♀Joan Glover

Joan Glover was a mercer’s daughter of Smarden, in Kent, England, and the mother of Richard Borden, who crossed to New England and was among the first planters of Portsmouth, Rhode Island, in 1638. She married Matthew Borden (about 1563 – 1620), a yeoman of Headcorn, as his second wife, and she was the tenth great-grandmother of Frederic Roger Curtis (1928–2007) by two separate lines of descent, both through her son Richard Borden (1595–1671).

Family

Joan was the younger daughter of John Glover, a mercer^W of Smarden, in Kent, and his wife Joan Kippinge, who had married at Headcorn on 16 June 1567. Her elder sister, Amy, was christened at Smarden on 2 February 1568/9, and Joan was probably the child christened there on 1 January 1570/1.

Marriage

Matthew Borden and Joan Glover married at Smarden, in Kent, on 10 July 1592; a study of the Smarden church records published in 2023 gives the same year, which fits the will her father made in April 1593, where she is already “Joane Borden my daughter”. Matthew had been married before, to Eleanor Taylor, who had died early in 1592.

John Glover was “sicke in bodie” when he made that will on 14 April 1593, and he died before it was proved in April 1595. He divided the residue of his goods equally among his wife and his two daughters, Amy and Joan, and left his lands in Smarden to the two sisters equally, once their mother had died.

Children

The couple had eight children between 1593 and 1607. The first, Joan, was christened at Headcorn on 29 April 1593 and buried there six weeks later, and the eldest son, John, christened in 1594, also died young. Richard, the future settler of Portsmouth, was christened at Headcorn on 22 February 1595/6, and Mary, William, Amy, Edward and a second John followed between about 1598 and 1607.

Joan was still living when Matthew made his will on 26 September 1620, eight days before his burial at Headcorn on 4 October 1620.

Lines of descent

Both lines run through her son Richard Borden (1595–1671) and Richard’s daughter Mary Borden, who married John Cook. They divide in later generations and meet again in Salena Sherman (1806–1842), whose parents Waite Allen (1766–1850) and Batchelder Sherman (1761–1828) both descend from Joan.

Notes

Identification

G. Andrews Moriarty’s account of the Bordens of Headcorn, in the New England Historical and Genealogical Register 84 (1930), named Matthew’s second wife only as “Joan —“, the mother of his surviving children, living on 26 September 1620. Her surname and parents come from Clifford L. Stott, “Joan Glover, Mother of Richard Borden of Headcorn, Kent and Portsmouth, Rhode Island”, in the same journal, 177 (2023): 155–157. Stott’s source for the marriage and her christening is the archdeacon’s transcripts of Smarden, a parish with no surviving register before 1632. The christening entry gives no parents’ names, so the link to John Glover rests on his will, which names “Joane Borden my daughter”; Stott calls her “undoubtedly” Matthew’s second wife. The quotations from the will are from Stott’s excerpts; the will was proved by 11 April 1595.

The date of the marriage

A FamilySearch index of English marriages gives “Mathew Borden” and “Joane Glouer” at Smarden on 10 July 1593; the date followed here is 10 July 1592. Stott gives 10 July 1592 in his text and 10 July 1595 in his summary; 1595 cannot be right, since her son John was christened in 1594. The year 1592 is the one the other records support: Eleanor Taylor was buried at Biddenden in February 1591/2, the infant Joan was christened as Matthew’s daughter in April 1593, and John Glover’s will of 14 April 1593 already calls her Joane Borden. The January and February years are Old Style^W, when the year began on 25 March.