Family Biographies

Lieutenant Thomas Noyes was born on August 19, 1740, in Sudbury, Massachusetts. He married Elisabeth Wright in January of 1765. He is listed in the Massachusetts Society of the Sons of the American Revolution: Soldiers and Sailors Whose Markers Have Been Designated By the Marker of the Society. He died November 19, 1822, in Acton, Massachusetts at the age of 82.

Image from: "Massachusetts, Town Clerk, Vital and Town Records, 1626-2001," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QSQ-G979-HSRM?cc=2061550&wc=Q4DC-DPN%3A353350601%2C353890401%2C353893501 : 30 October 2019), Middlesex > Concord > Marriages 1673-1893 > image 177 of 184; citing Massachusetts Secretary of the Commonwealth, Boston.

Elisabeth (Wright) Noyes was born November 13, 1746, in Concord, Massachusetts to Joseph and Rebecca Heywood Wright. She had eight children with Thomas Noyes, including Deacon Josiah Noyes, her second eldest. She died on August 21, 1812, in Acton, Massachusetts at the age of 65.

Image from: "Massachusetts, Town Clerk, Vital and Town Records, 1626-2001," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QSQ-G979-4YMQ?cc=2061550&wc=Q4DH-N3T%3A353350601%2C353874401%2C353874402 : 22 October 2020), Middlesex > Acton > Births, marriages, deaths 1800-1843 vol 2 > image 29 of 93; citing Massachusetts Secretary of the Commonwealth, Boston.

Deacon Josiah Noyes was born on January 26, 1767, in Acton, Massachusetts. During his lifetime, he served as a deacon and married Mehitable White on June 26, 1794. They had a total of five children and eventually moved to Westmoreland after July 1804. Although he only accounts for one letter in the Noyes Collection, the letters written between Varnum and his siblings mention him frequently. Near the end of his life, his son, Dr. Josiah Noyes, records that “I never knew him more calm and tranquil. He seemed entirely resigned to God's will, and I do not hesitate to say that for years past I think he has been ripening for Heaven.” He died on August 5, 1840, at the age of 73.

Click here to read a letter written by Deacon Josiah, 1831.

Mehitable 'Hetty' (White) Noyes was born on January 19, 1767, in Groton, Massachusetts. She was the eighth child and fourth daughter of Thomas and Hannah Faulkner White. She married Deacon Josiah Noyes on June 26, 1794. Mehitable died unexpectedly of a stroke on September 30, 1853, at the age of 86.

Click here to read a letter about her death and funeral.

Image from: "United States Census, 1850," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:S3HT-DWK3-2MG?cc=1401638&wc=95R9-4WT%3A1031308001%2C1031559501%2C1031559502 : 9 April 2016), New Hampshire > Cheshire > Westmoreland > image 6 of 40; citing NARA microfilm publication M432 (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.).

Zoa (Noyes) Farrar was born on April 4, 1795, in Acton, Massachusetts to Deacon Josiah Noyes and Mehitable White. In June 1846 she married Colonel James A. Farrar. In the 1850 census, her husband was working as a farmer and one of her children was working as a laborer. She died on January 20, 1876, at the age of 80 in Marlborough, New Hampshire.

Image from: "United States Census, 1850," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:S3HT-DWK3-233?cc=1401638&wc=95R9-4W1%3A1031308001%2C1031559501%2C1031585901 : 9 April 2016), New Hampshire > Cheshire > Marlborough > image 11 of 26; citing NARA microfilm publication M432 (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.).

Nancy Noyes was born on March 14, 1797, in Acton, Massachusetts. According to census data from 1850, she lived with her parents until both of their deaths, and then sometime after (according to census data from 1860) moved in with her sister Zoa and her brother-in-law. She lived with her sister until both of their deaths, with both of them keeping house and writing letters to their family, including Varnum. She died on March 22, 1877, in Westmoreland, New Hampshire at the age of 80.

Click here to read a letter from Nancy Noyes to Varnum regarding the death of their father.

Dr. Josiah P. Noyes was born on October 8, 1801, in Acton, Massachusetts. He was the first graduate of a medical school (Dartmouth) in 1825 and opened a practice in Needham. He was the town's doctor for nearly fifty years. He married Elizabeth Hunt on December 19, 1835, in Boylston, Massachusetts, and had two children. According to his letters as well as the Needham History Center and Museum, he was a scientist with an interest in astronomy, geology, and botany. He was a busy man and was involved in local abolitionist and temperance efforts. He was an orthodox Congregationalist, so when the Needham community began to adopt more Unitarian views, he founded the Evangelical Congregational Church of Needham in 1857. On January 6, 1871, Josiah died in Needham at the age of 69 from pneumonia which his wife Elizabeth described as a prolonged illness.

Click here to read Josiah's letters.

Image from Needham History Center & Museum. "Dr. Josiah Noyes (1801-1875)." Accessed June 15, 2021. https://needhamhistory.org/walk/josiah-noyes/

Henry Halsey Noyes was born on November 5, 1910, in Guangzhou, China to parents William Dean Noyes and Mary Stevenson. He quickly moved from China to San Francisco before moving to Toronto, Ontario, in 1919. He studied at the University of Toronto where he graduated with an MFA in English literature and eventually moved to London where he would earn a Ph.D. in English literature from the University of London in 1938. Throughout his fruitful career, Henry worked as a teacher, activist, writer, and publisher.

He founded China Books & Periodicals in 1960 and was the sole distributor of printed materials from the People's Republic of China during the Cold War and the subsequent red scare due to obtaining a special license that overrode the trade embargo. He published China Born: Adventures of a Maverick Bookman in 1989 which details some of his family's history in China and his own experiences. He donated his family collection of artifacts to the College of Wooster in 1995. All pen markings on original documents were additions by Henry to the collection. He died on June 22, 2005, at the age of 94.

Legacy.com, Staff. “Henry Noyes Obituary.” Legacy.com. San Francisco Chronicle, July 7, 2005. https://www.legacy.com/obituaries/sfgate/obituary.aspx?n=henry-halsey-noyes&pid=14466131
Family Biographies