The generations of the Hoit/Hoyt family, which these documents directly concern, began residing in Stanwich when Calvin Hoit of Castleton, Vermont moved there in 1812 to marry Mary Ann Ferris, daughter of Jonah Ferris. However Calvin's ancestor, Simon Hoyt, was in Stamford almost at its founding, arriving there from Fairfield somewhere between 1649 and 1657. Subsequent generations remained there until Calvin's uncle, Nehemiah, moved to Castleton as a young ma c. 1770. Calvin's father, Noah, followed him there, and Calvin was born in Castleton in 1785. It is evident that the Hoits retained their ties to Stanwich throughout their Castleton sojourn, and there seems to have been a tradition of finding their wives there. One of Calvin's brothers, also named Noah, who frequently appears in the correspondence, married a Hannah Wood of Greenwich.
Calvin and Mary Ann Hoid had five children: Sarah Ann, John lee Count, Calvin Ferris, Emmet Moor, and Mariette. All but Calvin appear in the documents. Sarah married Reverend Aaron Snow and died apaprently in childbirth in 1841. John married Rebecca Brush, bringing the Brush and Ingersoll families into the documents. Emmet Moor amrried Lucy Ann Hull, and died young. Calvin and Mariette remained unmarried. Emmet's son, Emmet Moor, Jr., is the sole representative of the third generation in teh documents. He writes as a soldier during the Civil War, and he died of typhoid fever in Richmond, VA while a prisoner of war.
The Hoits were primarily a farmily family, both in Castleton and Stanwich. Calvin, his brother Noah, and his sons John and Calvin all followed that trade. They worked somewhat as a unit, with livestock being moved back and forth between the two farms. Calvin's brother Moore became a doctor, however, and his son Emmet first a schoolteacher and ten a dentist. The family burial plot is in Stamford's Long Ridge Cemetery.
A significant portion of the documents in this collection related to the Stanwich Society, the Congregational parish founded in 1731. Its members were drawn from both Stamford and Greenwich, hence the name. Both Jonah Ferris and Calvin Hoit served as treasurers of the Society, and there are a number of documents concerning its workings, the earlies an "i.o.u." to Levey Palmer for "finishing the meating house' in 1810.
