Munson Tales: Another Sherman Brother; Hoyt

Hoyt Sherman

Last issue, we talked about the tormented brilliance of General William T. Sherman. His father, Judge Charles Sherman, and his wife, Mary Hoyt, had several boys who would rise to the top of their spot in the world. Hoyt was the youngest son, born in 1827, just two years before Judge Sherman died of typhoid. Along with brothers John and Charles, he worked in a printing office of the Cincinnati Gazette under the tutelage of publisher Charles Hammond in Cincinnati and studied some law in Mansfield, Ohio, until his majority. 

 In 1848, brothers Hoyt, John, and Charles headed west for Fort Des Moines. At this time, Fort Des Moines was still frontier. Settlers met with Sioux raids and harsh conditions. Des Moines, the city, wasn’t founded until 1850. Hoyt Sherman was there as the area blossomed. Brothers James and Lampson would join him. 

Hoyt began his career selling school land grants out of the office of School Commissioner Thomas McMullen. In 1849 he became assistant postmaster to what was then called “Raccoon River.” When the postmaster left, he was named postmaster. The post office had been in an old building on Fort Des Moines, but Hoyt had a new post office built and then a second location. He held that job until 1852. In 1849, he was admitted to the bar and became a top attorney in the area. 

By 1850, he had turned his attention to the buying and selling of real estate. There was a particular piece of property he wanted to build his home on that was going on auction. He had $100. Unfortunately, others wanted that 5-acre plot as well, and bidding kept hedging up, with him out of money. Then he decided to use his day’s wages, all of $5, to make the winning bid of $105. That plot would eventually hold the Hoyt Place, a large home that would later serve many purposes for the citizens of Des Moines. 

Things kept moving along for Hoyt in Des Moines. In 1852 he was named Clerk of Courts and in 1853 he built the Sherman Block which included a bank and amusement hall as well as executive offices. In 1854, he decided to build a safer, bigger facility to process money from the huge number of land sales. 

He opened his first bank, Hoyt Sherman & Co. Its careful management and the integrity of the firm allowed its immediate success. Feeling pretty good, Sherman went east to Ohio and married Miss Sarah Moultin on Christmas Day of 1855 in Mansfield. He whisked her home and they lived together in Des Moines. In 1856, Sherman was responsible for building the new statehouse on Grimmell Hill after a skirmish of words between those near the “Fort” and those on the east side of Des Moines. That edifice still stands today on Grimmell Hill. 

The original Hoyt Sherman Place

In 1858, the State of Iowa had its new consitution which allowed for the formation of the State Bank of Iowa. Sherman was named the first cashier of the Des Moines branch and he merged his Sherman & Co. bank into the new bank. While his brother William was deeply involved with the Civil War (1861-1865), Hoyt did his part, too. He had been granted the rank of Major and named paymaster of the army, dispensing millions of dollars in funds over the course of the war. And, of course, the post-war audit found not one penny missing. 

In January 1867, the Equitable Life Insurance Co. was becoming quite the firm out West. Sherman was named its actuary. Over the next several years, he moved through the ranks and eventually became president. He made his mark outside of business as well. He was president of the Old Settlers Association and helped start the Des Moines Water Company. In 1866 he served a year as an Iowa state legislator. That lead him to the Pioneer Law Makers of Iowa, where he served as president in 1898 for a term. Things didn’t always go his way, though. 

In 1871, a fire broke out on the west side, wiping out several blocks. One of the buildings completely lost was the Hoyt Sherman place at 6th and Locust. He would go on to build a brick home at the land purchased for $105 at 15th and Woodland In 1887, Hoyt lost his wife, who was mother to his five children. Sarah Moultin had been ill for over a year, but expected to recover. She took a turn for the worse in late February and died in early March. He never remarried. 

 Hoyt’s brothers who had also made Iowa home, John and Lampson, did well too. John became a U.S. Senator and Lampson was founder of Des Moines’ second newspaper, the Des Moines Gazette, and served as Des Moines’ third mayor and as City Treasurer. 

All of his ten siblings died before Hoyt’s death in 1904. Hoyt and Sarah’s five children included: Frank (1856-1902), an attorney who died at age 45 of a stroke. He got his law degree from Columbia University. He practiced privately and served three years as county attorney. Additonally, he organized the first street railway company in Des Moines. He was married with a daughter. Adeline (1859-1917) married ink baron Frank Wiborg and lived her married life in the Hamptons and NYC. She died in NYC in 1917 and had three daughters. Charles (1861-1911) married Bertha Bartlett, daughter of General Joseph Barlett of Baltimore. Charles practiced law in Chicago and New York. He died of a stroke. Arthur (1869-1945) worked in insurance and real estate and retired with his wife to Beverly Hills, California. He was married and had five children. Helen (1873-1961) married W.O. Griffith and lived primarily in Philadelphia. She was a best-selling children and youth author. She had two boys and two girls. 

Hoyt Sherman Place spent time as the Women’s Club and is popular today as a music and arts center and theatre.

Hoyt Sherman Place in Des Moines, Iowa

Pre-Clan Munson: Tuttle Madness and Mayhem

Reenactment of settler colony

CAPT THOMAS MUNSON > HANNAH MUNSON m. Joseph Tuttle

This tale is of one of the two daughters of Capt Thomas Munson, Hannah Munson. She married into the storied Tuttle family of Massachusetts.

Hannah was the youngest child of Capt Thomas Munson, one of the earliest citizens of the New Haven Colony and a signator of the Fundamental Agreement of the New Haven Colony signed in 1639 and 1640. Hannah's future father-in-law, immigrant William Tuttle was also a signator. 

On 02 May 1667, Joseph Tuttle married Hannah in New Haven. His parents, William and Elizabeth, had come from England in 1635 on the ship Planter. I'm not quite sure Hannah knew what she was getting into marrying into this family, but she had at least nine children by Joseph. Joseph came from a large family, including sisters Mercy, Elizabeth, and brother Benjamin. 

Hannah's brother-in-law Benjamin got into a huge argument with his older sister Sarah, wife of John Slauson, on 17 Nov 1676. Benjamin shouted at her about her behavior from years before when Sarah and a young man were fined for kissing by the local magistrate. The story was somewhat longer, but it was scandalous to touch each other and oh, my goodness, kiss in those Puritan days. Was it a temper tantrum or madness that caused Benjamin to grab an ax and strike his sister until she was dead. Sarah left a baby girl and a bereft husband. Benjamin was tried and executed on 16 Jun 1677.

Sister Elizabeth married Richard Edwards in 1667. It is reported that the couple was fined because their first child arrived before the requisite nine months. The couple had many more children but after 20 years of marriage, Richard began to plan on a divorce.  He apparently discovered the first child was not his. He filed divorce and it was granted. Elizabeth was said to have gone mad and disappeared from the area, whereabouts and disposition unknown.

Mercy had married Samuel Brown of Wallingford in 1667 and they had children, included Samuel Brown, Jr. On 23 Jun 1691, Mercy inexplicably took an ax and struck her son three times in the head. He lingered some six days before succumbing to his injuries. At trial, the husband denied there was any sign of mental illness in Mercy, but neighbors and even Brown's son Joseph had seen odd behavior and language for some time before the murder. She was, however, found guilty and not insane at trial in Oct 1691 and was sentenced to death. Fortunately for Mercy, a strange confluence of events occurred, and she was saved from the executioner. She survived until at least 1695, most likely in a madhouse.

Watsonville Business District

Generations would pass and the Tuttles would survive and thrive. If there were further incidents, they were not saved for posterity. Some Tuttles moved to Morris, New Jersey and then on to Washington County, Pennsylvania, and then to Richland County, Ohio. 

Daniel Tuttle and his wife, Phebe Case, were married 21 Nov 1786 in Washington County, Pennsylvania. They had at least seven children, including son Hiram. Hiram and his family went west Iowa, settling in Van Horn County. 

Several of the Hiram Tuttle children went on to California and practiced in their various occupations. 

Morris Burns Tuttle hit the Pajaro Valley and purchased 300 acres and began raising fruit trees and farming hops for beer with one of his brothers. The Pacific Ocean has only the Santa Cruz Mountains between our Tuttles and the surf.

Morris Tuttle Mansion

Brother Iowa Tuttle also joined this endeavor. He was married with children. According to his brother Morris, he had talked about suicide before, so when Iowa did commit suicide in one of the outbuildings on the Morris Tuttle Mansion grounds in 1913, it was reportedly no surprise to Morris. Iowa loved his wife and children and many did not think his financial woes rose to the level of suicide. The thing was, Iowa had been shot twice in the head. The police talked to Morris quite seriously because  it was mighty odd that Iowa was able to fire two bullets into his head before dying, making it all quite suspicious. In the end, Iowa's death was declared a suicide by the coroner. Whether that had anything to do with Morris' affluence, we will never know.

Finally, cousin William Tuttle came down to Santa Cruz County from Rocklin, California in 1911 to stay in Morris' carriage house while he worked out his marital difficulties with his wife Hazel. Hazel was his first cousin and the couple had been wildly in love - at least until their marriage. It was downhill from there, despite the fact they were new parents of daughter Alice. William, a former employee of Southern Pacific railroad, had been unemployed for months. As the New Year of 1912 loomed, he returned home from Santa Cruz County, bought the baby some belated Christmas presents, talked to his wife in the kitchen, and after following her to the bedroom, shot her dead with two shots to the heart. He then shot himself. The baby was found unharmed.

Morris built a beautiful mansion in in south Santa Cruz County in 1899 that still exists today as a private residence. There are those who say the mansion is filled with the ghosts of Iowa and all the Morris Tuttle descendants who would die tragically young. 

Sources:

1. Babe Smiles at Tragedy, Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles, California, 31 Dec 1911, p 6
2. Trainman Kills Wife and Self, Sacramento Bee, Sacramento, California, 30 Dec 1911, p 1
3. Divorce, Murder, and Madness: The Puritan Tuttles of New Haven Colony, New England Historical Society, 2017
4. Tuttle Mansion: a haunted piece of history, The Pajoronian, by Johanna Miller, 30 Oct 2017
5. Haunted Santa Cruz, by Marianne Porter, History Press, 2016
6. Biography of William Tuttle, Access Genealogy
7. Had Threatened Suicide Before Saturday's Act, Santa Cruz Evening News, 30 Jun 1913, Mon, p 2
8. Widow of Late Iowa Tuttle is Left the Estate, Santa Cruz Evening News, 23 Jul 1913, Wed, p 1
9. A Brutal Murder, Ava Chamberlain, NYU Press, 2012