Thomas Nelson Haskell
Youngest son of Captain Haskell was a man of letters, Congregationalist minister and a founder of Colorado College
Haskell family letters in the collected papers of Thomas Nelson Haskell
The most famous of the 15 children of Captain George Henry Haskell was the second youngest, Thomas Nelson Haskell, who among other accomplishments was a founder of Colorado College.
In that college's Tutt Library Special Collections are his collected papers.
Haskell family members settled in Iowa
Just as earlier generations of the Haskell family had migrated from Massachusetts to Vermont and then to western New York and Ohio, the young Haskells in the 1840s were staking out opportunities in the newly established territory of Iowa.
We've seen how Ruth P. Haskell, later Daggett and Brooks, ended up in a small town 30 miles west of Dubuque, the Mississippi river city that was a gateway to the Iowa Territory.
George Henry Haskell in the War of 1812
The thing I didn't know about the War of 1812 is that it mainly happened in 1814, at least in New England, when British fleets menaced the Maine coast and occupied territory east of the Penobscot. This explains why George Haskell was not with the Massachusetts militia in 1812, when he was otherwise engaged in burying one wife and marrying another.
Captain George Henry Haskell
From the Massachusetts Haskell family who settled successively in Vermont, New York and Ohio. His 15 children continued further west.
Ruth P. Haskell
Exemplar of the Haskell family's westward migration was twice married and widowed and bore three sons.
The plot thickens—Hattie Stetson was related to Ruth Brooks
I have been working under the assumption that Herbert Stetson was playing the role of a kindly neighbor in his involvement in the affairs of Ruth P. Brooks and her son Joseph Daggett.
Digging deeper into the Daggett family history, it turns out that Herbert—or more accurately his wife Hattie—was related to the elderly lady. They were both descendants of the Haskell family, which we previously encountered when tracing the Stetson family history back to the Mayflower.
Herbert and Hattie looked after elderly Earlville resident, then inherited her property
Herbert Stetson served as executor of the estate of Ruth P. Brooks in 1889. He distributed her stock ownership to her five grandchildren, along with other bequests, but the surprising thing is the Herbert himself and his wife Hattie Stetson were named as inheritors of the lady's property holdings in Earlville.
It seems that the old lady's own children were predeceased, and that most of the grandchildren lived in Nebraska or Kansas. Herbert and Hattie may have helped out Mrs. Brooks in various ways, including Herbert helping to manage her finances.