My second great-grandmother, Esther Abigail Whitman, arrived in Boston from Guysborough, Nova Scotia, in 1849. She was in New York City by 1853 when she married James Pyle (also of Guysborough). Her parents and almost all of her siblings followed in 1857.
One Whitman brother remained in Canada.
George William Whitman (more often referred to as William or William George Whitman) was born in Manchester, Guysborough County, Nova Scotia, on November 22, 1833, to Thomas Cutler Whitman and Diana Morgan, as their third child and oldest son.
At age 26, he married Esther French of Kent County, Ontario, Canada, on March 6, 1860.
By 1857, it would have taken about a day and a half to travel by train from Kent, Ontario (not too far from Detroit, Michigan) to New York City. The red circle in the map below indicates approximately where Kent County (now Chatham-Kent), Ontario, is located.
It appears that the newly-married couple traveled to his father's household in Jamaica,
Queens, New York, by July 1860 which is when the Thomas C. Whitman family was enumerated in the
1860 federal census. Perhaps he wanted to introduce his new wife to his family.
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| How long it took to travel from New York City to various locations in the United States; from the Atlas of Historical Geography of the United States |
