The Illustrious Howe family

The Illustrious Howe family

THE ILLUSTRIOUS HOWE FAMILY

By Eleanor Lexington

The Howe family traces its pedigree to the time of the Crusades, if Alexander de Hoo, who wore the cross, may be counted as a progenitor.

He married Devorgilda, daughter of King Alexander the 2nd of Scotland. The name next appears as de Huse. A John de Huse receiving a grant of land in 1066 in Berkshire, England. Other variations of the orthography are Huys, Howys, Howse, Howes and finally the present form, Howe.

As an evidence of honorable service, the Howe banner hangs high in the chapel of Henry 7th.

Oliver Cromwell’s chaplain (who was given the office an account of a sermon the Protestor happened to hear) was the learned and devoted John Howe.

Among the emigrant ancestors were Edward Howe, who came over in Truelove in 1635; John Howe who came a few years earlier and Thomas Howe.

The record of the family is a patriotic one. Many representatives fought in colonial wars and the Revolution. Baxter Howe was Captain of Artillery in the Revolution. Jaazaniah Howe was Sergeant, and Dr. Estes Howe was surgeon. Then there was Lieutenant Bezaleel Howe, who served through the Revolution and was an auxiliary Lieutenant in Washington’s own guard for the last six months of the war. He commanded the escort that took Washington’s baggage and papers back to Mount Vernon at the close of the war. Lieutenant Howe used to entertain his children and grandchildren with reminiscences of Mount Vernon and Mrs. Washington who played the part of doctor for him at General Washington’s request. When he had cut a finger the First Lady of the land bounded it up with a Balsalm apple, the popular remedy of the day.

Lieutenant Howe was such a splendid shot that he could pace off twenty paces, turn around and hit a dollar nineteen out of twenty times with an old flit lock. He was present at the execution of Major Andre and wrote a friend: ‘Andre was dressed as neatly as if going to a ball with his boots nicely polished. We marched along to the tune of ‘Roslyn Castle’, a dead march. There was hardly a dry eye, Andre’s bearing was so manly to the last.’

One of the swords carried by Colonel Ezekiel Howe in the Concord fight is one of the relics treasured by his descendants. For many years it hung upon the walls of the old Sudbury Inn, the wasyside inn made famous by Longfellow. Over the sword hung the Howe arms for nearly a hundred years or from 1700 when David built the house until about the middle of nineteenth century, when place passed out of the possession of the Howe family.

‘A kind of od hobgoblin hall’, Longfellow calls the place in his poem and thus describes the Howe Arms:

And in the parlor, full in view,

His coat-of-arms, well framed and glazed,

Upon the wall in colors blazed;

He beareth gules upon his shield,

A chevron argent in the field,

With three wolf's-heads, and for the crest

A Wyvern part-per-pale addressed

And over this, no longer bright,

Though glimmering with a latent light,

Was hung the sword his grandsire bore

In the rebellious days of yore,

Down there at Concord in the fight.

In the plain prose the arms are described as gules, a chevron argent between three cross crosslets and tree wolf’s heads crest, a Wyvern or dragon, pierced through the mouth with an arrow. These arms are supposed to have brought from England by John Howe in 1630 arms of Lord Chedworth, Henry Howe, are similar. The crest however is a dexter arms and the motto is ‘Justus et Propositi Tenax’.

The coat of arms, gold upon a blue ribbon, is the badge worn by the Howes when they gather for the family reunion. The first of the meetings took place in 1871 at Harmony Grove, South Framingham, Mass; 5,000 Howes were invited and 3,000 answered the roll call.

‘We spent the day,’ said one, ‘telling one another how we love the good name of Howe’. Julia Ward Howe wrote a poem on the name which was sung to the tune of ‘Do They Miss Me at Home?’

‘I particularly admire two Howes’, one of the speaker of the day said. ‘One was Jemima Howe who was captured by the Indians and the other was Samuel G. Howe was captured by Julia Ward Howe. I admire Jemima because she escaped, and Samuel Howe because he didn’t’.

Tribute was paid of course to Dr. Howe and Elias Howe who worked out the problem of the sewing machine and the martyr of the family, Mrs. Elizabeth Howe of Ipswich, hung for witchcraft in 1602, ‘ whose virtues sanctified after and made her name illustrious’.