Mrs Frederick Maxfield Hoyt was born as Jane Anne Forby in Amsterdam, Montgomery, New York on 28 February 1879.
She was the daughter of Francis M. Forby (1844-1920), a carpenter, and Emmeline Cordelia Hewitt (1844-1920). Both her parents hailed from New York. She had only one known sibling, her sister Harriett (b. 1877).
Jane first appears on the 1880 census living with her parents at the home of her maternal grandparents Ephraim, a butcher, and Jane Ann Hewitt in Amsterdam, New York. She was still living with her parents by the time of the 1900 census, still in Amsterdam.
Jane was later married to Frederick Maxfield Hoyt (b. 1873), a native of Connecticut, a Yale graduate, prolific yachtsman and a broker based at 45 Broadway, Manhattan. The couple remained childless and lived at 112 East Seventy-Third Street, Manhattan. The Hoyts reportedly maintained a summer home in Stamford and also spent time in Marblehead, Massachusetts.
Jane and her husband 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. Her husband later jumped into the water shortly after that lifeboat's launch and was pulled into it by its occupants.
Jane Hoyt in the 1920s
Jane and her husband later settled in Mamaroneck, Westchester, New York and also apparently lived in Los Angeles for a time, appearing there on the 1930 census. She died in Long Beach, California on 17 July 1932 aged 53 and is buried in Woodland Cemetery, Stamford, Connecticut with her husband.
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