[1][2][3] Hovey was born in New Haven, Connecticut and he began studying geology through the amateur interests of his father — the Rev.

For the next few years he managed both teaching and postgraduate study - gaining his doctorate under James Dwight Dana in 1889.

He was appointed assistant curator at the American Museum of Natural History in 1894, after organising a successful mineralogical exhibition at the Columbian Exposition in Chicago.

The party included geologists Thomas Jaggar, Israel Russell, Angelo Heilprin and Robert T. Hill, geographer George Carroll Curtis and Norwegian explorer Carsten Borchgrevink.

Many of Hovey's notebooks, photographs and published papers are archived at the American Museum of Natural History.