Hovey

15, 1861, was commissioned its colonel. This
regiment, the 33rd Illinois, or Normal Regiment
as it was called, was noted for its esprit de corps
and excellent discipline. On Sept. 5, 1862, Hov-
ey was promoted to the rank of brigadier-gen-
eral and for gallantry and meritorious conduct
in battle, particularly at Arkansas Post, Jan. n,
1863, was brevetted major-general of volunteers,
Mar. 13,1865. He was compelled to resign from
active service owing to the fact that at Arkansas
Post he was wounded by a bullet which passed
through both of his arms. After the war Hovey
moved to Washington, D. C, where he practised
law until his death. He married, Oct. 9, 1854,
Harriette Farnham Spofford of Andover, Mass.,
who after a long and successful career as a teach-
er was later associated with John Eaton [#.•£>.]
in the development of the Bureau of Education,
in which department she occupied a highly re-
sponsible position. Three sons were born to the
Hoveys, one of whom was Richard [#.#.].

[The Hovey Book (1913); E. Duis, The Good Old
Times in McLean County, III. (1874); F. B. Heitman,
Hist. Reg. and Diet. U. S. Army (1890); Semi-Cen-
tennial Hist, of the III. State Normal Univ., 1857-190?
(1907); A Geneal. Record . . . of Families Spelling
Their Name Spofford (1888) ; J. W. Cook, in Twenty-
Second Biennial Report of the Supt. of Public Instruc-
tion of the State of III. (1898), pp. Ixxiv ff.J

R.C.MCG.

HOVEY, CHARLES MASON (Oct. 26,
i8io~Sept. 2, 1887), horticulturist, was born and
spent nearly all his life in Cambridge, Mass. He
was the son of Phineas Brown and Sarah
(Stone) Hovey and a descendant of Daniel Ho-
vey who came from England and settled at Ips-
wich, Mass., about 1635. Charles Hovey grad-
uated from the Cambridge Academy in 1824, and
in 1832, with his brother Phineas, established a
nursery at Cambridge which remained his prin-
cipal interest until his death. In 1834 he made
his greatest single contribution to horticulture
in the origination of the Hovey strawberry, the
first named variety of any fruit produced in
North America by a definite plan of plant breed-
ing, and the first important North American va-
riety in the present type of large-fruited straw-
berries. Until its introduction, dependence had
been placed on European varieties which were
nearly all failures tinder American conditions.
The financial returns to Hovey from the sale of
his seedling, as well as the excellent quality of
the fruit, encouraged fruit growers everywhere
so markedly that strawberry growing became an
important phase of horticulture before the mid-
dle of the century, and the breeding of new varie-
ties of other fruits was stimulated.

Through the experience obtained from his
nursery and from his extensive private collec-

Hovey

tion of pears, apples, plums, grapes, and orna-
mentals maintained on his grounds at Cambridge,
Hovey became an acknowledged authority on
varieties of fruit and ornamentals. He is best
known, however, as the editor of The American
Gardener's Magazine and Register, which, with
his brother, he founded in 1835. In 1837 the
name was changed to The Magazine of Horti-
culture, Botany, and all Useful Discoveries and
Improvements in Rural Affairs, with Charles
M. Hovey as editor. The first writings of the fa-
mous horticulturist Marshall P. Wilder [#.?;.],
and the first American articles of Peter Hender-
son \_q.v..], horticulturist, seedsman, and writer,
appeared in its pages, and for a long time it was
the only horticultural journal on the continent.
Hovey continued it until 1868. He published
also two complete volumes and part of a third
entitled Fruits of America, purposing to give
"richly colored figures and full descriptions of
all the choicest varieties cultivated in the United
States." This work was issued in parts from
1847 to 1856, though the title-page of the first
complete volume bears the date 1852. The vol-
umes are handsomely printed and contain more
than a hundred colored plates of various varie-
ties of fruit which were sketched from nature by
Hovey himself. His writings are characterized
by the spirit of accuracy and conservatism on the
whole. The "strawberry war" waged from 1842
to 1848 between Hovey and Nicholas Longworth
[q.v.] of Cincinnati, as principals, was one of the
particularly exciting periods of his life, although
in this affair both combatants were somewhat in
error regarding sex in strawberries.

Hovey was a member of the American Po-
mological Society and its vice-president from
Massachusetts for many years. He joined the
Massachusetts Horticultural Society in 1843,
four years after its establishment, and at one
time or another held nearly every office in that
organization, being president from 1863 to 1866.
The Society's tribute to him following his death
at Cambridge stated that "considering his long
life devoted exclusively to this pursuit, it may be
doubted whether any other man in this country
has done so much to stimulate a love of horti-
culture in all its branches." Hovey was mar-
ried on Dec. 25, 1835, to Anna Maria Chaponil,
at Cambridge.

[S. W. Fletcher, The Strawberry in North America
(1917) ; U. P. Hedrick and others, The Small Fruits

ivjufriiitrvf^f j.-'cw. AUOU, j. rn$ juvt/tfji JJV\SK> \*y*-oj t *••• •*•*

Bailey, in his Standard Cyc. of Horticulture (1915)*
III, 1580; files of the Mag. of Horticulture', Boston
Post, Sept. 3, 1887.] R.H.S.

272