The Children of Harry and Melinda Hazen
Back: John Hazen, Emma Hugo, Iva Dimmer, Ralph Hazen,
Front: Mary Britton, Vera Denny, Grace Britton

Harry Miles Hazen

  The earliest American ancestor of Harry Miles Hazen was Edward Hazen who arrived in Massachusetts in 1639. He was a farmer who had assisted in building parts of the cathedral at Cadney, Lincolnshire, which was his home town in England. Soon after arrival, Edward's first wife died and he married a fellow colonist, Hannah Grant who is our Hazen  ancestress.
     Their son Thomas was wounded in King Philip's War, but survived. His son Jacob married a granddaughter of Captain Cook of the Mayflower, making us all "Mayflower Descendants", a big surprise to all of us as we had no idea we were related to anybody famous.
     Jacob's son Jacob served in the Revolutionary War.
     His son William married Hannah Packard who was a woman of great courage and an adventurous spirit. When her husband died, she brought her children west where they might find a better life than they would have had in Connecticut. Among those children were a 12-year-old son named Jabin who appears in many documents in this area and our ancestor, her son Gurdon for whom there is little documentary history other than a birth record in Norwich Twp., New London, CT and a marriage record when he married Elizabeth Potts or Potter in New York in 1811.
     According to the family genealogy, Harrison Hazen, our ancestor was born to Gurdon and Elizabeth in what is now Ashland County in 1816.
     Harrison Hazen married Mary Jane Miles in Richland County in 1841 and appears in a Green Township tax roll in 1845.  Private Harrison Hazen, at the age of 45 years enlisted in Company G of the 65th Ohio Volunteer Infantry and served Oct 1861 through March 1863 in the Civil War. He died tragically on his way home after a medical discharge.
   Mary Jane was left to raise their children, including Harry Miles, on a meager widow's pension. Harry was deafened at age 17 by illness.
     Harry married Malinda Zehner 19 March 1878, less than one year after the death of his mother. Harry and Malinda had eight children: Emma, John, Iva, Ralph, Harry Artis  (who died at ten months of age), Grace, Mary, and Vera.
     The genealogy of our branch of the family in The Hazen Family In America ends with this generation. Updated information needs to be provided to Stanley Hazen, the family genealogist.

  Malinda Zehner Hazen

     Malinda Zehner's first American ancestor was Adam Zehner who said that he emigrated from the Black Forest of Germany in 1749, a fugitive, after poaching deer to feed his starving family. Though he never mentioned any family other than his mother (who he said was of Swiss extraction), we now know from the German Zehner genealogy posted on the internet that there were many brothers and sisters. He was apparently afraid of reprisals to the family if he were too free with information about those left back in Germany.
     To pay his passage to the New World on the ship John (and) Elizabeth out of Amsterdam, Adam sold himself into three years bonded servitude. Arriving in Philadelphia in 1754, his contract was purchased by a cooper named Mertz. After completing his contract, Adam Zehner married Mertz's daughter Maria (Mary).
     Adam and his sons, Peter, John, and David, served in the Revolutionary War. However, when asked to substitute for his father at the Battle of Brandywine, Peter, the eldest, refused, and, at the time when the property was divided, he was not given the eldest's rightful share, so left Pennsylvania with his family and settled in Petersburg (now Mifflin), Ohio, arriving there about 1826.
     Among Peter Zehner's children was a son named Isaac who married Leah Long (or possibly DeLong) in Richland County in 1829. The Isaac Zehner family appeared in the 1830 and 1850 censuses, both times living in Mifflin Township.
     Malinda was a daughter of Isaac Zehner.

*In the archives of the Ashland University Library, in the Hazen Folk Music Collection, is a recording of the ballad Marji Hazen wrote about Adam Zehner.