Hewitt stories across generations
Little Hugh, or a clearing in the woods: the Hewitt name has two old English roots. It turns up in the records of seafaring New England, civic life, invention, design, science, music and sport. This is the family's home on the web, where we gather those stories and work out, record by record, where our own line fits.
“Be just and fear not.”Motto of the Viscounts Lifford, who bore the arms shown here
The name
The arms
The arms most associated with the Hewitt name were borne by James Hewitt, Lord Chancellor of Ireland, who was made Baron Lifford in 1768 and Viscount Lifford in 1781. The Hewet baronets of Headley Hall, created in 1621, bore almost the same design.3, 4
A coat of arms belongs to a person and their descendants, not to everyone who shares a surname. These are the arms historically associated with the Hewitt name, borne by the Viscounts Lifford; the painting here is a family keepsake, not a grant of arms.6
Early New England
Captain Thomas Hewitt, “a seafaring man”, married Hannah Palmer, daughter of Walter and Rebecca Palmer, at Stonington, Connecticut, on 26 April 1659. He sailed on one of his voyages and was never heard from again; Hannah later remarried, to Roger Sterry.18, 19
A 1996 genealogy traces his descendants. Whether our own line runs back to him hasn't been established: that takes a record for every generation in between.19
A documented family in New York
Here the family relationships are documented: Abram S. Hewitt and Amelia Cooper, and their children, whose names are still on a Smithsonian museum and a lighting patent.
1822–1903 · industrialist and public servant
Built iron businesses, helped organize Cooper Union, served five terms in the US House, and was Mayor of New York City in 1887–88. He married Amelia Cooper, Peter Cooper's daughter; the Hewitts below are their children.8
Harper's Weekly, 1888. Public domain.26
1859–1930 and 1864–1924 · museum founders
The sisters built a teaching collection of decorative arts and opened the Cooper Union Museum for the Arts of Decoration in 1897, the first museum in the United States founded by women. It grew into Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum.9, 20
1861–1921 · electrical inventor
Developed a practical mercury-vapour lamp around 1901, an efficient light that proved useful in photography and industry, and the mercury rectifier.10
Bain News Service. Public domain.27
1866–1957 · inventor and author
Wrote many books on fishing, devised angling tackle, and held the original patent for the felt-soled wading shoe.21
Hewitts across fields and countries
People who share the surname. None has a documented connection to the Stonington captain, the Cooper Hewitts or our own family.
c. 1712–1789 · English-born, served in Ireland
Lord Chancellor of Ireland from 1767 to 1789, the longest tenure of the 18th century, and bearer of the arms shown above.7
born 1807 · American poet and editor
Born Mary Elizabeth Moore, she published poetry under the Hewitt name and edited literary collections, including The Gem of the Western World.22
Samuel S. Osgood, c. 1850. Public domain.28
1902–1985 · Canadian broadcaster
The voice of Hockey Night in Canada for generations, and the man who first called “He shoots, he scores!” Order of Canada, 1972.11
1907–1987 · Northern Irish poet
Belfast poet and champion of Ulster regionalism, made a freeman of the city of Belfast in 1983.12
1920–1999 · American mathematician
Co-discoverer of the Hewitt–Savage zero–one law and co-author of Abstract Harmonic Analysis.13
1922–2009 · American television producer
Directed the first televised presidential debate in 1960 and created 60 Minutes in 1968.14
American physics educator
Author of Conceptual Physics, he built a teaching career on helping non-specialists understand physical ideas before the mathematics.23
1944–2022 · American computer scientist
At MIT he created the Planner language and, with collaborators, the Actor model: computation as independent agents exchanging messages.15
born 1958 · Canadian pianist
Ottawa-born and acclaimed for her Bach; winner of the 1985 Toronto International Bach Piano Competition and a Companion of the Order of Canada.16
Canadian executive and philanthropist
Led Hewitt Equipment, founded in 1952 by his father Robert, and after its sale helped establish the Hewitt Foundation in 2017 to support communities in eastern Canada.24
born 1981 · Australian tennis champion
World No. 1 at 20, winner of the 2001 US Open and 2002 Wimbledon, and twice a Davis Cup winner; International Tennis Hall of Fame, 2021.17
born 1979 · American actor and producer
Known for Party of Five, Ghost Whisperer and 9-1-1.25
Timeline
The family today
These are stories about people named Hewitt. We're documenting, one record at a time, how our own family fits among them.
Have a family Bible, passenger record, certificate, photograph, letter or documented family tree? Share it with any member of the family, and we'll give each story its proper place.
Sources
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