♂John Glover

John Glover (about 1536 – between 14 April 1593 and 11 April 1595) was a mercer^W of Smarden, in Kent, England, and the grandfather of Richard Borden, who crossed to New England and was among the first planters of Portsmouth, Rhode Island, in 1638. John was the eleventh great-grandfather of Frederic Roger Curtis (1928–2007) by two separate lines of descent, both through his daughter Joan Glover.

Family

John Glover and Joan Kippinge married at Headcorn, in Kent, on 16 June 1567. The couple had two known daughters: Amy, christened at Smarden on 2 February 1568/9, and Joan, probably the child christened there on 1 January 1570/1. Amy married William Glover at Ashford, in Kent, on 5 September 1592.

By April 1593 the younger daughter was married too: her father’s will calls her “Joane Borden my daughter”, and she was almost certainly the second wife of Matthew Borden, a yeoman of Headcorn, and the mother of his son Richard, christened at Headcorn on 22 February 1595/6. John did not live to see that grandson, who was born after his death.

The will

John was “sicke in bodie but of good and p[er]fect minde and remembrance” when he made his will on 14 April 1593. Besides his trade he kept livestock: he left his son-in-law William Glover “foure of the bigger younger beasts”, and he held his oxen and sheep back from the rest of his goods, which he divided equally among his wife and his two daughters.

He made his wife, Joan, his sole executrix. She was to have the lease of the house he was living in and the profits of all his lands and tenements in Smarden for the rest of her life; after her death the house was to go to the two daughters, and the lands to Amy and Joan equally, “and theire heires forevr”. John died before the will was proved on 11 April 1595.

Lines of descent

Both lines run through his daughter Joan Glover, 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 John.

Notes

Sources

John’s family and will are from Clifford L. Stott, “Joan Glover, Mother of Richard Borden of Headcorn, Kent and Portsmouth, Rhode Island”, in the New England Historical and Genealogical Register 177 (2023): 155–157, which prints the excerpts of the will quoted here; the will is registered in the Archdeaconry Court of Canterbury. A FamilySearch index of the Headcorn register also gives the marriage of 16 June 1567, as “John Glover” and “Johane ?Ippinge”, with the first letter of her surname unread. His birth year is Stott’s estimate, “based on his estimated age at marriage”, not a record.

Identification

The christening of Joan at Smarden in 1570/1 names no parents. The link between John Glover and the Borden family rests on his will, which names “Joane Borden my daughter”; Stott calls her “undoubtedly” Matthew Borden’s second wife and the mother of Richard Borden. An earlier account of the Bordens of Headcorn, published in the same journal in 1930, named Matthew’s second wife only as Joan.

Parentage

Stott suggests that John “may have been” the son of William Glover of Smarden, who died without a will before 8 May 1566, when his goods were inventoried, and whose son John Glover was appointed to administer the estate. Another John Glover of Smarden was buried there on 12 August 1602, so William’s son could be either man, and the question is left open here.

Dates

The January and February years are Old Style^W, when the year began on 25 March.