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Ally Weiner

UWRT 1104-045
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My family means everything to me. My motivation mainly comes from my mission to

make my parents proud. Although my parents are married, my dad has worked two jobs during

14 years of my life. He worked night shifts in the United States Air Force and had other part

time jobs during the day. Whenever he wasn’t working, he was sleeping. With this in mind, my

mom and I are very close. My mom’s side of the family lives 20-30 minutes away from our

house in Maine, whereas those of my dad’s family who are still alive, live in Massachusetts

where he’d grown up.

Because of my proximity to my mom’s side of the family, I chose to focus this project on

that side. Growing up, whenever I asked about where our family came from, the only thing my

mom knew was that my great-grandfather was born in Canada. This, of course, wasn’t enough

information to write an entire project. Majority of my research came from hours and hours

behind the computer. My primary website was Family Search Tree (familytree.org). This gave

me all of the names of my ancestors that I needed to generate enough information. I learned

that my ancestor Simon Hoyt (born in 1590) and his son Walter Hoyt (born 1618) were born in

England but immigrated to America together in 1629. According to Geni (geni.com), Simon and

Walter originally arrived in Charleston, Boston, Massachusetts on the Lyons’s Whelp. It’s

known that those on the ship were given jobs once they arrived in the Boston harbor. Simon

worked as a merchant.

When Walter grew up, he left Massachusetts with 14 others to find agricultural

opportunity. The group settled the town of Norwalk, Connecticut. Walter served in the

General Court of the Connecticut Colony as a deputy for over 20 years (Wikipedia.org). He also

had three children: Zerubbabel, Elizabeth, and John. Zerubbabel is my ancestor. He was
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actually the town drummer! According to Familypedia (familypedia.wikia.org), he had a

published song that appeared in the Westport Town Crier.

Zerubbabel’s’ great grandchild, Jesse, married his wife, Mary, in 1764 and together they

had 10 children. After the birth of their 3rd child, Mary and Jesse moved to Nova Scotia. My

ancestor is Silas Hoyt, their first child. He was born in 1766 in Connecticut but died in Nova

Scotia. Jesse moved to Canada, which led to several generations living their also. My great-

grandfather was actually born in Nova Scotia and moved to America with his parents. Their

immigration, according to Family Search Tree (familytree.org), was in 1916. My great-great-

grandfather was Haliburton Hoyt, and my great-grandfather was Frank Hoyt. They both were

on a passenger list headed for Detroit, Michigan in 1916.

As I mentioned before, my mother used to be very vague about my family history. “My

grampy was from Canada” is what she’d say. With that in mind, all my life that’s all I’d ever

known until this semester. I thought that was where I was from. Technically speaking, she was

right, but Simon and Walter came originally from England. I’m unsure of how many generations

of Hoyts lived in England, but I know 5 generations of Hoyts lived in Canada. I also was able to

gather information on my nana’s father directly from her, “They lived in Annapolis district, Nova

Scotia, Canada. Now, the port is known as Annapolis Royal” and according to modern pictures,

is quite beautiful and a big tourist area.

My nana, Mary Lou Tower, didn’t tell me too much about when she was growing up,

apart from one really horrible accident. Her and her brother were in a terrible car wreck when

they were kids. “My dad was disabled for the rest of his life. The doctors said he would never

walk again and that he was paralyzed from the waist down”, she told me. 2 years later, he may
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have not been walking on his own, but he was using crutches. My mom says he walked very

slow. He was on crutches until the day he died in 1991.

Because of my great-grandfather’s upbringing in Canada, I still identify as being from

Canada. Nana told me that my great-great-grandfather, Haliburton Hoyt, was a Bookkeeper

when he was living there. He hated his job. He wanted to do something more important in his

life. This was presumptively why they moved to the United States. My nana doesn’t know why

they came to Maine specifically, but they did a lot of hunting and she said Haliburton wanted to

work in the police force. When they moved to Maine, he received a job he’d only dreamed of:

Security examiner. After several years, he was elected the Director of Security forces in the

entire state of Maine.

When my great-grandfather, Frank, grew up, he joined the United States Army. He was

among many soldiers that fought in World War 2. After the war, he was honorably discharged

from the army due to a diagnosis of diabetes. My nana told me specifically what happened

next: “He and Uncle Jack had a logging business but lost everything in forest fire. He was a car

salesman when I was younger, and then worked for the State of Maine Department of

Transportation in the Engineering and Design Division.” (Tower interview)

Something else I’d always found interesting was Frank’s sister, Betty. She comes into

play with my inquiry question about her life, but I found out a lot about her from my interview

with her son, my cousin, Dewey. He told me how spoiled his mother was. “When Haliburton

and his wife, Marie, passed away, Betty got everything. They felt bad for Betty because she’d

lost her leg. A couple years before, when Betty told her husband she was leaving him, he came

to her work and shot her.” (Rice Interview). The irony of that story is that one of his fired
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bullets ricocheted off a filing cabinet and shot him, too. One of Bettys coworkers tackled her

husband and ended up saving her life. When Betty and her husband were rushed to the

hospital, she lost her leg, and he died. Betty remarried two more times after that, and had

Dewey and another child, Marie. Dewey said that when Betty passed away, she left all of her

wealth to Marie. Apparently, it was a pretty steep amount. She got everything from her first

husband, even though he tried to kill her, and she got everything from her second husband who

died of cancer. Dewey said, “people were drawn to her”, as if she were a magnet for sympathy.

She’s not known for being the nicest lady, but I guess if I married someone who tried to kill me,

I’d be bitter, too.

In doing this project, I’ve learned so much about my family and our past. My mom and I

have planned on traveling to Nova Scotia this summer and visiting some of our cousins! We

also are planning to stop in Connecticut on my way to school in the fall. We have a cousin who

lives in Norwalk, where Walter originally settled. I never knew how interesting this project was

really going to be. I never thought I’d find so much information. My family immigrated from

England, founded a town, sailed to Nova Scotia, then to Michigan, and then brought us to the

present: Maine. I want my children to have my family knowledge someday, too. It might sound

cliché, but I’m so proud to be a Hoyt.

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Works Cited

Hoyt, F. (n.d.). Family Search Tree. Retrieved from https://ident.familysearch.org/cis-

web/oauth2/v3/authorization?

client_secret=nKnnGb9goKOdgK7NYnjhIzSDTct0Cf7BQabtKtedqDUBBUPRNsBvSOpSDX3

bV6xw4LNaKMwyhGEZetMXjRMmZPVD3AjvuuevKdLp9uM4vH2CcnZeCfnotR9jkSMdtH4

visq2mnLDmu5xjkESsKOY7OP1icEhvETlrC88E+/9P2As42cnb07Vlwn8oUp/p7Qqm74YBvh1

58htXEfuPGbYruHeImfJDVEIUTd3iXVt5CwY4QO2z5ATRvfZWF0YFm1O6Qc442GELyu0j

DS3xlnsvIW96IHU7ClJvWP1bg9oom9eA18Y295WCoVytH7z9/5h2rJ8hnNBGKQtphTRbNX3

rw==&display=tree&response_type=code&redirect_uri=https://www.familysearch.org/auth/fami

lysearch/callback&state=https://www.familysearch.org/tree/pedigree&client_id=3Z3L-Z4GK-

J7ZS-YT3Z-Q4KY-YN66-ZX5K-176R

Rice, Dewey (2020 March 29) Phone interview

Tower, Mary Lou (2020, Feb 13, 2020, Feb 24, 2020, March 26, 2020, March 29, 2020, April 2,

2020, April 8) Phone interviews.

Walter Hoyt. (2019, June 7). Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Hoyt

Writer, L. E. S. L. I. E. L. A. K. E. H. S. (2016, June 16). Norwalk's Oldest Families: Hoyt and Betts

make their mark on the settlement of Norwalk. Retrieved from

http://www.thehour.com/norwalk/article/Norwalk-s-Oldest-Families-Hoyt-and-Betts-make-

8225004.php

Zerubbabel Hoyt. (2020, February 15). Retrieved from https://www.geni.com/people/Zerubbabel-

Hoyt/6000000007140753788
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Zerubbabel Hoyt (1652-1739). (n.d.). Retrieved from

https://familypedia.wikia.org/wiki/Zerubbabel_Hoyt_(1652-1739)