Son of Moses Huntley and Hannah Miner.

Dennis Huntley was born June 4, 1797, in Lempster, New Hampshire, according to some census records and according to Virgil Huntley who has published a book on the Huntley family. His tombstone, however, lists his birth year as 1798. Some records such as the early census records seem to indicate that he was born in Waterford, Vermont, but I believe he was surely born in New Hampshire. Land records, which always more accurate than census records or tombstones, clearly indicate that his parents were still living in Cheshire County, New Hampshire, until 1800 when they sold their land there.


According to the marriage records on file in the town hall of Newark, Caledonia County, Dennis and Lydia were married December 6, 1821, in Newark, Essex County, Vermont, by the justice of the peace. He was 23 and she was 18. Records at the state capital in Montpelier incorrectly list the month of marriage as September. Lydia Cole Hartwell was born January 19, 1802, in Springfield Township, Windsor County, Vermont according to that town's records. .

Dennis Huntley recorded the births of his nine children with Lydia in the record books of Morgan Township, Orleans County, (Book 4, p 258). The book has been water damaged and is hard to read, but it gives us important information that we would not otherwise have:

1. Moses born 19 Sep 1824 in Lyndon, VT
2. Eleanor Evans 27 Nov 1826 in Lyndon
3. Manerva 02 Feb 1828 in Newark
4. Sattira H 04 Dec 1830 in Newark
5. Lydia 17 Nov 1832 in Waterford
6. Lauretta 23 May 1836 in Waterford
7. Jonathan 15 Apr 1838 in Waterford
8. Harrison H 08 Jun 1840 in Waterford
9. Dennis Jr 03 Jul 1842 in Morgan


On March 23, 1844, Dennis's first wife Lydia died in Morgan at the age of only 41. Even though her tombstone has not been located, she we know she was buried in Morgan, since the word "Burials" is written on the top of the page where the death is recorded.

On November 1, 1846, Dennis married a second time to provide a mother for the five children remaining at home with him. He married Sally Barnes Ford, a widow, in Randolph, MA. According to the marriage record there, she was 45 and he was 48. Curiously enough, Dennis Huntley's marriage record which is on file in Randolph, MA, is on file in Vermont as well and has caused some researchers to assume incorrectly that he was married in Randolph, VT. According to the Vermont record, Sally was 46 and Dennis 49. The Massachusetts record shows that Sally was the daughter of Samuel and Pamelia Barnes.


In addition to the two patent deeds, Dennis purchased an additional tract of 80 acres in Section 19 of the same township. Thus, Dennis owned a farm of more than 180 acres in what was called Arcola in Marine Township in the St. Croix River valley.

The federal census of June 4, 1860, for Marine Township, Washington County, Minnesota, lists Dennis Huntley as a 63 year-old farmer whose real estate value was $1,000 and whose personal estate was worth $600. This census record lists Vermont as Dennis Huntley's place of birth, whereas that of 1850 lists his birthplace as New Hampshire.

Dennis's wife, Sally died at Marine Township on April 3, 1868, at the age of 68, according to her tombstone. She was buried on the property of Jonathan Huntley, one of Dennis's sons, and was the first of fourteen people to be buried in what became known as the Huntley Cemetery, a tax-free plot on one and a half acres set aside burials. The cemetery had become long overgrown and abandoned when the Washington County Historical Society re-discovered it in 1958 as part of a project of gathering information on early pioneer cemeteries in the county. A newspaper article from Stillwater, Minnesota, dated Thursday, May 7, 1959, reported that "The Huntley Cemetery was established in 1868 on one and a half acres, one and a half miles west of Arcola. The first burial and the only one with a marker left was that of Sally Huntley who died in 1868 at the age of 68. Two other members of the Huntley family died in the 1880s and were buried there but later their bodies were moved to Fairview Cemetery in Stillwater." Also buried there was Anton Christianson, the young man living with the Huntleys. He died at age 18.

By the time of the 1870 federal census, Dennis, age 73, was living with his son Jonathan in Marine, Washington County, MN. Jonathan was serving as a town supervisor. Sometime between June of 1870 when the census was taken and October of 1873, Dennis Huntley moved from Minnesota back to St. Johnsbury, Vermont. Perhaps Dennis was living with his oldest son Moses, who lived in St. Johnsbury until his death in 1886. His son Jonathan also returned from Minnesota to St. Johnsbury and lived in Vermont until his death in Centervale in 1915.

Dennis's brother Ansel had also returned from Minnesota to Vermont. In a deed executed on Dennis's behalf by his brother Ansel, Dennis Huntley sold for $350 the remaining equity that he had in the land that he and Sally had sold to Alvin DeWolf six years earlier for $1,000. Evidently DeWolf had been paying $100 per year since the purchase. In any case, the deed recorded in Washington County, MN, notes that Dennis Huntley went before a justice of the peace in Caledonia County, Vermont, which proves Dennis's presence in Vermont.

The deed was filed for record May 12, 1874. Dennis Huntley died ten days later on May 22, 1874, at St. Johnsbury, Vermont, according to a large Huntley Family marker in the Fairview Cemetery in Stillwater, MN (block 18, lot 32, west half). One of the four sides of the monument reads as follows:

DENNIS
HUNTLEY,
BORN JULY 4, 1798
DIED MAY 23, 1874
AT ST. JOHNSBURY, VT
AGED 75 YEARS

SALLY,
WIFE OF DENNIS HUNTLEY
DIED APR 3, 1868
AGED 68 YEARS

ANTON
CHRISTIANSON,
DIED FEB 1881
AGED 15 YEARS

HUNTLEY

Anton Christianson was the name of the young man whom the Huntleys raised according to some family traditions. But Sally Huntley died in 1868 when Anton was only 2 years old, and he was not with Dennis, who was living with his brother Ansel Huntley at the time of the 1870 census. After Sally's death, Anton must have been taken in by another of the Huntley families. Near the top of the monument on all four sides is a large H in a circle. One side of the monument is devoted to Jonathan Huntley and his wife Charlotte Hill; one side to John Howard Hill and his wife Philinda Mower; and the other side to Edna Marion Huntley and Lydia Philinda Huntley, two daughters of Jonathan and Charlotte.

It is not certain when the monument was erected or when some of the bodies from the Huntley Cemetery near Arcola were moved to Stillwater, but it was 1959 when the Washington Historical Society placed a marker at the Huntley Cemetery in Arcola. Strangely the Stillwater Cemetery Association has no information on the Huntley marker there and no burial records for the people named on it.

Brent Peterson, researcher for the Washington County Historical Society, says that all of the Huntleys were at one time buried in the Huntley Cemetery in Arcola and later moved to the Fairview Cemetery in Stillwater. He obviously agrees with the document on Fairview Cemetery published by the Minnesota Genealogical Society which interprets the line on the monument "at St. Johnsbury, Vt" to refer to the place of Dennis's birth, not his death. But there is no evidence to support that he was born in St. Johnsbury, nor evidence to support that he died in Minnesota. A careful search of the well-kept death records and probate records of Washington County, MN, indicate that he did not die there. Thus, the stone seems to be correct. And the land records seem to verify that Dennis Huntley did indeed die in St. Johnsbury, Vermont.

There are no burial or probate records for Dennis Huntley in St. Johnsbury, but that is not unusual, especially for Vermont. It seems that Dennis's property was sold before he died and that he was not buried in Vermont. A reasonable possibility is that his practical brother, Ansel, used the money from the sale of Dennis's property just before his death to pay for his funeral expenses and to have his body moved back to Minnesota. Probably he was buried either in the Huntley Cemetery at Arcola and later moved to Stillwater or buried directly in Stillwater. We know from the death certificate of his son Jonathan, that Jonathan Huntley, who died in 1915 in Centervale, Caledonia County, Vermont, was buried in Stillwater, Minnesota.