No records have been found that connect this family to England. Researchers using the IGI database of the Mormon genealogy site familysearch.org found marriages of a John Lovett to Mary Lighthassel, Mary "Motyer" (the name is "Mote" in the marriage record) and Mary Grant. This datase is an incomplete collection of English parish records, and there is no credible evidence other than some name matching to say they are the couple that moved to Salem. There's also no credible evidence that they came from Buckinghamshire, England, as appears ocassionally online.
     The first record found of John Lovett in Essex County, Massachusetts, was in July 1639, when "John Lovett is receaved to be an Inhabitant within this jurisdiction [Salem] & there is graunted unto him ten acres of land neere Macrell Cove."1 The land along around Mackerel Cove is in the part of Salem set-off to Beverly. In January of 1640 "John Luvet Daniel Rays [Rea's] servant desireth accommodation."2 This is odd since he was already acknowledged with the 1639 grant. This is the only reference found to a relationship between Lovett and Rea. Lovett was cooper and may have had an arrangement with Rea regarding services performed perhaps in exchange for his passage to Massachusetts, which probably was not long before if not in 1639. The Town of Salem gave John five more acres near Mackerel Cove in 1640.3 In 1645 he was given two acres of marsh near the "Old Planters Meadow near Wenham Common"4 (Wenham being the next town to the northeast of Beverly) and in 1650, twenty acres in "the swamp and upland."5
     John first appears in Essex County court records on 29 June 1641, when it's recorded that John Kettle, a boy apprenticed to "Jno. Lovett of Mackerell Cove" is to be severely whipped and to serve his master 40s worth of more time to cover Lovett's expense of paying a fine after Kettle broke into John Ward's house, stole milk ("though he had eat milk that same morneing") and for his "willfull breach of ye saboth."6 This shows that John was no longer Rea's servant, and the flurry of land requests and grants may have been due to his impending "freedom."
      He was a constable in Beverly in at least May through November 1673, when he is mentioned in court records as serving several writs 8 On 18 March 1679/80 he was chosen a "way warden" (surveyor of highways) for the next year.image 31 In July 1676, Richard Kimball's estate was indebted to John Lovet, cooper.9
     John wrote a will on 8 November 1686 with the following bequests:10 to son John he gave two acres that he was currently using at "Jebeccoe" (Chebacco neighborhood of Ipswich), a cow valued at £5 1/2, a mare at £8, a set of cooper's tools at thirty shillings and ammunition at forty shillings "which were deliverd at day of mariage," and when he (John, Sr.) died, 3 1/4 (acres?) of fresh marsh (swamp) at Conant's Neck and twenty acres "on the east side of durty hole" between Joseph Lovett's and George Stanly's land. "Unto my true & loving wife Mary four acres of land with housing, out houseing, trees of fruite & all other apurtenances pertaining to my homestead." Also three acres of meadow, his livestock and all his "houshold stufe" and money, to be given to his children in whatever way she saw fit in a will. If she chose not to make that decision, his will was that their daughter Abigail would inherit it. To son Joseph he gave a ten acre piece of land by his homestead and two acres of salt marsh at Jebaccoe. To daughter Mary Patch, ten acres next to "their now dweling house." If she had no male heirs it was to go to "ye next heires & ye fifteen pounds delivered at day of mariage." I can't explain this last part. To daughter Bethiah "Stanly" and her son George five acres "where theire now dweling house is" and two acres at "durty hole." This was given to them and "sucsessive heirs to all generations ensuing for ever." Despite the cryptic wording in Mary's bequest, he clearly he wanted the land given to her and Bethiah to stay in the family. She was in her early 40s when she married Thomas Patch, suggesting she was a widow. I any case she probably didn't have any male children of her own, living or otherwise, when John wrote the will, since he specified Bethiah's son George as co-heir. It's possible that Simon, son of Thomas Patch, was Mary's son and not of Mary (Scott) Patch, Thomas' first wife. Mary Scott is generally assumed to have been his only wife, but she must have died in the mid 1680s. Simon Patch may have been named for Mary's brother Simon, who had died. He gave daughter Abigail Randall two and a half acres of fresh marsh and two cows. As in Mary's bequest, he says that if she has no heirs (males not specificed), the land should go to the next heir or heirs "naturally descended of us." The last bequest was to his grandson George Stanly an acre of land at the "head" of Mary's ten acres, also his small musket. His sons John and Joseph Lovet, Thomas Patch and George Stanly were ordered to provide widow Mary (Pride) Lovett with wood when she needed it, in equal parts. If any of them failed to do so, and if any of the children complained about their bequests, their portions would be "deprived." His friends Richard Ober and Richard Bradford were to oversee these bequests and widow Mary was appointed administrator.
     John's death record in The Early Records of the Town of Beverly says "John Lovett senior Departed this Life on the fifth Day of November being Aged aboute seaventy 6 years Anno: Do: 1686."11
     It's not known if Mary was the mother of all of John's children. She was a "communicant" at the church in Salem in 1650,12 so was the mother of Bethiah and the Abigails, who were born after that. John, Jr., was likely born in England and baptized there. Simon, Joseph and Mary, having been baptized after their mother joined the church, were likely born in Salem. There's no record of John, Sr., joining the Salem or any other church. On 23 June 1667 a church in the Bass River section of Salem was organized, soon to be called Beverly, and Mary Lovett was one of the subscribers.13 Her children Joseph and Bethiah was among the minors who wanted to join with their parents.
     Mary appears in several court cases. She witnessed an odd event at the Beverly meetinghouse in which two women had a battle of wills over where they wanted to sit. One ended up sitting in the other's lap (see a fuller account in the biography for fellow-ancestor Anna (Palgrave) Woodbery). It created a bit of a spectacle. Tamsin Taply said that she "would not have seen it had not Goodwife Lovett pulled her by the arm to show to her."14 Mary also gave a deposition, but what she said wasn't recorded. 15 What she said is also not recorded when she deposed in a case brought by Elizabeth, maid of Mr. Hubbard (Hobart) against fellow-ancestor Elizabeth Woodbery (wife of Humphrey) for hitting her.16 In the July 1652 Salem Quarterly Court session, the wife of John "Lovet" on Cape Ann side (another descriptor of what would become Beverly) testified that she saw Goodman Tuck drunk in public.17

children of John Lovett and probably Mary:

John b. abt 1638 (deposed as being about 32 in Nov 1669 and about 40 in June 1678, EQCR, 4:217, 7:53, Bethiah abt 39), prob. b. and bap. in England

Mary b. bef. 1643, bap. 8 September 1650 (see note 12, image 144), m. Thomas Patch (2nd wife) abt 1685-86, d. 26 September 1723, Wenham, above 80 y. (Wenham vital records, p. 214). She was certainly "Mary Patch" in her father's will, and Thomas is the only Patch who could have been her husband. He was also an overseer of John Lovett's will. His first wife was Mary Scott, who apparently was alive for a birth of a child about 1683. She is considered to have been his widow after he died, probably based on the death record of "Mary," widow of Thomas, in 1723, but her death must have been in about 1685. Mary (Lovett) may have had Thomas' son Simon, maybe named for her brother who apparently was killed in 1677. Her brothers John and Joseph had sons named Simon. The Wenham church recorded Simon Patch's death as being on 13 May 1749, "Et:" 63 (familysearch.org, Wenham town records, image 114). The published vital records, which include church record transriptions, include this entry but say he was age "63y." "Et" or "aet" meant he was in his 63rd year, therefore 62. This is often ignored by researchers, authors and compilers of historical records. The use of the term continued, but less and less, through the later 18th and into the early 19th centuries, and it gradually lost it's distinction, i.e., someone dying "in their 63rd year" was another way of saying "aged 63 years." In 1749 the correct meaning of the phrase was still used. A death entry by the same person in the same hand just above Simon, the two recorded separate from other records, says that person died "age 69," so there appears to be a conscious recognition of the difference. If so, Simon Patch would have been born somewhere between 13 May 1686 and 13 May 1687, allowing the possiblity that he was born after John Lovett wrote his will in November 1686.

Simon bap. 8 September 1650, prob. died young, poss. by 1663 (Walters' history of Ipswich mentions a "Captain Lovett" who died in a military skirmish in 1677. Others have surmised this was Simon, but the captain was actually named Swett. Simon isn't mentioned in his father's will, so likely died as a child, especially given that siblings John, Joseph and possibly Mary named sons Simon. John's was the oldest, b. abt 1663)

Joseph bap. 8 September 1650

children of John Lovett and Mary:

Bethiah bap. 13 June 1652 (see note 12, image 206), m. George Stanley/Standley by 24 Nov 1668, when they, as a married couple, were fined at court for fornication before marriage.

Abigail b. 20 Aug 1654, bap. 18 March 1654/1655 (image 206), d. 27 May 1659 (her birth and death are recorded at Salem, but there was a daughter Abigail who survived to adulthood).

Abigail, m. Isaac Randall (there isn't a baptism recorded for her)

1. "Town Records of Salem, Massachusetts," Essex Institute Historical Collections vol. 9 (Salem:1868), 90, 25 July 1639.
2. Ibid, 98, 21 Jan 1640.
3. Ibid, 105, 30 Mar 1640.
4. Ibid, 138, 3 Nov 1645.
5. Ibid, 163, 21 Jan 1649/50.
6. Records and Files of the Quarterly Courts of Essex County, Massachusetts vol. 1, 1636-1656 [hereafter RFQCEC] (Salem:1911), 27.
7. Ibid, 4:187, chosen 11 Nov 1669 (Beverly town meeting record), served on 30 Nov.
8. Ibid, 5:218, 221, 257, 259.
9. Ibid, 6:189.
10. Suffolk County probate case file #1523, see also 11:51-2 for a transcription.
11. Early Records of the Town of Beverly (), 71.
12. Congregational Library & Archives database, http://nehh-viewer.s3-website-us-east-1.amazonaws.com/#/content/SalemFirst/viewer/Church20records2C2016291843/1, images 213, 144.
13. Records of the First Church of Beverly, Massachusetts 1667-1772 (Salem:1905), 11.
14. RFQCEC, 2:516-517, 15 Sep 1673.
15. Ibid, 1 Sep 1673, age abt 50 years.
16. Ibid, 3:224, 30 Nov 1664.
17. Ibid, 1:258.
18. Ibid, 7:53, deposed as being abt 40 in June 1648, Bethiah abt 39.
4:289, tithingman