Hannah Donovan

Hannah Donovan

• Hannah Donovan was born on 8 December 1799 in Tennessee according to her obituary.
• She married John Hostetter, son of Isaac Hostetter and Mary M. Keithley, circa 1817 in Pennsylvania.
• John Hostetter and Hannah Donovan appeared in the US federal census of 1 June 1850 in Sacramento County, California. Other members of the household included Robert Hostetter, Daniel Hostetter, George Hostetter and Edward Hostetter. It appears that Edward/Eveline born c1842 was a grandchild, but requires further research.
• John Hostetter and Hannah Donovan appeared in the US federal census of 1 June 1860 in Montgomery PO, Montgomery County, Texas. Other members of the household included Rodney Hostetter, Daniel Hostetter, George Hostetter and Edward Hostetter.
• John Hostetter and Hannah Donovan appeared in the US federal census of 1 June 1870 in Peno Township, Pike County, Missouri. Also in the household was Lillie Moffett, age 1.
• Hannah Donovan died on 11 July 1893 at age 93 in Sonoma County, California.
• The following appeared on 4 August 1893 in the Frankford Chronicle: Hanna Hostetter died in Sonoma, California, July the 11th, 1893, at the home of her daughter, Mrs. Maria Irvine, at the advanced age of 93 years and 7 months. The deceased was born in Tennessee December 8th, 1799; her parents removed when she was only three months old to St. Charles, Mo., at the time this being Spanish territory, where she was raised in the wilds of an inhospitable wilderness and roving savage bands of Indians. In October, 1817, she was married to John Hostetter, and they removed the same month to Peno township, Pike Co., Mo., where they resided until 1835, when they removed to Dubuque, Iowa. About 1837 they removed from that place to Texas, where they lived until 1847, and then returned to Pike and settled near their old home. Under the excitement of the California gold fever of 1849, Uncle Jack loaded his family, bag and baggage, into an ox wagon and turned his face with the great tide for the Pacific coast. This move proved a financial success; however, after a few years sojourn here they returned to Texas and engaged in farming on an extensive scale. After electing to follow the fate and fortune of the Lone Star State in its alliance with the Confederate cause, and losing the bulk of their fortune, in 1868 they once more set their faces toward their old home, Pike county.
       Since the death of her husband, Mrs. Hostetter has made her home, the greater portion of her time, in California. Nine children were born to them, only one of whom survives. She has been a consistent member of the Christian Church for sixty-three years. Aunt Hanna, as she was familiarly known, was a patient, quiet, energetic Christian woman, inured to privations and hardships, possessed of a heroic fortitude to be admired, needs only to be seen. One by one those old landmarks have passed away, this being the last one of the fifty or sixty families that settled in Peno township prior to 1820, that was married at the time they settled here; in a few years at best, all their children will have passed away, the hardship and deprivations of that age will become matters of history and tradition, but by far the greater portion buried in oblivion.

• Last Edited: 14 Dec 2011