Hezekiah Hayden

Hezekiah was the second son of Levi and Margaret Hayden of Windsor Connecticut. His boyhood was spent at home, with it school days and toil intersersed with the recreation that was common at that day,--hunting, fishing, house raising etc/ with an abundant supply of thanksgiving and election cake in their season. As a young man, he made a voyage to Rotterdam, Amsterdam. He then devoted his energies to establishing himself in the business of cloth-dressing. His was a comparatively new art in Connecticut at the time, having been brougt from Eastern Massachusettes. Nearly all the cloth of that day was manufactured in families and had been worn previously as it came from the loom. He followed the tide of emigration early in the 1800's and established himself at Hartwick and later at Springfield, Otsego Co. New York. In addition to his trade, he conducted his farm and saw mill and was a "leading man in the community" He died in middle life and his wife only survived him by three months. Their children were scattered and several years later they held a reunion at their childhood home at the head of Otsego Lake and a few aged people who had known their parents were invited to the feast. They found the unmarked graves of their parents and now a granite shaft with proper inscription marks the spot, though the house and mill are now gone From: Jabez Hayden" Records of the Connecticut Line of the Hayden Family" 1888.