Hitchcock family papers

Helen Hitchcock Bjorvand describes most of the family's writings:

Autobiography of Louise St. John Hitchcock - This is a hand-written autobiography by my paternal grandmother, finished in September, 1920 when she was seventy-nine, and an appendix to it which was finished in January, 1922. She described her father, Zopher St. John, and her mother, Eunice Harmon St. John, and mentions relatives in their generation; tells of her brothers and sisters and of life in the Simsbury homes; and finally treats her own life in various places as wife of Rufus C. Hitchcock and as a widow.

Autobiography of Rufus Clark Hitchcock - This is hand-written, and incomplete. The task of recording his life was apparently undertaken at the request of his son, Alfred, a fact that helps to give the document an approximate date. Assuming that Alfred would not have thought to ask for reminiscences from is father until he himself was around twenty-one, the autobiography would not have been started before 1889. Since it breaks off abruptly, one can surmise that it was not finished because of Rufus's death in 1894. The autobiography gives an account of events from the time of his birth until a year or two before his marriage in 1863. His life in Chittenden and Westminster, Vermont, Springfield and Boston, Massachusetts, Thompsonville, Connecticut, and then his adventurous trip west into the Lake Superior region are all desribed. The narrative breaks off as he and a friend, a Yale graduate, are about to go down the Mississippi River to take teaching positions on plantations. That this adventure was somehow interrupted is not mentioned, and nothing is said of his return to New England.

Journal of Rufus Clark Hitchcock - this journal was started July 30, 1866 and ended with an entry dated October 8, 1866. It is a day-to-day account of a trip Rufus took up through Massachusetts into Vermont, during a vacation period of his teaching year, as a canvasser for the sale of a book. He was, at the time, a young married man with a year-old son, attempting to make his free time profitable. The Journal gives glimpses into the appearance and life of the towns he visited. He describes rooming houses, hotels, churches, quarries, industries, local curiosities, scenery. One of the places he visited was his birthplace in Chittenden, Vermont. In his account of seeing the deserted cellarhole, his own somewhat romatic, sensitive temperament is revealed, as it is throughout the Journal.

A Family Journal of the Rufus C. Hitchcock Family - This was begun in 1876, when the sons were still children, and when the family's home was Keene, New Hampshire. It was continued intermittently through 1890. The handwriting varies, since entries were made by the children, by Louise and Rufus Hitchcock, and occasionally by visiting relatives. The final entry was made when the family lived in New Orleans, Louisiana. One of the last entries is a long one made by Alfred Hitchcock, who was almost twenty, when he was "home" visiting his family at Straight University. In the back of the Journal, in Rufus Hitchcock's handwriting, are many genealogical records of Farrs, Hitchcocks, and St. Johns.

Additional notes by Mrs. Bjorvand and Alfred Hitchcock throughout the papers provide historical and anecdotal information about the writings. The Louise St. John Hitchcock Autobiography is an original manuscript, the rest are photocopies. The Family Journal of Rufus Clark Hitchcock is a copy of the original by the Vermont Historical Society in Montpelier.