Hannah Jones Floyd
Wife of William Lloyd – Signer of the Declaration of Independence
1740 – 1781 A.D.

Hannah Jones, daughter of William Jones of Southampton, L.I., was married to William Floyd of Setauket, L.I., in 1760 (’61). He was a wealthy young farmer who had received a liberal education but chose to superintend the estate left him by his father, rather than enter upon a professional or business career. But little is known of the young woman beyond the fact that she was a capable, well-brought-up girl, who, from the time her husband began to take part in public life, which was as a delegate to the first Continental Congress which convened in Philadelphia in 1774, was left with the practical management of his affairs. William Floyd was already in command of the militia of Suffolk County and active in county and local matters. He was re-elected to the Congress of 1775 and 1776, and was one of the first of the signers to suffer personally for the stand which he had taken.

General Floyd’s estate included a fine plantation, highly productive and well stocked, and with an abundance of fruit and ornamental trees, many acres of fine timber and firewood, and a handsome mansion. Lying contiguous to New York with its ready market, it was highly valuable. As soon as the American troops were withdrawn from Long Island, the British took possession of the farm. Mrs. Floyd and her little family were force to fly across into Connecticut for safety and for seven years the family derived no benefit from their property. Every bit of the live stock and the crops that had been planted were taken by the British, the barns, and even the house, were used for stabling of the horses of the British troops, the fruit and ornamental trees were wantonly cut down, and acres of the timber destroyed and such serious inroads made upon his patrimony that after the establishment of peace, General Floyd declined further re-election to Congress or to the State Senate where he had done eminent service, and retired to begin life anew at the age of sixty-nine years, to an unbroken tract of land which he had purchased on the Mohawk River.

His wife did not live to take part in this migration; the anxieties and hardships to which she had been subjected had undermined her health and she passed away, May 16, 1781, in the forty-first year of her age. She was a public-spirited and patriotic woman and upheld uncomplainingly the course her husband pursued, and all his public actions. Hannah Floyd was the mother of three children, one son and two daughters.

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Reference: The Pioneer Mothers of America: A Record of the More Notable Women of the Early Days of the Country, and Particularly of the Colonial and Revolutionary Periods by Harry Clinton Green and Mary Wolcott Green, A.B. Third Volume, Published by G.P. Putnam’s Sons.