Hughes Family History
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A FAMILY HISTORY BASED ON THE ANCESTORS OF RICHARD M. HUGHES Volume I INCLUDING ANCESTRIES OF FAMILIES WITH THE SURNAMES OF HUGHES, JAMES, BARRETT, BARROWS CONTENTS HUGHES ANCESTRY EARLY SETTLERS IN AMERICA Historical Background..............................................................................................1 First Immigrants and Early Descendants................................................................. 2 WILLIAM J. HUGHES.....................................................................................................10 ROBERT LEE HUGHES..................................................................................................21 ROBERT LEE HUGHES AND ANNE LOUISE BARRETT...........................................25 JUDSON BARRETT HUGHES Boarding School.....................................................................................................48 Getting Started........................................................................................................55 JUDSON B. HUGHES AND CYNTHIA MCFANN.......................................................57 JOHN HARLEY HUGHES...............................................................................................64 BARRETT ANCESTRY FIRST SETTLERS IN AMERICA Historical Background...........................................................................................69 First Immigrants and Early Descendants.............................................................. 72 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTIONARY WAR Historical Background............................................................................................76 The Fight at the North Bridge.................................................................................79 THE NEW FRONTIER The Migration West............................................................................................... 86 Western New York................................................................................................ 88 Frontier Life.......................................................................................................... 90 New Beginnings.................................................................................................... 93 THE EDUCATORS Amos Barrett and Annis Mariah Brown..................................................................98 Rev. Adoniram Judson Barrett and Emily Julia Barrows..................................... 102 HELEN MARIA BARRETT EARLY LIFE....................................................................................................... 115 WELLESLEY COLLEGE................................................................................... 118 HELEN BARRETT AND WILLIAM MONTGOMERY Early Marriage..................................................................................................... 128 Helen B. Montgomery and Susan B. Anthony................................................... 132 Rochester School Board...................................................................................... 135 Women’s Foreign Missions............................................................................... 139 Will Montgomery................................................................................................ 143 Round the World Tour........................................................................................ 145 Her Baptist World............................................................................................... 153 ANNE LOUISE BARRETT EARLY LIFE...................................................................................................... 159 WELLESLEY COLLEGE................................................................................... 166 COLORADO...................................................................................................... 189 NEW YORK CITY.............................................................................................. 206 STORRS BARROWS BARRETT EARLY LIFE....................................................................................................... 217 COLORADO...................................................................................................... 224 ACADEMIA.........................................................................................................241 STORRS BARROWS BARRETT and IDA MARY CLARK Early Marriage..................................................................................................... 256 The Astronomer................................................................................................... 268 Children............................................................................................................... 274 Poems.................................................................................................................. 276 BARROWS ANCESTRY EARLY SETTLERS IN AMERICA Historical Background......................................................................................... 287 First Immigrants and Early Descendants............................................................. 289 THE PIONEERS Lemuel Barrows and Hannah Moore Storrs....................................................... 293 John Thomas Storrs Barrows and Sylvia Trumbull............................................. 295 BIBLIOGRAPHY....................................................................................................................... 301 PREFACE This research into our family’s history began shortly after my father died in 1968 and I began reading old letters and documents that he had kept over the years. Somehow, I had become the keeper of the family papers and letters including the family photo album. My father had never talked much about his past; only to mention the names of his aunts and uncles now and then and the fact that he went to boarding school when he was growing up. Beyond that, I knew very little about his past—or my mother’s. It was just never discussed. A few months after his death I contacted his cousin, Emily Barrett Williams, and we began corresponding about the family, both present and past. Then one day in 1975, Emily (who I had never met before) unexpectedly shows up at our front door with two books heavy in her arms: Genealogies of some Old Families of Concord, Mass., and The Storrs Family. I was blown away. She allowed me to keep them for a few weeks so that I could copy the important pages. Emily was the kind of person that one instantly likes and becomes the best of friends with. My research now began in earnest. Besides the ancestral chart I was working on, I began wondering about my parents’ lives and their untold stories including those of their parents, grandparents, uncles and aunts who for the most part I had never met. Who were these people and what was the substance of their lives? Would I have related to them—would I have liked them if I met them? In January of 1979, Emily sent me a four-inch packet of letters written by my Grandmother, Anne Louise Barrett, when she was a student at Wellesley College. The letters lay dormant for many years, however, as I continued to document the ancestors. In 1981, I began making business trips to Boston every six weeks or so and would find time to visit Concord, wander through ancestral burial grounds and spend hours in the historic Concord Free Public Library with its volumes of old family histories locked within glass-paned wooden cabinets. I would walk over the North Bridge to where Colonel James Barrett and his men stood their ground in defiance of the British troops and visit their homes and the museum where family mementos are still displayed. Everywhere around me, I could feel our ancestor’s presence and I wanted to know more about them. Emily had told me about the treasure of books and letters in the Barrett family home in Williams Bay, WI, so when we learned in 1997 that Emily was going back to Williams Bay for the 100th anniversary of the Yerkes Observatory, Connie and I jumped at the opportunity to meet the family and visit the famed attic in “The Brown House” which Emily’s father and mother had built in 1902. As we sorted through the letters and read them, I began to understand that they were the essence of what the family was all about. I had never before seen the stack of Colorado letters written by Anne Barrett or the letters of other family members including diaries and little worn notebooks— some dating back to the year 1812. Connie and I both felt that this wonderful collection, including my letters and other material stored in file cabinets, should be made available to all family members. We decided that the best approach would be to type them up on the computer and in this way preserve them for generations to come. Kathleen and David Barrett Williams, the present owners of the house, graciously allowed us to borrow a selected bundle of letters which we brought back with us and Connie began typing up in her spare moments. As I began reading the letters and marking them for interest, it soon became apparent that we had a marvelous story on our hands—one that must be shared with everyone; especially the kids, grand kids and their descendants. In some cases the letters spanned an entire lifetime, giving remarkable insight into their lives and the social structure of the times. I also felt that it was important to place their lives within the context of history so that we could understand where we came from and why. What brought our ancestors to this country in the first place? Why