Joel Doane

Biography

Joel Doane's childhood took him from Cape Cod, the peninsula extending into the Atlantic from Massachusetts, to the state’s interior. In 1793 his father, Uriah, moved the family to the part of Hardwick later called Dana, in the Swift River valley where the Quabbin Reservoir was later created. The Doane genealogy connects the move with a December purchase of land and buildings from Phineas Pratt. Joel subsequently left Dana for Thompson, in northeastern Connecticut, where he married Olivia Primrose Hascall.

The family record places six children in their household: Harvey Nichols, Maria, Lewis Branch, Frances Martha, Almira and John Wesley. The births extended from 1816 into the 1830s. Harvey died in February 1834, only seventeen. Almira died in 1850 and Lewis in 1854; both parents outlived these children. These losses belong to Joel's long life as directly as the later commercial success of his son John Wesley.

Olivia died in June 1874. Joel survived her for nine years, dying at Thompson on August 14, 1883. A brief notice in the Hartford Daily Courant reported the death eight days later. Its age of ninety-eight differs from the family chronology, which gives his birth as December 27, 1786, but the place and death date agree. He was buried in West Thompson Cemetery.

Joel’s mother was Lydia Higgins in the family reconstruction.