Records of the Hubble family are found in historical societies and public libraries of the United States and Great Britain. They were lineal descendants of Hubba of Danish origin.
The name was taken from Hubba's Hill that is situated in Pembrokeshire, Wales. Hubba the Dane landed there in the reign of Alfred the Great, and was discomfited and slain, with about 2,000 men.
Other than finding the lineage, I know little of the early Hubbells. In time, perhaps the Hubble Family History Society (http://www.hubbell.org/) in Des Moines, Iowa will be able to fill in some of the blanks.
Richard Hubball, ancestor of the Hubbell and Hubble family of America and Canada, came from England to Fairfield County, Connecticut in the early 1640’s. He was the son of Richard and Sarah (Wakeman) Hubbell of Worcestershire England. His first marriage was to Elizabeth Meigs, and our ancestor Samuel, was one of their eight children. After Elizabeth died, Richard married Elizabeth Gaylord by whom he fathered four more children. After his second wife’s death, Richard married a widow, Mrs. Abigail Walker. She was the daughter of Peter Prudden, an early Puritan religious leader of the party that founded Milford, Connecticut.
According to the old land records, Richard Hubball resided in what is now Bridgeport on Clinton Avenue, between North and Fairfield Avenues, near the old Stratfield Burying Ground where he is buried. This part of Bridgeport was called Pequonnock.
Samuel Hubbell, Sr.
Samuel was born on November 6, 1657 in Guilford, Connecticut. His first wife was Elizabeth Wilson; she died a year after their marriage and and a week after the birth of their daughter. The baby girl died three weeks later.
About six months later, Samuel married a widow, Temperance (Nichols) Preston. They named their first son after her first husband, Jehiel Preston. Temperance’s sister, Patience Nichols was married to Samuel’s brother, John.
David was the sixth child of Samuel and Temperance, born on July 1, 1698 in Fairfield, Connecticut. He married Eunice Sanford about 1731. It appears that they had six children born in Connecticut, and sometime after 1732, the family moved to New York. There are records showing that in 1757, “David and Eunice his wife, late of Fairfield, now of Courtland Manor, New York, sold rights in the estate of Eunice’s father Thomas Sanford.” They may have had more children in New York, but it is not known for sure.
Justus, born in Connecticut in 1732, was probably quite young at the time the region up the Hudson River was opened for settlement, and the family migrated into New York. Here they faced a lot of Indian trouble because of the English paying the Indians to wage war on the settlers. Often the families were murdered and their homes burned. By the time of the Revolutionary War, the situation was so bad that men organized companies to defend their frontier before New York entered the Revolution.
We know that our ancestor, Justus Hubble, signed the Articles of Association in 1775, protesting the closing of the port of Boston by the British. At that time he lived in Ulster County, New York with his wife, Waitstill Bishop and their eight children. In 1776, when his son and our ancestor, Levi Hubble, was an infant, Justus put his family in a fort for safe keeping while he fought as a Revolutionary soldier defending the forts.
Justus marched with General Greene’s forces into the Carolinas to fight Tarleton’s troops and the Tories who were trying to cut off that part of the south. General Greene’s army faced near defeat from starvation and a much larger enemy army. Although Justus Hubble must have had a difficult time on this campaign, he was so impressed with the country, that after the war he moved his family to Washington County, Virginia. He was granted 282 acres of land on August 31, 1781. His land was on the south fork of the Holsten River in Southwest Virginia. He died there of rheumatism in 1796; his log house was only half covered at the time of his death.
His widow, Waitstill, finished the house, fastening the boards on with wooden pins with her two small boys helping carry the boards to her. Some Hubble descendants still live in that “Rich Valley” of Washington County.
Levi was born on January 25, 1776 in Salem, New York. He married his first wife, Mary Hayes, in Virginia. She died there in 1808 leaving him with four children. The next year, on March 22, 1809, Levi married Jane Buchanan. Her parents, Robert and Mary (Jamison) Buchanan were Irish immigrants to Virginia.
In 1810, Levi’s younger brother, David Hubbell, settled in Pulaski County, Kentucky on the Indian River, later moving to Flat Lick. Then the Levi Hubble family moved, migrating like so many other Virginians, to Kentucky. In 1811, Levi bought land on the Indian River and on Buck Creek. His first child was born in Pulaski County in 1816.
The old home of our ancestor, Levi Hubble, was located about four miles northeast of Pulaski Station. Until very recently, a part of the old house was still being lived in. It had a very wide fireplace, maybe six feet or more in width.
Levi died on July 28, 1851, and is buried at Etna Cemetery in Pulaski County.
Jane was born September 16, 1822, probably in that Hubble house near Pulaski Station. Her father was Levi, she had a brother named Levi, and she married James Levi Bobbitt.
“Know all men by these presents that we James L. Bobbitt and David Hubble are held and firmly bound unto the Commonwealth of Kentucky in the just and full sum of fifty pounds, the payment of which well and truly to be made to the said Commonwealth of Kentucky we bind Ourselves, our……?…. jointly severally and firmly by these presents sealed with our seals and dated the 28th day of December, 1841.
The Condition of the above obligation is such that whereas there is a marriage shortly intended to be had and solemnized between the above bound James Bobbett and Jane Hubble of Pulaski County. Now if there be lawful cause to obstruct the same, then this obligation to be void else to remain in full force power and effect.
Witnessed by A. Williams
Signed and Sealed by James L. Bobbitt and David Hubble”
David Hubble was Jane’s older brother.
James Levi died on July 6, 1889 and Jane on August 3, 1892. They are both buried in the Bobbitt Cemetery in Pulaski County.
Jane and Levi had eight children. The fifth child (first son) was William Levi, our ancestor.
William Levi married Alice Jane McHargue.
Their son, James Henderson, married Telitha Cecile Green(e).
Their daughter was Pauline Bobbitt Hansen, my mother.
A well-known, but as yet unproven, story of the Hubbells is that one Hubbell was the friend of “James Fenimore Cooper’s Deer Slayer.” Deer Slayer gave his beloved rifle, “Kill-Deer” to Hubbell after he shot the last Indian who murdered his family. The gun is supposed to remain in the Hubbell family somewhere today.
Another Hubbell anecdote is that the U.S. Government paid a Hubbell one hundred thousand dollars for the secret of making gun-powder.
The lineage of Arlene Hansen...
William Bobbitt & Joanna Sturdivant - VA
William Bobbitt & Mary Green - VA
James Bobbitt & Elizabeth Dalton Bennett - VA
Captain William Bobbitt & Elizabeth McKenzie - VA
James Levi Bobbitt & Rebecca Day - VA to KY
James L. Bobbitt Jr. & Jane Hubble - Pulaski Co KY
William Levi Bobbitt & Alice Jane McHargue - Pulaski Co KY
James Henderson Bobbitt & Talitha Cecil Greene - Pulaski Co KY
Alice Pauline Bobbitt & Richard Hansen - Weston Co WY
Arlene Hansen (me)