In 1922, Ralph Waldo Crain wrote:
The following biographical sketches are copied from the Murray Williamson & Phelps History of Adams Co.. In reading them, it must be borne in mind that this history was published in 1879, and that when the present tense is used therein, it refers to the year 1879 and not to 1921. I have taken the liberty in some cases of supplying explanatory or additional information, enclosing the same in parentheses-R. W. C. [Ralph Waldo Crain], see Pulaski chapter of Augusta's Story (Augusta, Illinois: Martha Board Chapter of Daughters of the American Revolution, 1922).

The Hoyt Family.
Ebenezer Benjamin Hoyt, of English parentage, was born near Ridgefield, Connecticut, October 8, 1805, and on November 19, 1828 was married to Mary Jane Reynolds, who was born near Monroe, Orange Co., NY, October 19, 1809; their children were William Reynolds, Mary Emily, Joseph S., Edwin Gordon, Sarah Jane, Benjamin Franklin, Charles Brower, Ebenezer Benjamin, Jr., Maria Luisa, and Ann Eliza. Joseph S. Hoyt still lives in Augusta, and in an interview with him on July 13, 1920, at his home in the northeastern part of town, he told me of his childhood in the East, and of the family moving to Pulaski. Joseph was born Nov. 11, 1833 near Monroe, NY, a town about 12 miles southwest of West Point on the Hudson. When he was quite small the family moved to No. 1 King Street, NY City.

After living a short time in NY City, the Hoyt family moved to a farm 2 miles southeast of Stuyvesant, Columbia Co., NY, a short distance east of the Hudson River. While living here, at the age of nine years, Joe remembers the first day's work he ever hired out to do; he dropped corn all day by hand for two Irishmen, who paid him the generous sum of eighteen cents!

In the spring of 1843, the Hoyt family prepared for their long journey to Ill.; Mrs. Hoyt's sister, Mrs. Edwin Gordon, having settled with her husband and family, about one and one-half miles southeast of Pulaski a year or so previous. Mr. Hoyt had sold one of their cows to Martin Van Buren, ex-president of the United States, who had a beautiful country home about two miles east of Kinderhook, NY, and not far from the Hoyt farm. Mr. Hoyt sent Joe and his elder brother, Reynolds (William R.), to deliver the cow and collect $33. Mr. Van Buren, as Joe remembers him, was a kindly, gray haired gentleman, who invited the boys into his sitting room, gave them an orange (a rare treat in those days), and talked to them about Ill., to which they were ready to start. Mr. Van Buren seemed quite familiar with conditions then existing in Ill., he having had much to do as president with the granting of land titles and other matters pertaining to the development of that state. He handed to Reynolds the First bank check which the boys had ever seen; it was for $33 in payment for the cow, and was made out to "Bearer;" he told the boys to stop at the bank as they passed through Kinderhook and collect the money for the check, which they did, that being also the first bank they had ever seen.

How the Hoyt family were to travel in 1843 the entire distance by water from Stuyvesant, NY, to Quincy, Ill., without coming via the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico is a problem which probably not one high school graduate out of a hundred could solve to-day without careful study. At first thought it sounds incredible, and yet it was done.

They left Stuyvesant May 31, 1843, and went by steamboat up the Hudson River to Albany, a trip requiring only three hours. At Albany they went aboard a large canal boat drawn by horses, and traveled over Erie Canal to Buffalo, this journey taking almost a week. From Buffalo they went on a nice large lake steamer to Cleveland, Ohio, the time required for this voyage being, Joe thinks, twenty-four hours then, although it is done in from eight to ten hours now. At Cleveland they boarded a canal boat bound for Portsmouth, Ohio, on the Ohio River, via the Ohio State Canal (begun in 1825, completed in 1835, but at the present time fallen into disuse and in unserviceable condition.)

They were held in Cleveland a week, waiting for a break in the canal to be repaired; finally they started, but after traveling one night another break occurred at "Pancake Lock", allowing the water to run out of the canal; they were detained at "Pancake Lock" for another week; this was at a pretty spot in the woods, and a party of sixty German immigrants on board the boat went ashore and camped until they were ready to travel again. Joe said that he and the other children enjoyed the trip immensely, but his parents were in great anxiety about his baby brother, Charlie, who was sick all the way; his mother prayed that at least the child might live until they reached their destination, as she had a dread of burying him at some lonely spot along the canal. The baby died a few days after they reached Pulaski.

Joe says that the canal boats were very comfortable to travel upon; the sleeping berths were something like those in sleeping cars, now, as he remembers. He was also under the impression that the passengers brought along their own provisions and cooking utensils, and prepared their own meals. At Portsmouth, Ohio, they went aboard a river steamer which brought them down the Ohio and up the Mississippi to St. Louis; here they changed to another steamer which brought them to Quincy, where they arrived at 2 o'clock in the morning of July 5, 1843, having been on the journey 35 days.

By mere chance they happened to meet "Uncle George" Gordon in Quincy; he had gone down the day before with a load of wheat, so the Hoyt family piled into his empty "prairie schooner" and came to Pulaski with him. The Edwin Gordon family had been looking for them any day. In fact, Edwin had taken a load of wheat to Quincy himself the day before their arrival, but as there was no way of knowing how soon the Hoyts would reach Quincy he did not wait for them. Edwin Gordon lived in a double log house (near the spot where he built his brick residence in the year 1857), and the Hoyt family moved in with the Gordons temporarily. Joe's father had brought some gold coin with him from NY, and he purchased from Abijah Whetstone for $525 gold the eighty acre piece of land just north of Gordon's, where now stands the Robert Robison brick residence (which was built by E. B. Hoyt in 1857.) There was a double log cabin standing just a few feet east of the present Robison home, and into this log house the Hoyts would have moved had it not been occupied by Samuel Gallagher, who had the place already rented of Abijah Whetstone for the year, paying him one third of the crop as rent. Their next thought was to build another log house in the same yard, and Mr. Hoyt hired men to prepare the logs that summer, but as the work required considerable time, he decided to move to Pulaski for the winter of 1843-4; they rented a small house which stood just west of the present George Ketchum home, and here it was that "Eb" Hoyt, Jr., was born Sept. 20, 1843. The next year the Hoyt's took possession of their new 80-acre farm, and Samuel Gallagher moved to Astoria. Gallagher was a combination farmer and hatter; be made "plug" hats out of rabbit fur, and also made the other styles of hats and caps then worn in this part of the country.

After Joseph Hoyt's marriage in 1858 to Polly Benedict, he purchased land and lived in the eastern edge of Adams Co., a half mile south of the northeast corner of the Co.; at one time his holdings extended for a mile along the Co. line; they later moved to his parents' former home (now Robert Robison's) and finally to his present home in Augusta, where Polly died August 20, 1916. Joe Hoyt can doubtless remember accurately more of Pulaski's history today than any other surviving pioneer.

Among the few articles of luxury which E. B. Hoyt brought to Ill. from NY was a high silk hat; Joe tells wit amusement of how Henry McKee, of the Pulaski neighborhood so admired this hat that he gave in exchange for it two calves and six head of sheep!