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The Diane Hitchcock Owens Home Page
Updated November 23, 2001
This is my family’s history. I will begin with my paternal name Hitchcock. The Hitchcock name goes back to William the Conqueror Hhe joined the great migration from England to America in the early 1600’s.What I do believe is he was part of the Puritan congregation of St. Stephens on Coleman Street in London,
England, in the early 1600’s. England’s economy was in trouble at that time where people outnumbered jobs. Religious strife was also rampant. Other ancestors who were part of this congregation were Thomas Graves, Thomas Nash, and Nathaniel Merriman.
Mathias Hitchcock married Elizabeth Nichols whose family came from Wales. The Nichols were shipbuilders for the King. Elizabeth’s nephew Edmund Nichols, settled Rhode Island.
Through marriage the Hitchcock family has contributed in many ways to the growth anddevelopment of America. Among the names we find several presidents, Grover Cleveland, being a seventh of my grandfather, Hubert Heaton Hitchcock.
Gen. Sherman, Mary Lyons who founded Smith College, Noah Webster, Mark Twain are others found related to this family. The Hitchcock Chair was created by Lambert Hitchcock, a descendant
of Mathias. One line gives me a Mayflower Pilgrim, Edward Fuller.
Also there are many stories of not so well known heroes such as the Meeks family who were part of the “Underground Railroad” transporting and freeing slaves out of South Carolina into Indiana.
There is also the story of Martha Leonard who was pregnant when captured by the Indians in Massachusetts and taken hostage with her four children. Her husband, Benjamin Waite, a renowned Indian fighter eventually rescued his family along with others in Canada. Thomas Graves son’s were also killed in
a massacre at this time in nearby Hatfield, Massachusetts.
Also we have our infamous ancestors such as Isaac Chauncey Haight who was among Joseph Smith’s first converts to Mormonism upper New York state. He was involved in the Mountain Meadows Massacre which certainly changed the course of our family’s history as far as religion goes. I have found
many religions in my family from the Puritans to the Quakers and onto Baptists and Methodists.
Isaac married Eliza Ann Price whom he met in England when he was on a “recruitment mission.”He failed to mention he had four other wives until she was on a wagon train from New Orleans to Salt Lake City. Their daughter, Marie Antoinette married Silas Wright West, who descended from a Robert West
of Baltimore, Maryland. The Wests migrated south to the Carolinas and westward to Kentucky. Slias was quite an adventurous man having signed up as a teenager out of Missouri on a cattle run that took him to Montana. He then went to Utah where he made his home in the Cedar City area. He traveled as far as the Philipines and Mexico and eventually moved his family to San Francisco after the 1906 earthquake where the family continued to live until present time.
Silas’ maternal grandfather was William McGuire who was a state senator in Missouri. The McGuires migrated from Virginia to Kentucky where John McGuire was killed at Blue Licks Battle.
There are several notorious women among my ancestors. There is Mary Clements, wife of Deacon John Osgood, who was tried and acquitted of witchcraft in Andover, Massachusetts in the late 1600’s. The Tuttle family certainly brings an interesting story to the family where several of William
Tuttle’s children were either killed or killed due to mental instability.
My father’s parents had four children who all served in World War II. Their oldest served with the Marines and was a bomb detonator at Nagasaki, Japan, and lived to tell about it although he was declareddead at one time. Their daughter was in the Navy. Another son served with the Merchant Marines, the
unsung heroes of the war. My father served in the Air Force and flew with the Flying Tigers under GeneralChenault.
My maternal l
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