Roger HIBBARD

                      Records Town Clerk, Brookfield, Orange, Vermont:
      Children of Roger and Sarah Hibbard - Oliver, Roger, Diah, Gordon, Davison, Sally, Fanny, Alpheus, Levi.  Other records add two other children Sarah who died as a child and Eliphalet.
Roger Hibbard died at the age of 75.  Sarah Davison Hibbard died at the age of 83.  Child # 10 Levi Hibbard died at the age of 24 hours 11 May 1798 in Brookfield, Orange, Vermont.


       Roger and Sarah Hibbard moved their family from Lebanon, New Hampshire to a relatively new
             settlement -  Brookfield, Vermont about 1798.
   History of Brookfield:
       Roger Hibbard and his wife Sarah Davison Hibbard were pioneer emigrants from Connecticut, settling on Brookfield East Hill in the late seventeen hundreds or early eighteen hundreds.
       Three of their sons, Oliver, Gurdon and Alpheus, married Hovey girls and made their homes and raised their families in the Hovey Neighborhood.  Oliver Hibbard married Abigail, daughter of Elder Samuel and Abigail Cleveland Hovey.  Of their ten children only Amanda and Sarah lived and died in the Hovey Neighborhood.
       Amanda, born on East Hill in 1807, married John Alden Wright in 1829.  John was born in Chelsea, Vt. in 1804.  This couple lived on the Brook Road and had three children of which only one, Oliver Lewis, lived on East Hill all his life.  He married Ester Grant, the daughter of Edward and Anna Durkee Grant, who was born on East Hill in 1846.  They had one child, a daughter, Nellie Jane.  Oliver Lewis Wright and his wife, and his father and mother are buried in East Hill Cemetery.
       Sarah, the youngest daughter of Oliver and Abigail Hovey Hibbard, was born on East Hill in 1826.  In 1859 she married Amos Emery, who had married her sister, Almira.  Almira died in 1856.  They lived in Chelsea.  Mr. Emery and Sarah lived their married life on East Hill.
       Gurdon Hibbard and Elizabeth Hovey were married in Brookfield on Dec 25, 1808.  He died in 1864.  Before Gurdon Hibbard was married he bought fifty acres of land joining his fathers.  He built a barn and set out an orchard.  Some of those trees were still there in 1923 when Herman and Ruth Trask Stoddard bought the farm.  After his marriage he and his wife lived with his parents until a house could be built. Gurdon Hibbard built the present house, which is still in excellent condition, (1974), and two other barns.  Elizabeths furniture consisted of two tables, two chests, six kitchen chairs, a rocking chair, two bedsteads, a large wheel, a linen wheel, a quill wheel, reel and swifts, all made by her father, Elder Samuel Hovey, in his shop.  I have and am using a kitchen chair and two rocking chairs made in that shop.
       Elizabeth had a fine singing voice equal to her mothers (Abigail Cleveland Hovey).  Mr. Hibbard was also a fine singer, and some of their grandchildren and great-grandchildren inherited this talent.
       Gurdon Hibbard bought the first merino sheep in Brookfield paying one hundred dollars for two lambs.  The flock increased and after a few years as much as two hundred pounds of wool was washed, carded, spun and woven into a very fine broadcloth by Mrs. Hibbard and her daughters.  This broadcloth brought a very good price.  Thus the Gurdon Hibbards prospered.  Their children were as follows: Mary, Gurdon Plummer, Ruth, Eliza, Sarah, Fanny and Elizabeth (better known as Betsy.)
       Gurdon Plummer was called Plummer.  He, Sarah, Eliza and Betsy spent most of their lives on East Hill.  Plummer married Isabel Hemenway in Chelsea, Vt. in 1839.  She was born in Chelsea in 1814.  To them five children were born: Edwin, Franklin, Arthur, Isabelle, and Sarah.
       Edwin married Ama Hovey and lived in Montpelier, Vermont.
       Franklin enlisted in the Union Army and died near Coal Harbor, Virginia, in 1864.
       Arthur married Coralin Sargent.  They had one son, Edwin.  This couple lived in the Hovey Neighborhood until Mr. Hibbards death.  Coralin Sargent Hibbard then married Joseph Edwards and lived on East Hill for the remainder of her life.  She died in 1941.
       Isabelle married Andrew Woodruff.  They lived in Barre, Vt. Alpheus was born in 1850 and married Clara Buck.  This couple lived on East Hill until his death in 1902.  They adopted a girl, Florence Barns, whose mother was cousin to Alpheus.  Florence married John Thurber.  The four people mentioned above are buried in East Hill Cemetery.
      Sarah, daughter of Gurdon and Elizabeth Hovey Hibbard, was born in 1817 and married Joseph Newell, who was born in Orford, N. H. in 1811.  For a while this couple lived in Orford but then came back to East Hill to the farm settled by her grandfather Elder Samuel Hovey in 1794.  The Newells had seven children, only one of whom, George, lived in the Hovey Neighborhood and died there.   George and his wife had no children, but cared for his grandparents, Gurdon and Elizabeth Hovey Hibbard, until their deaths.
       Eliza, daughter of Gurdon and Elizabeth, died at an advanced age, having been cared for by another nephew, Silas Newell, and his daughter Ina.
       Elizabeth, or Betsy as she was called, the youngest child of Gurdon and Elizabeth, was born in 1821 and married Solomon Stoddard Jr. in 1847.  She died in 1898.  They had two sons, Ariel and King, and one daughter, Emma, none of whom settled on East Hill.

   Hovey  by Ruth Stoddard, 1974
       Samuel Hovey, known as Elder Hovey, was the son of Samuel and Elizabeth Perkins Hovey.  He was born in Windham, Connecticut, on March 7, 1743 and died on Brookfield East Hill May 12, 1833.
       Abigail Cleveland Hovey, his wife, fourth child of Benjamin and Rachel Cleveland, was born in Canterbury, Connecticut, Aug 13, 1746.  She died in Brookfield June 2, 1832.  She was a woman of a most amiable disposition.  Her love of music was intense and her voice was remarkable for its sweetness as well as for its power.  It was said that on a clear evening her singing could be heard a mile away.  This remarkable sweetness of voice was noticeable in many of her descendants.
        In the burying ground on East Hill may be found the graves of this pioneer couple, as well as many of their children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
       Five children and one granddaughter of the above couple settled on East Hill and raised families; thus the north end of East Hill became known as the Hovey Neighborhood.  The five children and granddaughter are as follows: Rufus Cleveland Hovey, Samuel, Alvan, Abigail Hovey Hibbard (Mrs. Oliver Hibbard), Elizabeth Hovey Hibbard (Mrs. Gurdon Hibbard) and Sarah Hovey Hibbard (Mrs. Alpheus Hibbard).

       For the first thirty years after its settlement, Brookfield, being an older place than any other in the immediate vicinity, was quite a central point, and on this account, perhaps, as well as by reason of the intelligence of the early inhabitants, literary and scientific culture had attained a degree of proficiency not always to be found in new settlements.  About the year 1795 a project was set on foot to supply the inhabitants with a Town Library.  In 1832 a Female Seminary was established through the influence of Miss Lucy Washburn who had attended Miss Grants school at Ipswich, Massachusetts.  Among the physicians who practiced in Brookfield are the names of Dr. Walter Burnham about 1800 and Dr. Z.P. Burnham between 1815 - 1835.  Among the clergyman was Mr. Samuel Hovey who in 1798 was ordained a minister of the Baptist denomination.