HISTORY OF MONROE COUNTY MICHIGAN by Talcott E. Wing, ed. (NY:  Munsell & Co., Publishers, 1890).  Especially the biographical sketch on "Elisha Bardow Hitchcock."

From Eliza's contributed information we can connect her into a couple critical works about her families.  One of those is The Spoor Family in America:  A Record of the Known Descendants of Jan Wybesse Spoor who Migrated From Holland & Settled in the hudson River Valley in the Middle of the Century.  Compiled by Maria A. Underwood.  (NY:  Press of the New Era Printing Company [Lancaster, PA], 1901).  In that book check out page 72 in one of the original 400 copies.  Entry # 106, Robert Spoor (born 10 August 1767) who married Catherine Harder (born 11 FEB 1778, died 3 APR 1844).  They had eleven children according to that work (we still need to do the Census readings in order to compare and contrast information on the way to verifying as possible). 

Robert and Catharine (Harder) Spoor's eldest child was a girl named Christina Spoor (born 10 OCT 1799) who grew up to marry Elisha Barlow Hitchcock (born 2 FEB 1794, died 2 AUG 1844) on the 30th of July 1816.  They had 13 children!  And one of their children was our great...listed as "Eliza Candee Hitchcock"

That entry as transcribed (read online and keyboarded onto a computer notebook--by a Typist in grown up talk)...

pg. 72,
entry "106. Robert Spoor, of Newville, Herkimer County, New York (son of Isaac, 105), b. 10 Aug. 1767; bapt. 13 Sept. 1767, at Linlithgow, N.Y.; m. _________, Catharine Harder (b. 11 Feb. 1778; d. 3 April 1844), and had children:
i. Christina, b. 10 Oct. 1799; m. 30 July 1816, Elisha Barlow Hitchcock (b. 2 Feb. 1794; d. 2 Aug. 1844), later a merchant in Monroe Co., Mich., and had children: (1) Helen Hitchcock, b. 10 Oct. 1817 (Temperance, Mich.); (2) Gilbert Hitchcock, b. 13 May 1819; d. 30 Oct. 1862; (3) Eliza Candee Hitchcock, b. 3 Feb. 1821 (Sylvania, Ohio); (4) Charlotte Southard Hitchcock, b. 28 March 1823; d. 14 March 1892; (5) James Hitchcock, b. 12 Feb. 1825 (Temperance, Mich.); (6) Robert Hitchcock, b. 12 Feb. 1825 (Temperance, Mich.); (7) Edgar Hitchcock, b. 14 March 1829 (Temperance, Mich.); (8) Elisha B. Hitchcock, b. 10 March 1831 (Temperance, Mich.); (9) John Milton Hitchcock, b. 2 Sept. 1833 (editor, Chicago, Ill.); (10) Barlow B. Hitchcock, b. 23 Sept. 1836; d. 16 Dec. 1888; (11) Harvey Hitchcock, b. 22 Feb. 1839 (Montrose, Iowa); (12) Thomas R. Hitchcock, b. 10 Jan. 1842 (Temperance, Michigan); (13) George S. Hitchcock, b. 16 Feb. 1845 (Temperance, Mich.).  Christina Spoor Hitchcock d. 3 Aug. 1879."

And we can find more Hitchcocks in the book, The genealogy of the Hitchcock Family:  Who Are Descended from Matthias Hitchcock of East Haven, Conn., and Luke Hitchcock of Whethersfield, Conn.  Compiled and Published by Mrs. Edward Hitchcock, Sr. of Amherst, MA; Arranged for the press by Reverend Dwight W. Marsh, D.D. of Amherst, MA.  (Amherst, MA:  Press of Carpenter and Morehouse, 1894).  This book is based on town records and family Bibles.

As you can see this form of citing sources is more like an "annotated bibliography."  We have not yet picked one style of citation for our whole project.
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From Wing's History in the entry on "The Candee Family" (page 609) we get so much material we might suggest using the excerpt as a web posting embellished with links off each tidbit of information.  That might help us answer some questions like, Who was President Willits?

As it is in Wing's History

"The Candee Family"

"Caius Marius, eldest son of Asa and Mary (McAlpine) Candee, was born in Volney, Oswego County, N.Y. June 7, 1812.  His father, though of English ancestry, was born in Connecticut, while his mother first saw the light in Scotland, and came with her parents to America early in life.

"The early years of Caius were spent in helping his father on the farm, and in school.  In 1831, when nineteen years of age, during a revival of religion he came to realize, in some measure, the importantce of a change of heart; he at once yielded and began to live in harmony with his convictions of duty.  He soon united with God's professed people.  The temperance question being agitated about that time he joined the temperance society, and has always been able to keep his pledge.

"At the age of twenty-one he had acquired considerable skill in the management of a saw mill, and also tanning, as they were both appendages to his father's farm.  He had also learned the showmaker's trade.  As the family was large, and his help was not needed at home, he started for the West in the fall of 1833.  He spent the winter and the following summer in Waterville, Ohio.  In the spring of 1834, the whole family having decided to go West, two brothers, next younger than Caius, came with a span of horses and a wagon, purchased a lot of land, now in Whiteford, Monroe County, Michigan, still known as 'Candee Place,' and commenced making improvements.  They built a shanty fourteen feet square of poles, such as they could raise, covered it with elm bark, except for one corner for the smoke to escape.  They planted a few potatoes and sowed some buckwheat.

"One of their horses being rendered almost entirely worthless by rushing into a place where a log heap had been burning, that the smoke might relieve it from the pest of mosquitos, they exchanged the other for a yoke of oxen, by the help of which they were enabled to raise logs for the body of the house.  About this time one of the brothers was taken very ill with fever.  Caius came from Waterville, and all were looking anxiously for the family to come on account of the sickness of Selden.  On the 18th of September they arrived in Vistula, now Toledo; found conveyance to the Forks, now Sylvania.  the family found shelter for the night at General White's, while the father hastened to visit the sick son, and also to get the team and an early start for a load of their goods.  As thy had to go by way of Sylvania for want of another road, they met General White coming to superintend haymaking on his marsh land, and had volunteered to bring the family along.  Caius now alighted from the wagon exchanged greetings with loved ones, from whom he had been so long spearated, and then hastened forward in hope of having a more extended interview on his return.  They did not arrive home with their load until after daylight the next morning.  but what was their dismay to find the children surrounding the bed in which their sick brother lay, their mother lying on the other bed, having died of cholera morbus a few hours before.

"Disheartening as the circumstances now were, arrangements must be made for the funeral.  There was no cemetery nearer than the Forks, and the report had made the people fearful of spreading the disease.  With the appliances they could command a coffin was procured, a grave dug a few rods from the shanty, just within the inclosure they had been able to make, a few men were secured to help.  One offered prayer, and then the coffin was forever hidden from their view.

"Force of circumstance now demanded effort.  The sick must be cared for.  Winter was coming.  Their house must be finished to protect them from the cold.  Their mother, by economy in management, had been the practical financier of the family.  Now Alty and Jane, fifteen and thirteen, and Amy eleven years old, were learning the same lessons without any visible teacher.  In the four young men their father realized efficient help in carrying on improvements; and when means failed their muscular strength enabled them to clear a few acres of land, work in a sawmill, make boots and shoes or in some way replenish their depleted exchequer.

"After a year or more, Messrs. Robert Smith, Russell Clark and a few other settlers arrived, which made a school possible, where children might be taught the first rudiments.  Re-enforced from time to time by another family, who had decided to emigrate where land was cheap, and grow up with the country, which prepared the way for civil institutions to be established, and thus afford opportunities for mental culture, of which they had been so long deprived.

"After a few years, avenues of usefulness, more or less remuncrative, opened to one and another, until the father and oldest son were left mostly alone on the farm.  For a large family to be deprived of a mother's care so early in life, it may not be amiss at this point to give a brief account of each  in the order of ages.  Leander, the second son, farmer, died of inflammatory rheumatism in Hillsdale County, aged thirty-four.  Selden went, in an early day from the lead mines of Galena, to California, secured his pile and returned to Iowa, to locate as a farmer, from which he has now retired in old age.  Gideon, railroad man, brief illness, buried beside his brother in Hillsdale County, aged thirty-four.  Alty, Mrs. Oliver Wilson, occupation has been farming, but he is now an invalid, Toledo.  Jane, Mrs. Silas Phelps, Fergus Falls, Minnesota farmers.  Amy, Mrs. S.K. Joles, farmers, Hillsdale County, age sixty-three years.  Ara, blacksmith, farmer and creamery, Iowa.  Eardley went to the Mexican War, passed through a number of battles uninjured; received his pay; was honorably discharged; returned as far as New Orleans, where all trace of him was lost.  A steamboat explosion on the Mississippi about that time, in whcih his family supposed he might have perished.  George, minister, graduated from Oberlin Theological Seminary, late of Grand Rapids, Michigan, now pastor in Toledo.  The last two were of triplets.  The third died early.  Orinda, Mrs. J.F. Siddall, dentist, Oberlin, Ohio.  Mrs. Eliza H. Candee was born in Schodack, Rensselaer County, New York, February 3, 1821; married to C.M. Candee October 25, 1854.  A singular coincidence is that each belongs to a family of thriteen children.  One son, George H., and one daughter, Mary C., remain with them.  The aged father is deserving of some further attention in this summing up.  He held the office of treasurer in the township for a time; was a man of strict integrity, regarding financial prosperity as bearing no comparison with the value of his word.  He remained with them most of the time until his death, which occurred September 15, 1871, at eighty years of age.  As to the offices held by Mr. Candee, he was elected supervisor in the spring of 1850, and again in the spring of 1868, and the seven succeeding years; besides he held a few other offices for a limited period.  As they have now long since passed the meridian of life, and though their pathway has been mingled with trial, yet they have much to be thankful for, and think proper at their age to be taking in sail, and thus become prepared to welcome quietude and retirement."  --Mrs. Eliza H. Candee
 

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