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A potpourri of stories about various family members or events, written by others and edited by me.
Hibbard History - 1969
[This is an item that my grandfather Jesse Hibbard wrote (and typed) in 1969 (age 75). My (Al) role was to first transcribe it, next to add corrections or clarifications [within brackets], and then to add links to people connected to me (that gives more information), links to give more information about places, and for those mentioned but not connected, I sometimes added links to FamilySearch.org.]
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Hibbard History -- 1969
Transcription
Allen Hibbard J. E. Hibbard
[line above was handwritten, while the rest was typed]
Some little anecdotes that may be of interest to you.......4/2/1969.
According to Claud [Claude] Hibbard, of Ann Arbor, the Hibbards originated in Yorkshire [England], and were in the salt business, salt being a valuable commodity at that time, and they turned out such good salt that they got to be suppliers to the Royal family. Eventually a son Robert was given a grant of land near Salem, Mass. He raised 15 kids, 9 from the first wife, and 6 from the second, and the present Hibbards in the Northern states are alleged to date back to them.
Your great great grandfather [Hiram Horatio], born 1817 in N.H. must have been like some of the present ones. One spring about 1835 he took a rifle and a blanket and started out to see a big city, Montreal. To find it he went N.W. to find Lake Champlain and followed it north eventually getting to Montreal. He worked now and then to eat and got home in October.
His oldest son Herman when the Civil War ended came west to see the country for a couple years, then went home and talked the family into moving out here. They came here in March 1871, and bought the land where Mike Hartmann now lives and built a nice house, they had $2000 in savings, which was a lot of money in those days. The old man had worked in a sawmill at Moira and saved all his money, The family had lived from and on their little farm. They had some sheep and used the wool, homespun and home woven, to make their clothes.
When the kids wanted a fishline their ma braided it out of horse tail hairs. They had 200 hard maple trees from which they got their sugar. They raised nearly everything they needed, but had to buy tea, shoes, powder and lead, nails, and headwear. Instead of King Coil mattresses they made their own out of corn husks.
One little tale handed down about Drusilla Grimes, born 1815 -----one summer day they put her on an old horse (she was 7) with a 1/2 sack of shelled corn to go to the mill to get ground. There was a little creek to ford which normally was very shallow, but while she was at the mill a very heavy rain fell and the miller knew it would [be] a roaring torrent for a few hours,--this was in the mountains of Vermont--so he wouldn't let the little girl go home until morning, and it seems the parents understood how it situation was, and were not perturbed.
My mother, Rose Ann Doran, was one of 5 little girls, and when she was about 88, one day she told me that when she was real young her mother had 2 black girls to help take care of the kids. Her mother died when she was about 10, and shortly after an aunt and husband took her along to California by way of ship to somewhere in Central America or possibly the Canal Zone, then across to the Pacific by mule train that hauled tourists and then by ship to San Francisco. They stayed in California about 2 years, then a year in Oregon, then came to the Middle West on the third trans-continental east-bound train. This must have been in 1869. This uncle of hers is something of a mystery to me - how did he get the money to travel so much - was he a professional gambler...... The aunt and uncle must have been 35 - 40 at that time, or less.
Grandfather Doran had a little grocery store, was a deputy sherriff and mostly played bag pipes in the band, something of a playboy, I gather. However they were not poor people, so he must have had connections. One of my mother's nephews, Ralph Sasse, graduated from West Point about the time Eisenhauer [sic, Eisenhower] did. In the 1930's he was football coach at West Point, and started in the second World War as a colonel of artillery, then the aunt in Wilmington who was my source of information, died, and I never heard any more.
My mother's youngest sister [Margaret, though the 4th daughter, but two younger sisters] lived in N.D. in the summer, and spent winters in Florida. Her husband was State Senator Ed Pierce. His picture used to be on the wall at the old capitol building in Bismarck. After he died, she stopped once in St. Cloud on the way to Florida, had a Pierce Arrow and a chaffeur [sic, chauffeur].
Published 2025-06-25. Revised 2025-07-06.
If you find any error(s) in the text, please let me know. Thanks. Contact me with errors or comments using hibbardac@gmail. [Back to the top] [About the author, Al]
History of Hibbard family as far as knownlisting of family stories by Jesse Hibbard Hibbard History -- 1971