John Jacobs (Hover) of Chester, Vermont

John Jacobs, Sr.
Died: Jan. 2, 1822
AE 90 years

My interest in learning about my Jacobs’ ancestors–and about genealogy in general–can be directly attributed to my cousin, Clarence Jacobs. Clarence and his son, Steve, have worked on the Jacobs’ family tree for close to 50 years. Many of those years without the aid of the internet! Clarence graciously typed up a brief version of this history and presented it to my father many years ago. Thankfully my dad left it to me. I held onto it for many years before I delved into it in earnest–once I did I was hooked and wanted to know more. Thus began my genealogy journey.

The many years of research that Clarence and Steve have done resulted in a tremendous amount of information being gathered about my family–but always there was this brick wall by the name of John Jacobs, Sr. He remains a brick wall, but the search took a decided turn in 2012.

John Jacobs is buried in Chester, Vermont. According to his tombstone he was 90 years old when he died on January 2, 1822. This means he should have been born in 1731. However, most people on sites like Ancestry.com have either assumed he was the John Jacobs who was born in 1732 in Hingham, MA, or the John Jacobs born in 1732 in Rehoboth, MA. Either of these would tie our John Jacobs into the Nicholas Jacob line–Nicholas being the first Jacob to have come to this country.

But there has never been conclusive proof of who John of Chester really was. In 2012 I traveled to Chester, Vermont and bought a book on the history of Chester published by the Chester Historical Society. One thing that Clarence & Steve Jacobs uncovered in their extensive research was that John, Sr. was a blacksmith. A piece of information that makes the following story, taken from the Chester Historical Society’s book most intriguing:

“John Jacobs Hover was born in Holland. When but a lad he came to America and settled with his parents in the state of Pennsylvania. Being a young fellow and loving excitement, as all boys do, he started on a trip to the state of Vermont. On the way he was pursued by Indians. Night descended on the lad of twenty, and he crawled into a hollow log. The Indians crept up on him and turned the log around. All they found was a spider’s web spun on the outside of the log. Disappointed, they went away. In the morning John Hover started again on his journey. He arrived safely in Chester without anymore thrilling experiences that we know. He settled here and built a place now owned by Charles Holden. He was a blacksmith by trade, and with the help of a son did a rather large business here. Mr. Hover married and had four sons. Mrs. Clara Howard Smith is a descendent of this family, her grandfather being one of the Hover sons. After Hover died, Jacobs lived in this house [the Charles Holden home], then a man by the name of Henry Church occupied it.”

Chester Historical Society MMXI, History of Chester, Vermont, 37 (2011).

This book mentioned elsewhere that the town of Chester at one time had three different blacksmith shops. So I wondered, could there really have been one shop owned by a John Jacobs and one owned by a John Jacobs Hover? It seemed highly unlikely. So I Googled John Jacobs Hover and found one single entry (at that time): a book titled “American ancestry: giving name and descent, in the male line, of Americans whose ancestors settled in the United States previous to the Declaration of Independence,  Volume 6.” In this book is an entry for the genealogy of George Lowell Fletcher of Chester, Vermont. George married Emily Cedoro Jacobs. “Her gt.-gr.-father, John, came to Chester from Penn., his name originally John Jacobs Hover, but the Hover was dropped . . . .”

I then researched Emily Jacobs and learned that Emily was born in 1821 in Chester, VT. Her parents were Cyrus & Elizabeth Jacobs.

Cyrus & Elizabeth Jacobs

Cyrus is the son of John Jacobs & Hannah Bowker.

John Jacobs, Jr.
Died April 4, 1828

John is the son of John Jacobs, Sr., buried in Chester, VT, making him Emily’s great grandfather. The conclusion seems inescapable that John Jacobs, Sr., buried in Chester, Vermont, is actually John Jacobs Hover. This would certainly explain why John’s parentage has been so difficult to trace–we were looking for the wrong surname.

Several descendants of John have taken DNA tests – including myself, my brother, Steve, and Clarence, to name a few. Steve has done extensive work analyzing the data from all these tests and has positively concluded that there is zero DNA in common with the descendants of the Nicholas Jacob lines. While there are no connections to descendants of Nicholas Jacob, there are DNA links to Hoover/Hover/Huber surnames, which seems to confirm our paper trail leading us to conclude that John Jacobs is really John Jacob Hover.

Although this has proven to be a significant breakthrough in our collective research, in a sense we really only traded one brick wall for another. Oral family tradition tells us that our family came from Holland to Pennsylvania. John Hover’s story fits with that legend. The challenge is that the Pennsylvania Dutch had a number of variations of the Hover surname–including Huber and Hoover–making our research most challenging.

We are left with so many questions: Why did John leave his family? Why did he drop the Hover name? Who were his parents? What made him leave Pennsylvania and move to New Hampshire?

No marriage records have ever been found for John and his wife, Huldah. We’ve found no record of Huldah’s maiden name. His children were all given the Jacobs surname when they were born in Merrimack, New Hampshire. He served in the Revolutionary War as John Jacobs – but no pension records were filed so we can’t find any information through those. Unless more records surface, our only hope seems to be for more people to take DNA tests so we can figure out where we fit in the Hover/Hoover/Huber line and maybe one day break down this seemingly indestructible brick wall.

Jacobs’ family plot – Chester, Vermont.