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Town of Canton >> Visitors >> Sight-Seeing >> Your Silent Neighbors >> Biographies

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Your Silent Neighbors

Take a tour through the past with “Your Silent Neighbors", which introduces readers to people out of Canton’s past.

“Your Silent Neighbors” introduces readers to people out of Canton’s past.  Readers are encouraged to visit these gravesites and pay their respects to the people who have helped make our community what it is today.

Choose a name from the list to begin your journey into Canton's past:


1/6/2022 - Pluma Hinman

YOUR SILENT NEIGHBORS, Pluma Hinman, D.A.R Charter Member
by David K. Leff
Town Poet Laureate and Deputy Town Historian   

Born in Barkhamsted, Pluma Hinman (1827-1914) moved at age 12 to New York with her family. Her father became a policeman in the city, eventually rising to the rank of captain.  Here she met her first of three husbands, Felix L. Marquis.  He was killed in the Mexican War.  The couple had a daughter who was married and lived in Nepaug at the time of her mother’s death. 

Following Mr. Marquis’ passing, Hinman moved back to Connecticut and married Ashel Drake of Pine Meadow.  The Drakes had two daughters, one of whom died in infancy.  Mr. Drake died in 1853, and two years later Pluma married Julius Hinman.  The couple lived on his farm about two miles from Collinsville for more than 40 years.  Mr. Hinman was tragically killed by a train near their house in 1895.  The Hinmans had six children.  At her death, Mrs. Hinman had 17 grand children and nine great grandchildren. 

Hinman was one of 20 charter members of Canton’s Phoebe Humphrey Chapter of the D.A.R., which was organized in 1905.  She was its oldest member.  Her great grandfather, Samuel Rice, was a soldier of the Revolution, having enlisted from Barkhamsted.  He was one of 2,837 prisoners of war taken by the British at the Battle of Fort Washington in New York in 1776.  The D.A.R. chapter celebrated her 80th birthday with a literary and musical program.  “She possesses a memory that most younger people might well envy,” The Hartford Courant wrote at the time, “and her interest in passing events and topics in general is as acute and enthusiastic as that of her children or her children’s children.” 

Her health remained good almost until her death just shy of age 87.  “She was a woman of most genial disposition and had a host of friends” according to her obituary.  Hinman had been ill during her last year, and died suddenly at the Hartford home of her daughter Claribel.  The funeral was held in Collinsville at the home of her daughter Annetta.  The ceremony included a rendition of “Beautiful Isle of Somewhere” and “Peace, Perfect Peace.” 

Pluma Hinman is buried in Dyer Cemetery, Canton. 

“Your Silent Neighbors” introduces readers to people out of Canton’s past.  Readers are encouraged to visit these gravesites and pay their respects to the people who have helped make our community what it is today. 
  
  




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Contact Us


Kathleen Taylor
Town Historian

Carolyn Woodard
Deputy Town Historian

Christopher Hager
Deputy Town Historian

 

Office: (860) 693-5800
Fax: (860) 693-5804
Email
Location: 40 Dyer Ave, Canton, CT 06019