Boughton, Hezekiah

The following data is extracted from Genealogy and Biography of Ontario County, New York.

Hezekiah Boughton, son of Eleazer and Elizabeth (Seymour) Bouton, was born in Norwalk, November 2, 1725, died in 1998, and was buried on Boughton Hill. With his sons he went from Old Stockbridge, Massachusetts, to the Genessee country, as it was then called. In the spring of 1788 his sons, Jared and Hezekiah Jr., commenced explorations in western New York. Phelps and Gorham completed their treaty with the Indians in July that year, and in the fall Enos Boughton, another son, went to Canandaigua with William Walker, the surveyor for Phelps and Gorham, and they erected a store house and other buildings, these being the first erected in the town. He obtained the tract which is now (1910) the township of Victor, Ontario county. The following spring other members of the family came to the purchase, bringing with them hired hands, and the township was surveyed and prepared for sale. The father reserved somewhat more than a quarter of the tract, including Boughton Hill. An Indian village and a mission had previously been on this site, and the land was thus in a state to be readily cultivated. Other members of the family came to the settlement in the winter, having taken advantage of the sleighing, but, as the winter was an open one, the ice was so softened that as they crossed Cayuga lake the tracks of the sleighs filled with water behind them. The wife of Jared was the first white woman to come into the settlement, and for three months was the only one, their second child being the first white child born there. Gradually almost all of the Boughton family had assembled there, Hezekiah giving each of his children liberally of the land he had purchased. He also donated land on Boughton Hill for a cemetery, another plot for a public square, on which a school house was built, and laid out a broad highway from the Hill to the Bloomfield line. Various cousins of Hezekiah also purchased land in this section, and the settlement became an important one.

Hezekiah Boughton married, at Stamford, Connecticut, September 2, 1730, Abigail, daughter of Theophile Selleck Penoyer, who was the donor of several scholarships. Children: Hezekiah, married Huldah Willson, who married (second) Dr. Reuben Hart, member of the assembly and for many years surrogate of Ontario county; Enos, married Clarissa Jones; Abigail, married Nicholas Smith; Sally, married Joshua Ketchum; Selleck; Jared, see elsewhere; Seymour, married Clarissa Dewey, was killed by the Indians at the burning of Buffalo; Theodosia, married Daniel Sawyer.

Source: Genealogy and Biography of Ontario County, New York

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