♀Joanna Benson

Joanna Benson (died 26 March 1735) was for more than thirty years the wife of Ebenezer Hovey, a deacon of Weymouth, in the Province of Massachusetts Bay. She was the seventh great-grandmother of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006) by two separate lines of descent, both through her son Samuel Hovey (1718–1796).

Family and marriage

Joanna was a daughter of Joseph Benson of Hull, a yeoman, and she probably married Ebenezer Hovey about 1702. On 2 January 1706/7 Ebenezer, a blacksmith of Weymouth, and Joanna, who signed the deed with her mark, released to her brother Joseph Benson of Hull, a cordwainer and the eldest son of the late Joseph, all their share in the houses and lands their father had left at Hull, for ten pounds ten shillings. The deed says their father was already dead. Her sister Sarah and her husband Joseph Pratt of Bridgewater had released their own shares on 31 December 1705, and her other sisters and her brother John released theirs in the months and years that followed.

Her father was probably the Joseph who was a son of John Benson Sr., who died on 13 January 1678/9. John’s will of 16 April 1678 gave his home lot and dwelling houses to Joseph and made his wife Marah sole executrix. When the inventory was presented in March 1679, Joseph described Marah as his mother, though the records do not say whether she bore him or married into the family. John Sr. was probably the John Benson who had come from Oxfordshire on the Confidence in 1638 and settled first at Hingham.

Children

The couple had five children, Hannah, Martha, Susanna, Samuel and Ebenezer, the eldest born in 1703 and the youngest baptized in 1724. Hannah was born at Weymouth on 4 February 1703, Susanna died on 29 June 1717, and Samuel was born on 12 December 1718. The younger Ebenezer, by the history, was baptized at the South Church in December 1724 and died young.

Death

Joanna died at Weymouth on 26 March 1735. The town clerk entered her death as “Joanna, w. Dea. Ebenezer”, by which time her husband had become a deacon. Her son Samuel was then sixteen. On 13 November 1735, at Weymouth, Ebenezer married the widow Sarah King of Norton.

Lines of descent

Both lines run through her son Samuel, Samuel’s daughter Sarah Hovey (1747–1805) and her son Nicholas Blanchard (1766–1849). They meet again in Wesley Blanchard (1844–1908), whose parents, Joseph Knapp Blanchard (1820–1885) and Elizabeth Trueworthy Blanchard (1825–1884), were both descended from Ebenezer Hovey and Joanna Benson. From Wesley the descent to Nancy Jane Blanchard runs as one.

Notes

Her first name is on record: the town clerk wrote it Johannah at Hannah’s birth and Joanna at Samuel’s birth and at her own death, and the 1706 deed writes it Johanna. Her maiden name, her father and his Hull estate come from that deed and the releases that followed it. No record read names her mother; the 1923 history gives her as Sarah. Her marriage about 1702 comes from the 1923 history alone, and no record of her birth has been found.

The 1706 release

The deed is in the Suffolk Registry of Deeds, book 26, pages 181 and 182, and was recorded on 10 June 1712. Its date, 2 January 1706, is Old Style, which is 1706/7 by modern reckoning. Ebenezer signed; Joanna signed with her mark. The witnesses were Benjamin Richards and Samuel Pratt, and the acknowledgment was taken before Ephraim Hunt, justice of the peace, on 26 March 1708. A family book on the Hovey line, published in 1913, abstracts the same deed.

The other children of Joseph Benson

The same kind of release was made by Mary, wife of Zachariah Gurney of Weymouth (3 January 1706/7); Susanna, wife of John Randall of Weymouth (10 January 1706/7); Sarah, wife of Joseph Pratt of Bridgewater (31 December 1705, the earliest); and John Benson, a weaver of Bridgewater (26 March 1708). The Pratt release’s wording on the father’s death is less certain than the 1706 deed’s, so the body relies on that deed. Other lists date his death to 1705; the deeds show only that he was dead by 2 January 1706/7.

Her father and grandfather

John Benson Sr.’s will is in the Suffolk probate register, dated 16 April 1678 and proved 26 March 1679; the original is in the court’s file papers. It gives the home lot and dwelling houses to his son Joseph, another lot to his son John, five pounds to each of two daughters, and five pounds to the children of a deceased daughter. Marah was sole executrix. Joseph presented the inventory of 20 February 1678/9 on 25 March 1679, and its endorsement says the executrix was lame and could not come out. The inventory heads John’s death as 13 January 1678/9. On 29 December 1681, after Marah’s death, administration went to his sons John and Joseph, Joseph being named as of Hull.

No record names the Joseph of the probate papers and the Joseph of Hull who died before 1707 as one man; the link rests on name and town. A 1938 family book, A Pioneer Family, makes the same link and gives this Joseph a birth about 1640 at Hingham. That book is a secondary source, not a record.

The 1638 passenger list

The Confidence list, dated at Southampton on 24 April 1638, is printed in Drake’s The Founders of New England (1860), page 59. It names John Binson of Conshamt in Oxfordshire, husbandman, aged 30, with his wife Mary and children John and Mary under four years old. The 1920 Benson family book reads the place as Caversham and identifies the man with John Benson of Hingham. A 1938 family book lists the Hingham children as John, born about 1634 in England, Mary, about 1636, and Joseph, about 1640 at Hingham, which fits the list. Hingham’s town history has no early Benson entry, and no record read ties the two Johns together. The identification is therefore probable, not proven.