Rev. Henry Emerson Hovey Biography from History of Rockingham County, New Hampshire Contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by MLM, Volunteer 0000130. For the current email address, please go to http://www.rootsweb.com/~archreg/vols/00001.html#0000130 Copyright. All rights reserved. ************************************************************************ Full copyright notice - http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm USGenWeb Archives - http://www.usgwarchives.net ************************************************************************ Surname: HOVEY Source: History of Rockingham County, New Hampshire and Representative Citizens by Charles A. Hazlett, Richmond-Arnold Publishing Co., Chicago, Ill., 1915 Page 737 REV. HENRY EMERSON HOVEY, who at the time of his de- cease, on August 6th, 1909, was rector of St. John's Church, at Ports- mouth, N. H., was born in Lowell, Mass., November 23, 1844, a son of Charles and Catherine Smith Hoyey. He prepared for college in the Lowell public schools, and entered Trinity College at Hartford, Conn., in 1862, graduating near the head of his class in 1866. There- upon he at once entered the General Theological Seminary in New York City and was graduated from that institution in 1869, being or- dained deacon in the same year by Bishop Williams of Connecticut. Shortly after his graduation he went abroad, spending much of his time at Oxford, England. The period of his diaconate was passed as rector of St. John's Church, Fort Hamilton, in New York Harbor. Ordained priest by Bishop Littlejohn of Long Island in 1870, he was shortly after elected rector of the Church of the Ascension, at Fall River, Mass., and had charge of this large parish until 1872, when he accepted the rectorship of the new and then struggling parish of St. Barnabas, Brooklyn, New York. Here he remained ten years, declin- ing all other offers. In 1883 he left St. Barnabas parish firmly estab- lished and a center of power and influence in the Eighteenth Ward of that great city. In 1880 Mr. Hovey took a vacation on the continent of Europe. In 1882 he was simultaneously offered the rectorship of the American Episcopal Church in Geneva, Switzerland, and that of St. John's Church in Portsmouth, N. H. He chose the latter and came here in February, 1883. His work here is well known. During his rectorship St. John's Church was largely restored and beautified; St. John's Guild, now so fruitful in good works, was organized. He was also the organizer of Christ's Church, and its first rector, serving as such until 1894, when it was placed in a position to maintain itself, Mr. Hovey retiring from connection with it, except that he was retained in the honorary capacity of rector emeritus. Among his other labors, the Cottage Hospital (now by an act of legislature called The Portsmouth Hospital), of which also he was the organizer, was founded and partially endowed, Mr. Hovey being president of the board of trustees of this corporation for several years, as well as of that of the Chase Home for Children, pre- siding as president of both until his death. In 1884 Mr. Hovey delivered the address of welcome on behalf of the citizens of Portsmouth to the Greeley party coming from the Arctic regions, and in 1885 the civic oration at the local commemoration of the death of General Grant. He was elected a trustee of the Faith Home for Indigent Women in this city in the last mentioned year, a trustee of St. Mary's Diocesan School at Concord in 1886, in 1887 a Page 738 member of the Board of Instruction here, and in 1893 president of the New Hampshire Society of the Sons of the Revolution. With the multifarious duties connected with these various offices with the care of a large parish and the management of two Sunday schools, with the calls made upon his time by the Hospital and the Children's Home-which institutions, thought wholly unsectarian, nat- urally looked to him for many of their services-and with a large amount of other work quite outside of his parochial relations Rev. Mr. Hovey probably was as busy a man for seven days of the week as there was in the community. A man of wide reading, of strong convictions, and of generous sympa- thies, an accurate scholar, an admirable organizer, a stanch churchman and an affectionate rector, the people of St. John's had reason to be proud of his leadership. As a preacher Mr. Hovey was unusually simple, direct and logical. His sermons, graphic, tender, earnest, were entirely free from sensationalism, yet he held the hearer's attention from the first word to the last. No doubt the hope expressed by many was the wish of the townspeople generally-that Mr. Hovey might remain the incum- bent of the venerable parish of St. John's as long as he lived-which wish was fulfilled. In 1871 Mr. Hovey was married to a remote cousin, Miss Sarah Louise Folsom, daughter of the late Charles J. Folsom, of New York City. They had five children, as follows: Sarah Whittier Hovey; Kath- arine Emerson, who is the wife of Hon. William S. Seabury of New York City and Phoenix, Arizona; Louise Folsom, wife of Lieutenant- Commander Austin Kautz, U. S. N., of Washington, D. C. ; Ethelreda Downing, wife of Lieutenant Scudder Klyce, U. S. N., and Ensign Charles Emerson Hovey, U. S. N ., who was killed in action on the Island of Basilan, Philippine Islands, September 24, 1911. In memory of Rev. Henry Emerson Hoyey, a very fine window was given to St. John's Church by his parishioners and friends. His remains were laid to rest in St. John's Churchyard.