(Taken from the book, "A House with a Heritage" by Michael Kelly and updated with information from many of his descendants)
We know little about George W. Huntoon's first twenty years, but can assume that he spent most of his time learning the trades he practiced later in life, those of a farmer, shoemaker and carpenter. At some time during his youth, he lived in Vermont and during the War of 1812, was drafted. He stood ready to serve, but was never called to active service.
They were probably living there during the famous New England snow storm of June, 1816. The snows were followed by killing frosts, which continued intermittently through August. Years later, 1816 would be recalled by those who experienced it as the year "eighteen hundred and froze-to-death." George W. Huntoon would tell his friends of the suffering caused by the weather and how, after his crops were destroyed, he sowed a few turnips, which was all he raised that year.
When the U.S. Census was taken in 1820, the Huntoon family resided at Colchester, Vermont(a village several miles east of Lake Champlain and north of Burlington). Another son, William B. Huntoon was born at Colchester on July 8, 1820. A daughter Lydia was born shortly there after but died in early childlhood.
Later the family resettled to Champlain, New York(a village five miles west of Lake Champlain, just south of the Canadian border). Here two daughter and a son were born. Emeline, on March 11, 1824, Ann on February 8, 1828, and Alvin who's birth is unknown and died very young.
It is not known whether George W. Huntoon settled in Georgetown to engage in agriculture (the town was situated in a rich farming district) or to engage in a trade related to the busy Ohio River ship traffic. We do know that at some time during the mid 1830's, the Huntoon family moved north to Cleveland, Ohio's booming port city on Lake Erie. It is recorded that, while in Cleveland, Mr. Huntoon worked for several years on his two trades, shoemaker and ship's carpenter.
Three more children were born to the Huntoon family, an unnamed infant and daughter Philena who died while very young and Maria, who was born November 10, 1834.
In August of 1833, residents of a settlement voted to incorporate as a town and called it Chicago. A month later, the Treaty of Chicago was signed, and by 1834 the new government lands were open to settlement. Thousands of emigrants embarked that year from the port of Buffalo, sailing over the Great Lakes to Chicago and by 1837 its population had increased to over 4,000. One of the new residents was George M. Huntoon, the oldest child of George and Lucinda. In 1836, at the age of twenty-one, he left Cleveland to seek his fortue in the new western frontier. He settled in Chicago and was elected to the police constabulary on the bustling frontier town.
In 1839, George W. Huntoon traveled by steamship from Cleveland to visit his son in Chicago. While there he explored Grosse Pointe, a sparsely settled district north of the city. He was capitvated by the place and decided to make it his home. He bought forty acres of land, arranged for the building of a log cabin on the high ground, and went back to Ohio for his family.
Five members of the Huntoon family set out for Grosse Pointe in that autumn of 1839. They included George W. and Lucinda Huntoon and their three younger daughters, Emeline, Ann and Maria. Two older Huntoon children, William B. and Melissa apparently chose to remain in Ohio.
Viola C. Reeling related a different version in the book, "Evanston, It's Land and It's People." published in 1928. She wrote that, although George W. Huntoon's first trip to Chicago was by boat, his return trip to Grosse Pointe was made "in an ox-cart, with his family and household goods, a slow, tedious and tiresome trip, but prefered by many as being safer."
Regardless of which version is correct, it is agreed that the family arived in Chicago in the autumn of 1839, whereupon Mr. Huntoon arranged to move his family and goods by ox-team to their new cabin. Many years later, in 1901, daughter Emeline recalled the ten-mile journey in a conversation with J. Seymour Currey:
During the early 1840's, the two sons of Mr. and Mrs. Huntoon joined their family. George M. Huntoon moved up from Chicago and shortly thereafter, married Maria Reed. William B. Huntoon, who had stayed behind in Cleveland, married Mary Ann Baker, a native of Canada, in June of 1840. In the spring of 1841, they too emigrated to Grosse Pointe and established a small homestead.
In 1843, George W. Huntoon built a two-story frame house on the site of his original log cabin. The new home, one of the first clapboard dwellings in the area, was especially significant in that it meant the Huntoon family was in Grosse Pointe to stay.
Besides the Huntoons, other pioneer families were settling in the area during the 1840's. The Reeds and Hepworths from England, the Crain brothers and Alexander McDaniel from New York, the Carney and Fosters from Ireland, the Pratts from Massachusetts, and the Burroughs family from Ohio.
standing: (believed to be) Ann, Emeline & Maria
sitting: George M., Melissa, & William
Photo donated by Judy McDaniel, original at the Wilmette Historical Society
In 1842, the first log school house was built in Grosse Pointe by George W. Huntoon and other pioneers. The first school teacher was James Baker, a brother-in-law of William B. Huntoon.
Prior to 1846, residents of Grosse Pointe had picked up their mail at Chicago or Dutchman's Point (Niles). The settlement's first post office was established in Major Mulford's tavern in 1846 and was named "Gross Point Post Office." (At this time the final e's were dropped, making the name Gross Point.)
George M. Huntoon was appointed the first postmaster and served two and one half years. The Evanston Historical Society has a desk with eighteen pigeon holes which was built by Postmanster Huntoon and use for many years by him and his successors.
Emeline married Alexander McDaniel on November 27, 1842. Justice of the Peace, Edward Mulford, performed the ceremony. Mr. McDaniel, a native of New York, had settled in Grosse Pointe in 1836. He and Emeline made their home in Grosse Pointe until approximately 1853 when they resettled to Wilmette.
Ann Huntoon married Archibald Colvin in the mid 1840's. He was the brother of James B. Colvin, who was later the first general storekeeper in Evanston. Ann divorced Archibald in 1853 and then married Mancer Thompson. They later moved to Eaton county, Michigan.
Maria Huntoon, the youngest daughter, married Gardner Stearns, a young man from "down east." on June 6, 1852. The Stearns settled in Cuyahoga county, Ohio.
As previously mentioned, Melissa Huntoon, the eldest daughter, did not accompany her family to Grosse Pointe in 1839, but remained in Cleveland. She married George W. Shakespeare on March 2, 1837.
"Alice Aikin Sweetland, daughter of Celinda Huntoon Aikin, gave this rocker to Walter R. Huntoon about 1935. Harriet Huntoon gave the rocker to George W. Huntoon in 1965."
As of Sep. 1979 George W. Huntoon in Pasadena, California still owned the rocker.
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