West Bloomfield Township Pioneers – The Jacob Hiller Family

Many times the outcome of my research concerning one of West Bloomfield’s pioneer families is nothing more than a laundry list of birth and death dates, but occasionally one stumbles upon a gem. Such is the case with the Jacob Hiller family, who came to West Bloomfield in the 1830s from New York.

On August 27, 1932, Jacob’s son Ira J. gave the following speech at a Hiller family reunion in Bay City, Michigan…

“In the years prior to 1780 there was a family living in Frankfort, Germany, by the name of John Hiller. He had heard of the new country far to the West across the Sea where there was opportunity and freedom from the unpleasant conditions existing under the tyrannical rule of the old country. The good news kept coming to him and, to satisfy his ambition for freedom and a chance for the betterment of his family, he did venture the trip to the new lands. This was probably around the year of 1780. When he landed in the new America, settled only along the Seacoast, the West was unknown.

The sturdy German family consisting of Father, Mother and five children began making the new home in the new wild country with a battle for existence, not only the trials and hardships naturally coming to the early settlers, but the hatred and dangers of Indians who resented the white man’s invasion of their hunting grounds.

One day the Indians did come and tommyhawked (sic) the Father and Mother, and carried off the children - one girl Mary, possibly 12 to 14 years of age, John, the 2nd, Jacob, Peter and Stephen. The Indians, it is said, were encouraged by the British to hector the whites in retaliation of their revolting from the Mother Country. The Indians were kind to these children and after some years they released them. Mary soon returned to them as she had no home and had learned to love them, and it is handed down to us that she finally became the wife of the Chief, and this is the last known of Mary. The boys scattered, made homes and raised families.

John, the 2nd, the older boy of whom we are the descendants, living in Eastern New York, married a girl by the name of Elizabeth Frank, whose family came from Germany. Her father was a pioneer in the then new Country, Western Germany where now stands the City of Frankfort. In after years it became a settlement and the man Frank was the leading spirit of the Community, the Government finally building a Fort there for the Community and for the protection of the people, calling it “Frank’s Fort”. In later years as it grew to be a City the name was combined and the new City was called Frankfort.

This John Hiller, 2nd, located in Herkimer County, New York, and raised a family of several children, of which one was John Hiller, 3rd, the Father of this Union. John, 2nd, lost his wife Elizabeth Frank after the family was grown and lived for many years with John Hiller, 3rd, and Jacob Hiller, alternating between them. He died Jan. 1, 1864 at the home of Jacob Hiller and was buried at Fourtown Cemetery by the side of his Brother Peter. Jacob is sleeping at Commerce, six miles from John Hiller, the 2nd, and Peter Hiller, his Brother.”

Text of speech written, read and presented to the
Hiller Reunion by Ira Hiller, Bay City, August 27, 1932

As with all oral histories handed down through successive generations, factual threads are interwoven with fanciful ones. But the appearance of a John Hiller in the 1790 Federal Census in Herkimer Town, Montgomery County, New York, certainly seems to start us off on firm footing. 

Situated on extensive alluvial flats of remarkably rich soil, Herkimer Township sits on the north bank of the Mohawk River. Its first permanent settlers were Germans from the Lower Palatinate, who, escaping from their own country, were left destitute in England. They were shipped from that country to settle on the Hudson River, “that they might be useful in the production of naval stores and act as a frontier barrier against the French.” They quickly became dissatisfied with the Hudson conditions and emigrated to the Herkimer region. The township’s inhabitants, in common with those of the adjoining towns, suffered greatly in the decades preceding and during the Revolutionary War. Five miles to the Southeast was Fort Herkimer. In 1756, after the surrender of Oswego, the French over-ran the area; and in 1757, after the surrender of Fort William Henry, many settlements along the Mohawk were laid desolate by fire and sword.

With the coming of peace after the Revolutionary War, came a resettlement of the Herkimer district. A thin line of travel wormed its way through the Mohawk Valley as the easiest route westward. In 1820 the Erie Canal was complete and settlers started moving into Western New York in very large numbers.

By 1810, the Peter Hiller mentioned in Ira’s speech had moved his family west to Parma, Monroe County, New York. John 2nd appears to have followed shortly thereafter, settling in adjacent Ogden Township with his wife Elizabeth Franck by 1820. Based on information on their tombstones, Peter appears to be the elder of the two brothers. He was born in 1774 and John 2nd in 1777.

Both brothers continued to add to their families. John 2nd’s will suggests that he and Elizabeth had at least 9 children: Eve, Isaac, Daniel (born Aug. 24, 1802), Maria Johanna “Polly” (born May 13, 1805), John (born Jan. 28, 1808), Jacob (born Oct. 12, 1810), Elizabeth F. “Betsey” (born 1814), Sarah “Sally” (born 1818), and Stephen (born 1820).

In 1824, at a relatively early time in Michigan land sales, John 2nd’s eldest son Isaac and either his father or brother John ventured to the Detroit Land Office where they each purchased 80-acre parcels in Troy Township. Records at the Troy Historical Society do not indicate that either ever lived in Troy, and most likely these purchases were speculative in nature. Both seem to have returned to New York. Isaac, his wife, and two children appear on the 1830 Federal Census back in Ogden, New York.

The 1830s brought great change to the Hiller family. On May 3, 1831 John 2nd’s wife Elizabeth died. Later that year Isaac Hiller returned to Michigan, this time purchasing 160 acres in Section 17 of West Bloomfield Township. In the following years other family members joined him. Prior to May 25, 1834 his brother Jacob ventured to Michigan, for on that date he married Arvilla Jane Van Tyle in Oakland County. The next year Jacob purchased 80 acres in the SW ¼ of Section 4 of West Bloomfield Township. In 1837, another brother Daniel purchased 40 acres in Section 9 of West Bloomfield and their uncle Peter acquired 80 acres straddling Sections 22 and 23 in Waterford Township.

The 1840 Census includes at least 5 related Hiller households in the Oakland County vicinity – Daniel, Isaac, and Jacob all married and living in West Bloomfield; a 66-year-old Peter now residing alone in Highland; and his son Lyman living alone in Waterford.

After 1840 Isaac completely falls from view, appearing neither on subsequent censuses nor in local burial/cemetery records. His younger brothers, Daniel and Jacob, continued to reside in West Bloomfield.

In time, two of John 2nd‘s sons – brothers Daniel and John 3rd – relocated to Burton Township in Genesee County where they had 17 children between them, many eventually playing key roles in the growth of nearby Flint. Some of their descendants reside there to this day.

The 1850 Federal Census was the first to include names, exact ages, and other details of each household’s occupants. It notes that Jacob is a 40-year-old farmer, living with 33-year-old wife Arvilla and their 10-year-old daughter Elizabeth. Jacob’s land is valued at $2,300. Jacob’s 76-year-old father, John 2nd, is also living with them.

The census also lists Jacob’s cousin Lyman living about 2 miles north in Section 32 of Waterford, his farm straddling Union Lake Road, just north of Cooley Lake Road. Lyman, his wife Harriet, and daughter Ellen are sharing their house with Lyman’s 83-year-old father Peter. An Agricultural Census indicates that in 1850 Lyman owned 200 acres (170 improved/30 unimproved), 2 milk cows, 2 oxen, 6 sheep, and 3 swine. With these resources he produced 100 bushels of wheat, 100 bushels of potatoes, 30 bushels of corn, 100 pounds of butter, and 30 pounds of wool among other farm products. 

By the time of the 1860 Census the Jacob Hiller household had grown with the addition of his son Ira J., born June 27, 1858, and daughter Elizabeth’s husband, Sylvanus Welch. Three unrelated farm laborers and domestics helped run the farm and attest to Jacob’s growing prosperity. Their home stood on the east side of the road which now bears their name, about ¼ mile south of Greer Road.

On January 1, 1864 Jacob’s father John 2nd died. As Ira J.’s speech indicates, he is buried in Waterford Township’s Four Towns Cemetery on Cooley Lake Road, just across West Bloomfield’s northern border. Jacob’s uncle Peter, who died July 22, 1853, is buried next to John.

As upstanding members of the community, Jacob, Arvilla, their daughter Elizabeth and her husband were all active in the Commerce Circuit Methodist Church. Published church records from 1864 to 1881 indicate that each held key layperson positions and led Bible study groups.

The good economic times continued and by 1870 Jacob’s West Bloomfield farmland was valued at $20,000 and his personal estate at $8,000, making his the sixth richest household in West Bloomfield Township. By that time Sylvanus and Elizabeth were prospering on a farm of their own which straddled the West Bloomfield/Waterford border, just 2½ miles away.

Ira J. Hiller, Jacob & Arvilla’s youngest child and only son, remained in West Bloomfield until at least 1896, as his name appears on a plat map bearing that date. At the time he owned 175 acres straddling Hiller Road and abutting the west end of Cass Lake. Eventually Jacob sold the family farm and settled in Bay City. By 1898 he had established a funeral home there, a business he ran until the 1930s.

On March 15, 1897 86-year-old Jacob Hiller passed away. He is buried in Commerce Cemetery. Nearby are his wife Arvilla, who died June 1, 1901, daughter Elizabeth, and son-in-law Sylvanus. With their passing the name Hiller disappeared from among the residents of West Bloomfield. Today several miles of road is all that indicates the Hiller family once ventured to West Bloomfield to carve a new life out of the wilderness.


Note: Special thanks to Joy Ginter & Mary Lou Lathrop for their genealogical research which greatly assisted in completing this article.

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