken home and I saw them lying side by side in their
coffins.
133 In 1848 Sarah packed another wagon to start the trek westward 1500 miles over the uncharted plain and mountain trails. They had been driven from their homes and all they wanted was the right to worship God according to the dictates of their own conscience. The Winter Quarters of 1846—47 is no more. The hill on which there once stood the temporary homes of this people reflects only the peace and quiet of a beautifully landscaped cemetery where 600 of the valiant Saints lie buried men, women and children who succumbed to the rigorous trials of a frontier migration. Here is enshrined the story of tragedy, faith and indominitable courage. On September 20, 1936 a huge crowd of people witnessed the dedication of a magnificent statue which was erected near the entrance of these hallowed grounds The central figures in this Winter Quarters Memorial portray a grief stricken father and mother standing by an open grave where they have just placed their baby wrapped in a blanket. The weeping mother supported by the protective arm of her husband takes a last look at the little body, while the father, with shovel still in hand, demonstrates the impelling action of the pioneer spirit which moved the migrants on to their promised land This memorial is symbolic of the sufferings of 6000 emigrants ill-equipped, who died en-route from exposure and travel hardships. It will honor and keep alive the memory of these courageous souls who gave their lives in the cause of religious devotion The year Sarah arrived in the valley they lived in the fort. She was here during the times of great hunger and hardships of the earliest settlers She lived in Salt Lake Temple. 135 When Johnston’s Army was sent to destroy the Saints here in Utah, she with her faithful husband had to again hitch up the wagon and move to American Fork, Utah. Someone was left behind to burn their homes rather than let the soldiers take them over. At this time son Hyrum Elliott and son Joseph Henry and his wife Nancy joined them in this area. They were still there in 1860 when they were living near each other according to the census When the danger was over, they returned to Salt Lake where they lived until they joined their children in Eden, Utah. Grandmother Sarah was sixty-two years old when they were living in the Ogden Valley. She died 27 Jan. 1870 and was buried there. The poem "Pioneer Woman" by Margaret R. Swapp, printed in Legacy by the Daughters of the Utah Pioneers, best describes our wonderful grandmother
Her thoughts reached
far beyond the dusty scene;
How great the need
that drove the people westward, 136
|
