Written by Rev. Cornelius A. Hoyt of Ohio & published in "A Genealogical History of the Hoyt, Haight, & Hight families" by David Webster Hoyt.

I have been requested on this occasion to say something in regard to myself, the youngest of the family; & here, under ordinary circumstances, I should certainly remain silent. But in the freedom of this family meeting, I have so far overcome my modesty as to comply with the request of others & present a few facts in my own humble career.

In my father's diary I find the following on the day of my birth: "Esther" (the name of my mother) "was more feeble & helpless than usual, & we have been criminal in our anxiety lest all would not be well. Oh! how criminal to distrust the care of our God! His mercy endureth forever. To teach us our entire dependence on him for happiness, he frequently gives us great joy when we expect sorrow; but when we look for pleasure in the creature, he disappoints our hopes. Oh, merciful God, give us more fully to trust thee; & may this child be dedicated to the Lord as long as he liveth; may he be trained up for God, be a blessing in they church on earth, and, if consistent with thy will, a preacher of the everlasting gospel, turn many to righteousness, & shine in the kingdom of glory as the stars forever & ever, to the praise of sovereign grace, through Jesus the Redeemer. Amen."

I inherited a very feeble constitution, but have been able to perform a considerable amount of labor, first as missionary, teaching through the week & preaching on the Sabbath; afterwards as pastor, professor, public lecturer on temperance, slavery & other reforms; & also as an evangelist, sometimes preaching & lecturing to crowded audiences three times a day. I had injured my health by too close application to study at Yale College, & now these excessive labors, together with injudicious medical treatment, greatly prostrated me; but, through a change of habits of living, & the great mercy of our covenant God & Saviour, I will continue, & greatly rejoice to be permitted here to beat testimony to the faithfulness of God's promises. "The mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear him, & his righteousness unto children's children; to such as keep his covenant, & to those that remember his commandments to do them."

It might be interesting to relate more particularly some of the incidents of a somewhat eventful life; - how, in traveling in Indian wilds til after twelve o'clock at night, I used to hear the panther's scream from the mountain-top; - how my brother & myself, with rifle & torch-lights, chased the howling wolves farther & farther back on the mountain, & continued the chase all night long, in the hope of finding their dens; - how, after traveling on horseback from daylight til dark, we lay down weary at night, with the grassy earth for a bed, & the starry sky for a covering, & slept sweetly & soundly til the daybreak again summoned us to renew our journey; - how, on another occasion, after sleeping upon the cold mountain-top, with the good fortune of having a blanket with me, I awoke in the morning to find my clothes, which I had hung upon the bushes, covered with icicles, thus making a brilliant, if not very comfortable toilet; - how, riding all day in the rain, swimming through rivers & losing our way, we came down the mountain by mistake on the same side we went up, to find ourselves at night near the spot we had left in the morning; - how my brother, in making his bridal tour with his new-married wife, & thinking he had lost his way, spent the night in the woods with saddles for pillows, & awoke in the morning to find himself within a stone's throw of our mission-station. I might tell you how I came near being drowned, when, the missionaries being in the Georgia penitentiary for righteousness' sake, I was assisting in taking their families to see them, & driving a two-horse carriage through rivers, one of which was twenty feet deep, & being told by the by-standers that I never would reach the other side alive, I succeeded, by a narrow escape & the special providence of God, in passing safely through.

I might speak of my early experience in the temperance cause, when acting as agent, collecting facts & securing subscribers to the first temperance paper published in the US, I came nearer being drunk than at any time in my life, by having whiskey clandestinely infused into the cider which in a hot day was, with high professions of hospitality, offered me; & I then adopted for myself, that I have never since violated, a teetotal pledge. I might speak of the humble part I have taken in my ecclesiastical connections, & in the labors of a public lecturer, in the anti-slavery cause, when I had to contend with physicians, lawyers, legislators, judges, ministers; doctors of divinity on the one side, & doctors of law on the other, with no small sprinkle of the mob element intermixed. (Here the speaker referred briefly to those early anti-slavery struggles in which he was in an humble way associated with Chief Justice Chase, Gamaliel Bailey, Samuel Lewis, & others, in the great cause of human liberty.)

I might speak of the still more radical reforms which, in my deepest convictions, I have advocated; reforms which reach far down into all men's bodily habits, as well as their social, moral, civil, & religious relations, & demand an entire revolution in most of the habits & usages of society, as at present organized; but this would extend this sketch to an undue length, & perhaps be deemed foreign to the purpose for which we have met. I might speak of the grandchildren of my father, some of whom have already taken a respectable stand, not only among merchants, mechanics, & farmers, but also among scholars, legislators, judges, & officers in the army; but the time for this will be when our children meet. (Here the speaker referred to two of the grandchildren, who were officers in the army, & made a touching allusion to Mission Ridge, so named from his father's labors on that ridge, when one of those grandchildren, fired with the recollection of his grandfather's labors, & calling on his grandfather's God, rushed boldly into the front of the battle, was taken wounded from the field, but immediately returned to his command, was again wounded, supposed mortally, but in three weeks took his command again, & marched under Gen. Sherman the whole round, til he reached & assisted in taking the rebels' last stronghold. He also here related an anecdote of a traveler who had never seen watermelons. Purchasing one of an old colored woman, & saying to her, "You must tell me how to eat it," she replied, "Missus generally cuts the insides out & gives 'em to me, but peoples does as they pleases." He cut the inside out, & eating the rind said, "It's pretty good, but I don't see that it is anything to brag of." The speaker said he did not suppose any of us were disposed to brag of the Hoyt family, & he hoped nothing he had said would be regarded in the light of bragging; but from his acquaintance with the family, he thought he might say, that whatever they undertook, they were not apt to stop at the rind, & he hoped, in all the great interests of morality & religion, they would never be contented to eat the rind, but strike deep into the core.)