Hutchings Family Tree

hutchings_reunion_1896

Narrative

1796 Hutchings Reunion 1896



At the annual reunion of the Hutchings Family, which celebrated this year the one hundredth anniversary of the settling of the Hutchings’ in Cortland county there were about 200 present including friends from Sandiego, Cal., St. Louis, Mich. Susquehanna county, Pa. and from many places in our own state, including Owego, Ithaca, Cortland, Homer, Oxford, Bath, Black Creek, Allegany county, Port Ewen, Ulster county, Lansingburg, Danby, McGrawville, Caroline, Dryden, and Groton, making a very merry and happy company, and we skipped the money question, although one of the party was the owner of one of the principal silver mines in Michigan.

The following short history and poem read by Miss E. E. Vantine will be of interest to many.

In 1796 John Gee and his wife, Mary Hutchings, came from Wyoming, Penn., and settled on Lot 21, it being his soldier’s claim of 640 acres, he having been a soldier of the revolution, He was also accompanied by his six children, and a brother-in-law, Samuel Hutchings. They traveled on foot through dense forests, crossing rivers and streams in rough skiffs hewn from logs. They crossed the Tiough-Nioga river near what is now State Bridge and after many hardships they reached the place now occupied by Mrs. Jane Johnson. They built a rough log cabin and the work of making a home in a strange land at once commenced. The first building erected for school or religious purposes was erected on the town line, on the northwest corner of said lot. To Samuel Hutchings, who came with him and assisted him in his labor he gave 100 acres; this place where we have met today being a part of it, a corner of the lot being within eight rods of where we are now standing.

For years a corner stone marked H. C. 1796, ( Hutchings’ Corners ) lay there, but it was removed a few years since by the present owners and today lies hid within this very cellar wall. Who can tell how many generations hence it may be unearthed and kept for a memorial of the ages past. There are in existance long records of the Hutchings family, but we will go back no farther than to Samuel Hutchings born April 16th, 1765, though I just wish to mention that as far back as 1680, at the close of the war between England and Holland, one Thomas Hutchings, choosing to remain in America rather than return to England, his native land, swam ashore in the night from and English ship in the harbor of New York. He was, very likely the first Hutchings to settle in America.

Samuel Hutchings, the first, was married to Bethany Coutant and their son, the next Samuel, was married to Polly VanAuken in 1819. There are now living descendants of the elder Samuel, from the first generation, one; from the second, 47; from the third 188; from the forth 130; from the fifth 13, making a total of his descendants 376. The eldest son of Samuel Hutchings, the second, was Jacob Hutchings, who was married to Rhoda Wood in 1812, and they had fifteen children – five dies in infancy, two in youth, and of the eight who lived to marry, four of them were living in 1892 and I understand are with us today. The second child, Letitia, had six children – the third child, John C., had six, two are living; the forth Samuel, had eight, seven now living; the fifth, David, had ten, four are living; the sixth, Abraham, had four, two are living; the seventh, Phoebe, had eight, two now living; the eighth, William, had eleven, nine now living, three of whom are here today; the ninth, Isaiah had eight, four are living; the tenth, Sarah, had nine, five are living. Sarah has died during the past year, she being the last of the family. The eleventh child, Benjamin, had seven children, three now living.

Going back to Mary Hutchings, or Aunt Polly Gee, as I have heard you speak of her, she with her husband and six children remained in their log cabin home till winter, but it proving so severe they went out in the woods, over to what is now called the Asbury, where they remained with a relative, Ebenezer Brown, until spring. On their return home she saw some fresh green grass growing by the side of the road near the Peruville school house, upon the old State Road. She had a piece of sod dug up, taking it home with her and transplanted it near her cabin door, where it grew and flourished. This was the only bit of grass to be seen for miles around, for you must remember it was all dense wilderness there at that time. She also brought apple seeds with her from the old Wyoming home, which she planted, raising the trees from which so many of her descendants have eaten fruit.

They had a family of fifteen children, the last one of whom Aunt Patty Ellison, passed away but a few years ago, she having kept in her possession one lot from the old homestead as long as she lived. There are many of the grandchildren and greatgrandchildtren of these brave old people here today, standing on the same ground they cleared and helped to beautify.

We meet today to celebrate our own centennial;

A century of hopes and fears,

A century of smiles and tears,

A century of toils and cares,

Of strong desires and earnest prayers.

From where Wyoming’s sunny vales

Lay carpeted with emerald green,

Where mountain rose o’er mountain peak,

With just a glimpse of sky between;

Where fertile fields gave promise

Of a harvest rich and rare,

And a wreath of snowy blossoms

Speaks a fruitage wondrous fair;

Where the meadows and the pastures

Tempt the wandering flocks afield,

And the great storehouse of Nature

All her wealth of treasure yield;





From these homes by love made sacred,

Hither came the earnest heart,

Our fore-fathers, eager, willing,

In the world to do their part.

Heart and Hands were trained for conflict,

His had been the soldier’s life;

While her strong and fearless nature

Proved she was a soldier’s wife.

Here they lived and here they labored

Homes to make and to maintain;

Plowing, planting, sowing, reaping,

Gathering in the golden grain.

Fruit they had not then in plenty,

For the trees were not yet grown

From the seeds brought by "Aunt Polly,"

From the old Wyoming Home;

Cared for, tended, Oh! how fondly,

Alternating hopes and fears,

Ancient trees, but few left standing,

Monuments of bygone years.

Oh! What tales those trees would tell us,

If we could but understand

What their branches whisper, whisper,

To each other through the land;

How the grass a sod was growing

By the roadside miles away,

How Aunt Polly saw and brought it

Careful here, one summer day.

Brought it from beyond Peruville,

Brought it here one summer day.

How she went three miles to barrow

Fire—when her’s refused to go;

How she said t’was oft negelected

Just to have a chance to go;

Just to have a chance to gossip

With her neighbors, down below.

How I wonder what they talked of,

Standing there beside the door;

It could not have been their neighbors,

For there were not any more.

Was it dresses, hats, and bonnets,

Jackets, capes or larger sleeves?

‘Twas not bicycles or bloomers,

Tell us, O, ye trembling leaves!

Tell us of the secrets hidden,

Neath thy rougheued, time-worn vest;

Of the hopes that failed fruition,

Ere they entered into rest.

"The questions are hard that ye ask us,

But listen! We’ll try to tell

Of a few of the strange adventures

That to some of the ancients befell.

Do you know how they lived in log cabins,

With slabs or the earth for a floor,

The bark from the trees the roof covering,

And great heavy planks for a door?"



The above was transcribed by Gary L. Hutchings a great,great,great grandson of
Samuel Hutchings.
The Newspaper clipping, is believed to have been taken from the Cortland Democrat
and is pasted onto lined paper. The reunion takes place in Virgil, Cortland County, NY.

The article was found in some genealogy passed on to me by my mother
Dora Filkins Hutchings, w/o Raymond H. Hutchings.
It seems the poem ended rather abruptly but when that’s all ya have that’s
where you stop. Perhaps someone has more or maybe we can find a copy
of the paper it original appeared in. All spelling and punctuation's are as written in the paper.

There is a Photo of the Reunion held in 1896. There was also a reunion held in 1892 along with an article and photo.

References