♂John Hovey

John Hovey (12 June 1707 – 1773) was a Harvard-educated minister, pastor of the church at Arundel, now Kennebunkport, Maine, from 1741 to 1768. He was found dead in his chair at a house in Biddeford, on his way home from Plymouth, in 1773. He was the sixth great-grandfather of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006), through his daughter Susannah Hovey (1737–before 1800).

Early life

He was born at Cambridge, Massachusetts, on 12 June 1707. A Hovey family genealogy published in 1913 names his parents as John Hovey, a baker and tavern keeper of Cambridge, and Abiel Watson. He graduated from Harvard College in 1725 and taught school at Cambridge. His first wife, Elizabeth Muzzey of Lexington, died in 1729 at nineteen. By 1736 he had married Susannah Levett, daughter of Joseph Levett of York, Maine, and had moved to York as schoolmaster, where he also began to preach. Their daughter Susannah was baptised at the First Church in Cambridge in September 1737, and a son John in January 1739.

Arundel

He was ordained over the church at Arundel in 1741 and served it until he was dismissed in 1768. The same genealogy records that he drew most of the deeds for the people of his district. His daughter Susannah married Thomas Perkins, the town clerk.

He died in 1773, aged 66, at the house of Colonel Richworth Jordan in Biddeford, where he had stopped on the way back from Plymouth. Administration of his estate was granted on 10 September 1773. His wife Susannah survived him.

A private family record in the vital records of Topsham calls his granddaughter Mary Perkins the daughter of “Thomas, Esq., of Kennebunk, who was a minister”. Her father was not a minister; the phrase probably belongs to her grandfather.