The
Kirtland and Hine By Edward Kirtland Hine, Jr. ("Ted") - First Edition - April 2017 Introduction When I first started researching my ancestors some years after my parents had passed away I expected to come across the Boardman name prominent in my family tree. My middle name (Kirtland) was a surname passed along from my father's side of the family and one brother's middle name (Seward) was clearly a surname in my mother's branch. My other brother was given the middle name Boardman so it was natural to assume a family surname name connection there also. As my research progressed I thus paid special attention to anything "Boardman" which I ran into to see if I could establish a connection. Interestingly, I've run into nothing that connects the Boardman family directly to me or my brothers genetically and family connections by marriage are quite distant. I uncovered virtually nothing in my mother's family background however I found a number of tangential Boardman connections to both my father's Hine and Kirtland family trees. Here's a summary of how the Hines, Kirtlands, and Boardmans interfaced over a number of generations in Connecticut and Ohio. Hine Connections In the early 1720's James Hine (1696-1774, my 4th great grandfather) became one of the early settlers of New Milford, Connecticut (which is in the western part of the state and not to be confused with Milford, CT which is on the coast). One of the very first settlers of New Milford probably around 1712 was Rev. Daniel Boardman (1665-1744). James Hine and Daniel Boardman would have most certainly had to know and have interacted with each other due to the limited number of other settlers in the area in the early 1700's. Likewise some of their descendents in New Milford would have very likely known and interacted with each other. A number of Daniel Boardman's descendents (including some that over the generations moved away from New Milford) became wealthy merchants and land owners, were prominent citizens and religious leaders, and several generations served as state and U.S. elected Representatives and at least one descendent became a U.S. Senator. Noble Hine (son of James Hine and my 3rd great grandfather) and Elijah Boardman (grandson of Daniel Boardman) both lived in New Milford at the time of the American Revolution and both served in the fight against the British. One could assume that they might have known each other. In 1811 Daniel Boardman's great grandson Charles Adolphus Boardman married James Hine's granddaughter Sophia Hine, in New Milford. In 1801 Sophia's older brother Homer Hine (my 2nd great grandfather) had moved from Connecticut and settled in what became Youngstown, OH. Some years later in mid-life Charles and Sophia Hine-Boardman also moved to Youngstown where they apparently became close with her brother Homer there. In 1851 Charles Boardman was a witness to Homer Hine's last will and testament. Homer Hine and his wife Mary along with Charles and Sophia Hine-Boardman are buried not far from each other in Youngstown's Oak Hill Cemetery. The following quote regarding Charles A. Boardman is from findeagrave.com. He was a son of Hon. Homer and Amarillas (Warner) Boardman of New Milford, CT. He and Sophia Hine married March 7, 1811 in New Milford. He was a merchant, but was called to the clergy and was ordained February 1818 at the Congregational Church at New Preston, CT where he served for 12 years. He received an honorary degree from Yale University in 1819 as a 'distinguished member of the clergy.' After leaving New Preston and before going to Youngstown, Ohio, he preached at New Haven and Westport, CT, and as agent for the Western Reserve College. He was installed as pastor at Youngstown Presbyterian Church, August 6, 1839, where he stayed for 16 years (1839-1854). His wife died in 1851 and he, in poor health, moved to Monroe, Wisconsin in 1854 to live with his daughter Orinda and her husband Samuel Baxter McEwen. He continued to preach there at a remnant Presbyterian church for 2 more years. "Yet the attachment between himself and the congregation at Youngstown continued til his death. He spent the whole of last winter among them and returned to Monroe about three months ago...and the Master called him home. His death was peaceful, happy and glorious." (excerpt obituary from Monroe (Wisconsin) Sentinel August 29, 1860). His body was taken to Youngstown for burial, next to his wife Sophia." Kirtland Connections
In the late 1790's Turhand Kirtland (my 3rd great grandfather) started surveying the Connecticut Western Reserve (soon to become part of the newly formed state of Ohio) as an investor in, and a sales agent for, the Connecticut Land Company. In 1803 he moved his family from Wallingford, Connecticut and settled in the newly established village of Poland in Poland Township (today in Mahoning County Ohio) where he surveyed and sold land he owned along with land owned by other Connecticut Land Company investors. In 1806 Boardman Township was established immediately west of, and adjacent to, Poland Township. My research shows that it was named after Elijah Boardman (1760-1823) who, like Turhand Kirtland, was an investor in the Connecticut Land Company. Elijah was born in New Milford, Connecticut and was a grandson of Daniel Boardman and the uncle of Charles A. Boardman (husband of Sophia Hine, see Hine Connections above). One source referring to Elijah Boardman and his New Milford ancestors says "The Boardmans lived in a sophisticated world of like-minded citizens, where wealth and refinement mirrored industry and service to their young nation." Elijah, who was a successful and wealthy merchant and landowner in New Milford, apparently never lived in Ohio permanently (though he did visit for extended periods) as his primary business interests were there and he served a number of terms as a Connecticut State Representative and Senator and then as U.S. Senator from Connecticut. His son Henry Mason Boardman did settle in Boardman Township in 1819 to manage Elijah's significant land interests there and Elijah passed away in Boardman Township while visiting his son there (though he is buried in New Milford). I suspect that Turhand Kirtland and Elijah Boardman likely knew each other and that Turhand possibly acted as Elijah's land sales agent for some years due to the physical proximity of Boardman and Poland Townships and the fact that both were investors in the Connecticut Land Company. Certainly Turhand's descendents would have known Elijah's Ohio descendents. In 1857 Lucy Hall (1819-1906), a granddaughter of Turhand Kirtland, married 25 year older Judge William Whiting Boardman (1794-1871), son of Elijah Boardman (see above paragraph) and first cousin of Charles A. Boardman (see the Hine Connections above). Lucy Hall was raised in Poland, OH and William Boardman was raised in New Milford, CT. I've been told by a Poland, OH historian that Lucy came to know her future husband when he came to Boardman Township to visit his brother Henry. William Boardman graduated from Yale in 1812 and became a respected attorney in New Haven, CT and, like his father, was elected to the Connecticut House of Representatives and was appointed and subsequently elected to the U.S. House of Representatives.
After the marriage William and Lucy Hall-Boardman lived in a mansion adjacent to the Yale University campus in New Haven where he was quite wealthy (perhaps having inherited some or all of his wealth from his father). The couple had no children and after Williams death in 1871 Lucy spent the next 35 years till her death in 1906 giving away William Boardman's considerable fortune to many worthy causes among which were building and donating to Yale a large campus building named Kirtland Hall in honor of her uncle Jared Potter Kirtland (a son of Turhand Kirtland). She also established 2 scholarships at Yale known in the family as the Boardman scholarships set up with Kirtland decedents having right-of-first-refusal before being awarded to non-family members. Between 1935 and 1939 my father used a Boardman scholarship to partially pay for his Yale education.
Summary There have been 2 marriages that connect my ancestors to the Boardman's, one distant Hine aunt (Charles and Sophia-Hine Boardman in 1811) and the other a distant Kirtland cousin (William and Lucy Hall-Boardman in 1857). In addition the Hines and Boardmans likely knew each other over multiple generations in New Milford, Connecticut and both Hines and Kirtlands would have known the Ohio Boardmans. The Poland Hines were also close with "cousin Lucy" Boardman in New Haven and are known to have visited her there and she visited with them in Ohio. The one thing that all Hine and Kirtland connections that I've uncovered have in common with the Boardman family is that they all involve descendents of Daniel Boardman who, like James Hine, was an early settler of New Milford, Connecticut. The family interactions thus go back in one way or another to at lease the early 1700's.
Since my research has produced no obvious answer as to
why my parents gave my brother the middle name Boardman, I can only venture an
educated guess. Certainly my father (Edward Kirtland Hine, "Kirt") knew that he had attended Yale
using a Boardman scholarship and would have been aware that Lucy
Hall-Boardman who established it was related somehow though I suspect that he
didn't know the exact relationship as he wasn't much of a family
historian. (Lucy was my father's first cousin twice removed.) He
would have also been aware that Kirtland Hall on the Yale campus was donated by
Lucy and somehow attached to his Kirtland family tree but, again, he probably
didn't know the details. He may
have also heard the name Boardman in passing from his father, uncles, and aunt
who had grown up in Poland Ohio and thus next to Boardman Township and the Ohio
branches of the Boardman family. I thus
think it likely that my father thought that the name Boardman had a closer
relationship to his family tree than it actually did. |
