♂Samuel Hovey

Samuel Hovey (12 December 1718 – 9 February 1796) was a man of Weymouth, Massachusetts, born in the town, whom the town clerk entered at his death as Captain Samuel Hovey. He was the sixth great-grandfather of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006) by two separate lines of descent, both through his daughter Sarah Hovey (1747–1805).

Early life

Samuel Hovey was born at Weymouth on 12 December 1718, a son of Ebenezer and Joanna Hovey. A history of Weymouth published in 1923 describes his father as a deacon and a blacksmith, born at Hadley, who lived in the town’s South Parish from 1703 until his death in 1756, and gives his mother as Joanna Benson of Hull, who died in 1735. By the same history, Samuel had two older sisters and a younger brother who died young, and he was the only son named in his father’s will of 1744. That will, recorded in the Suffolk County probate register, leaves bequests to “my well beloved Daughter Hannah Snow” and “Daughter Martha Pettengall”, and the decree proving it in 1756 committed the estate “unto his son Samuel Hovey Sole Executor in the same Will named”.

Marriage and family

On 2 September 1741, at the age of twenty-two, he married Elizabeth Colson at Weymouth. She was eighteen, a daughter of John and Susanna Colson of the town. The couple had six children, Joanna, Ebenezer, Sarah, Elizabeth, Chloe and Samuel, the eldest born in 1742 and the youngest in 1761. Their daughter Sarah married Nicholas Blanchard at Weymouth on 6 March 1765.

He was still living in Weymouth when the first federal census was taken in 1790: a transcription printed in the town history lists Samuel Hovey and his son Samuel Hovey Jr. as heads of separate households there. The records do not say how he came by the title of captain.

Will and death

A history of Weymouth published in 1923 dates his will 8 April 1793, when his son Ebenezer was already dead, and abstracts bequests to his wife Elizabeth as well. His will, recorded in the Norfolk County probate register, gives “my daughter, Sarah Blanchard, to her heirs and assigns four pounds, at the decease of my wife,” and names “my daughter, Elizabeth Agar,” “my daughter, Cloe Atwood,” “my daughter, Joanna Hovey” and “the legal heirs of my son, Ebenezer Hovey, deceased.” His son Samuel is the residuary heir and “my only & sole Executor.” The witnesses were Nathaniel Bayley, Josiah Blanchard and Betsey Bayley, and on 10 May 1796 the probate court at Quincy ordered Samuel Hovey, as executor, to advertise the estate. He died at Weymouth on 9 February 1796, in his seventy-eighth year. Elizabeth survived him by two years. He was probably buried in Lakeview Cemetery, Weymouth, where the undated gravestone gives only his death.

Lines of descent

Both lines run through his daughter Sarah 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 Samuel Hovey and Elizabeth Colson. From Wesley the descent to Nancy Jane Blanchard runs as one.

Notes

His will is recorded in the county probate register, but that page does not show its date, so the date of 8 April 1793 and the provision for his wife come from the 1923 history’s abstract, which also supplies his father’s trade and his mother’s maiden name. The town’s record of his birth gives only his parents’ first names.

Burial

The Find a Grave memorial 249623219 gives the gravestone of Capt. Samuel Hovey at Lakeview Cemetery, Weymouth. The stone is undated and gives only the death, so the burial rests on this compiled entry alone.