JOSEPH A. LOVEJOY

LOVEJOY

Posted By: Jake Tornholm (email)
Date: 4/22/2020 at 13:48:54

JOSEPH A. LOVEJOY, county Recorder of Deeds, was born in Columbia county, New York, March 26, 1819. His parents, Ira and Fanny (Simons) Lovejoy, were natives respectively of New York and Connecticut, and finally moved to Ohio, where the father died; the mother died in Brooklyn, New York, at the age of eighty-four years.

Mr. Lovejoy, the subject of this notice, was the fourth child in the above family, and was brought up on a farm, as his father was a farmer all his life. He began life for himself at the early age of eleven years, in the pursuit of agriculture. When still a youth, however, he began clerking in the city of New York, and continued there fifteen years. The great civil war then breaking out, he three times offered his services as a soldier before he was accepted, and he was then admitted into Company C, One Hundred and Seventy-Sixth Ohio Volunteer Infantry, as First Lieutenant. In Nashville he was Assistant Chief Patrol, doing provost duty. He has in his possession letters like the following.

"Headquarters, Port of Nashville, Tenn.

"June 13, 1865.

"Captain Lovejoy, Dear Sir: - Allow me to express to you my thanks for your diligence, promptness and personal kindness during the period of your services as Assistant Chief Patrol of this city. I have had nine officers in the same position since I have acted as Provost-Marshal of this post, and I take great pleasure in assuring you that the duty has never been done with more efficiency or popularity than during your term. I again express my gratitude to you for your able assistance in the work of my office, and also my regret that your term of office has expired. I am yours very truly,

"Hunter Brooke"

Mr. Lovejoy had many exciting experiences during his service in the war, but his record as Provost-Marshall is unexcelled. June 18, 1865, he was honorably discharged, when he had a Captain's commission.

After the war he was at Fayette, Iowa, for a time, and then in Illinois, meanwhile studying theology, and finally, in 1871, he located at Corning, as pastor of the Methodist Episcopal Church. He continued as a minister of the gospel until 1880, when he became bookkeeper in the Bank of Corning. In the fall of 1888 he was elected county Recorder of Deeds; was re-elected in the autumn of 1890, by a majority four times as large as the first, and is now serving in that capacity with satisfaction to the public.

In 1840 he married Eliza A. Palmer, a native of New York, and they have three daughters living and one son dead. The daughters are married, and Mr. Lovejoy has six grandchildren. His first wife died, and he, in 1871, married Martha Pratt. He has been a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church for fifty years; belongs to the Masonic order, and has been Chaplain of Llewellyn Post, G. A. R., ever since its organization. Politically he was originally a Whig, and since the organization of the new party, he has been a Republican, taking an efficient part in its formation and in the promulgation of its principles.