Covell, Joseph Smith

Covell, Joseph Smith a minister of the Episcopal Church, was born in Killingly, Connecticut, June 4, 1797. He spent the first eighteen years of his life on his father's farm; fitted for college in part at Woodstock, and graduated from Brown University in 1822. He afterwards took charge of a private school in Newport, R.I., and began his theological studies under the tuition of Reverend Dr. Austin, but, later, connected himself with the Episcopal Church, and in August, 1824, was ordained deacon and became minister of a mission church in St. Albans, Vermont. The climate proving to be too rigorous, he removed to Baltimore, where he was ordained a presbyter, in May 1825, and took charge of a mission station at Princess Anne, on the eastern shore of Maryland. Subsequently he returned to New England, and in October 1828, was called to the rectorship of St. Paul's Church, Brookfield, Connecticut, where he remained nine years, and then took charge of Trinity Church, Bristol, for ten years. He afterwards was rector of churches in Essex, Bethlehem, etc., until 1863, when he was called to the rectorship of St. Paul's Church, Huntington. He resigned in July 1876, and removed to Bridgeport, where he died, March 16, 1880. See Brown University Necrology, 1879-1880; Whittaker, Almanac and Directory, 1881. (J.C.S.)