Frederick Maxfield Hoyt was born 15 September 1873 in Stamford, Connecticut, and was the son of Joseph Blachley Hoyt, a tanner and the head of the firm of Hoyt Brothers of New York, leather merchants, (b. 18 November 1812 in Connecticut, d. 27 December 1888), and Susan Swain Evans (b. October 1837 in Dorset, England; d. 21 August 1907). His parent had married 15 May 1866 in Brooklyn, New York. It seems his father had been married before and Frederick may have had some half-siblings. He had two brothers, Joseph Blatchley, b. 19 April 1866 (d. 16 September 1942 in New York City), and Willard Evans, b. 27 March 1870 (d. 1948). When his father died, he left a fortune to his family.

The family appeared on the 1880 census living in Stamford, Connecticut. Frederick graduated from the Sheffield Scientific School, Yale in 1895 and in 1900, when Frederick was 26 years old, he was listed as a yacht designer still living in Stamford City, Connecticut, with his widowed mother Susan, 62, brother Joseph, 33, and sister-in-law Gertrude, 28, niece Gertrude, 5, nephew Joseph, 2, and cousin Edwina Evans, 43. There were three servants living with them as well.

Frederick was married to Jane Ann Forby (b. 1879), a native of Amsterdam, New York on 17 May 1906 in Manhattan, New York City. The couple remained childless and lived at 112 East Seventy-Third Street, Manhattan.  Frederick was a broker with offices at 45 Broadway.

A noted yachtsman and a member of Larchmont Yacht Club since 1899 of which he was Commodore from 1901-1904, Frederick went over on the Atlantic when she crossed the ocean to Spain a few years prior to the Titanic disaster to contest for the International Cup. He was also a member of the New York Yacht Club, designed yachts, and he owned several prestigious racing yachts, including Norota, Syce and Isolde. The Hoyts reportedly maintained a summer home in Stamford and also spent time in Marblehead, Massachusetts.

Hoyt and his wife boarded the Titanic at Southampton as first-class passengers (ticket number 19943, which cost £90). Their eventual destination was to be Stamford, Connecticut and the couple occupied cabin C-93.

On the night of the sinking, it was reportedly the ship's surgeon Dr O'Loughlin (some sources say it was a steward) who went to the stateroom of the Hoyts to urge them to get themselves prepared and to make their way to the lifeboats. O'Loughlin reportedly assisted Mrs Hoyt into her lifeboat, collapsible D. Frederick later jumped into the water shortly after that lifeboat's launch and was pulled into it by its occupants.

Frederick and his wife Jane later settled in Mamaroneck, Westchester, New York and also apparently lived in Los Angeles for a time, appearing there on the 1930 census. Mrs Hoyt died there in 1932.

Frederick Hoyt's last years were spent living in the Manor Inn in Larchmont, Mamaroneck. He died from a heart attack at the New Rochelle Hospital on 5 July 1940 and is buried in Woodland Cemetery, Stamford, Connecticut with his wife.