San
Joaquin County
Biographies
NOAH HOVARD
For eighteen years Noah Hovard has
been a resident of San Joaquin County, and his time and energies have been
devoted to farming interests, more especially to the culture of grapes. By close application to his business and well
directed energy he has gained success so that he is now living retired from
active business cares, residing at 821 Central Avenue, Lodi. He was born in Gloucestershire, England, July
3, 1862, a son of Thomas and Ann Hovard, also natives of England. Thomas Hovard was a farmer by
occupation. There were six children in
the family: Sarah, John, Percival, Andrew,
Noah, the subject of this sketch, and Maria.
After a grammar school education, at the age of sixteen Noah Hovard was
employed at the butcher’s trade in England, working until 1882 when he came to
the United States and first settled at Gilman, Illinois, where he worked on
farms for a year and a half. Then he
removed to Jefferson County, Nebraska, and again took up farming working for
wages until 1885 when he homesteaded a quarter section in Hayes County, which
he farmed for ten years, then was obliged to relinquish his claim on account of
the continued crop failures; he then returned to Jefferson County, Nebraska,
and for another ten years farmed leased properties.
On October 3, 1889, occurred the
first marriage of Mr. Hovard, which united him with Miss Olive McAdow, a native
of Nodaway County, Missouri, a daughter of Dr. J. S. and Malinda (Brown)
McAdow, both parents’ natives of Kentucky, where her father was a practicing
physician and surgeon. Four children
were born to Mr. and Mrs. Hovard:
Herbert entered the World War with the first contingent that was drafted
from Stockton and with the Ninety-first Division was sent to Camp Lewis; then
he was transferred to Company E, Fifty-ninth Infantry, Fourth Division, and on
October 15, 1918, was killed in action in the Meuse-Argonne offensive. He was a member of the Masonic lodge. Alice, Mrs. Jack Ross, resides in Stockton;
John Hovard, who makes his home with his parents at Lodi, participated in the
World War as a member of Company A, 364th Infantry, Ninety-first
Division, took part in the various engagements with his command after he
arrived in France, and when the armistice was signed returned to the United
States and was honorably discharged; Grace, Mrs. John Hagel,
lives in Sacramento County.
In 1904 the family left Nebraska for
California and upon their arrival in the Golden State settled near Lodi where
Mr. Hovard purchased a twenty-acre ranch three-fourths of a mile south of the
Alpine district school; this ranch was set to a vineyard which was two years
old at the time of purchase. Here Mrs.
Hovard passed away in 1916, and in March, 1920, Mr. Hovard sold his ranch and
moved to Lodi. The second marriage of
Mr. Hovard occurred on May 30, 1917, in Stockton, and united him with Mrs.
Dollie (Mason) Keen, a native of Illinois.
Mrs. Hovard removed from Illinois to Utah and then to California,
arriving here about the time that her husband did. Mr. Hovard is a Democrat in politics and for
eight years was clerk of the school board of the Alpine district. Fraternally he is a member of the Knights and
Ladies of Security, which he joined twenty-three years ago.
Transcribed by Gerald Iaquinta.
Source: Tinkham, George
H., History of San Joaquin County, California , Page
1164. Los Angeles, Calif.: Historic
Record Co., 1923.
© 2011 Gerald Iaquinta.
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