William Howe, Sr.

from "New England families, genealogical and memorial: a record of the ..., Volume 2"

edited by William Richard Cutter 

The surname of Howe is found at HOWE* an early period in several counties in England as appears in the records of about the time of Henry IV. to that of Elizabeth, as Howe, How, Hough, Howes, Hoo. and similar spelling, and in or about the reign of Edward III. the designations were variously de le How. de How, at How, de le Hoo, de Hoo, etc. John Howe, born about 1420, was the father of William Howe, of North Weald Basset, Essex, died 1518. Of this William was born •Facts and dates compiled from various sources by Alfred Lelghton Howe, November, 1911. William Howe, of Hatfield Broad Oak, died 1558, father of John Howe, of Much Hallingbury Hall and Hatfield, How's Green, died 1601; and he was father of Robert Howe, of Hatfield, Broad Oaks, etc., living in 1601, of whose descendants more will be said later. William Howe, of North Weald Basset, mentioned above, was the father also of Henry or Harry Howe, ancestor of the Lord Howe branch of the family. One of the eminent men in the history of England bearing the name of Howe was the Rev. John Howe, Oliver Cromwell's chaplain, one of the most noted ministers of his time, and author of several well-known books. Three Howes, brothers, were prominent not only in English history, but in that of America. One of them, General George Augustus Howe, killed at Ticonderoga, had a monument erected to his memory in Westminster Abbey, for which the general court of Massachusetts made an appropriation. General William Howe commanded the British forces at Bunker Hill and held Philadelphia while Washington was at Valley Forge. And Admiral Richard Howe ("Black Dick") was in command of the British naval forces during the revolution, and was one of the most famous of the English sea fighters. His victory over the French fleet in 1794 on "The Glorious Fourth of June" is one of the cherished traditions of the Royal Navy of the British nation. Among the early Puritan settlers in Massachusetts were four by the name of Howe, and it is from them that the great majority of those now bearing this name in America are descended. These four were James of Roxbury and Ipswich, Abraham of Roxbury, John of Sudbury and Marlborough, Abraham of Watertown and Marlborough, and Edward of Lynn. All of them were Puritans and were in Massachusetts soon after the arrival of Governor John Winthrop in 1629. James and Abraham, of Roxborough and Ipswich, were probably brothers, and John of Sudbury was of near kinship to them. From John, of Sudbury and Marlborough, was descended that line of Howes whose name was closely associated with the Red Horse Tavern, which Longfellow made famous as The Wayside Inn. Several generations of Howes were successive proprietors of this wellknown hos.telry. In the prelude to the "Tales of the Wayside Inn" is described the "coat of arms well framed and glazed, Upon the wall in colors blazed," and the legend upon it states that the wolves' heads appearing thereon are the family arms. These three wolves' heads are to be found as charges upon the escutcheon of nearly all the Howes mentioned in "Burke's General Armory." The armorial bearings of John Howe in heraldic parlance are described as follows: Argent, a chevron between three wolves' heads couped sable. Crest: Out of a ducal coronet or; a unicorn's head gules, attired and crined of the first. Motto: Utcunque placucrit deo. James Howe was born in England about 1606. He was the son of Robert Howe, of Broad Oak Hatfield, county Essex, England. He settled in Roxbury, Massachusetts, about 1637, where he was admitted freeman, and married Elizabeth, daughter of John Dane. He was a commoner 1641; one of Major Dennison's subscribers 1648. With the designation of James Sen'r. he had a share in Hum Island 1644, tithingman 1677, and in 1679 was a voter in town affairs. He settled before 1648 in Ipswich, Massachusetts, where his wife died January 21, 1693. He died May 17, 1702. His children were James, born about 1634 (the unfortunate Elizabeth who was executed at Salem, Massachusetts, July 10,1692, for alleged witchcraft is said to have been wife of this James); Mary, married Nehemiah Abbett; John; Sarah, married John Bridges, of Andover, Massachusetts; Abraham, born about 1649; Rebecca, married Stephen Barnard. Abraham, son of James Howe, was born about 1649. He married, March 26,1678, Sarah Peabody, daughter of Lieutenant Francis Peabody, who came from St. Albans, Hertfordshire, England, to New England in the ship "Planter," Nicholas Tearice, master, in 1636. Abraham settled in Ipswich, Massachusetts. "A seat in the meeting house was assigned to Corporal Abraham How in 1700." He died January 21, 1717. His widow died September 20, 1732. His children were Love, born January 13, 1679, married Samuel Porter; Increase, born April 12, 1680, married (first) Mary Whipple, (second) Susanna Kinsman; Sampson, born March 1, 1683; Abraham, born June 27, 1686, married Hepsibeth Andrews; Abijah, born about 1689, married Hannah Dow; Israel, born January 24, 1692-93, married Mercy Warner; Mark, born March 28, 1695, married (first) Hepsibeth Perkins, (second) Margaret Perley, (third) Elizabeth Bradstreet. He died February 17, 1777. Sampson, son of Abraham, known as Captain Sampson, was born in Ipswich, Massachusetts, March 1, 1683, and settled in Killingly, Connecticut, about 1708. He married, 1700, Alice, daughter of John Perley, of Boxford, Massachusetts, who was the first male child born in Ipswich. Family traditions represents Sampson to have been a man of giant proportions, six feet seven inches in height and broad in proportion, but he was- not noted for his stature only. He was a representative in the general assembly at Hartford in 1720, and was a prominent citizen and landowner. He was one of the original patentees of Killingly. On July 16, 1711, the town agreed to give Mr. John Fiske three hundred and fifty acres of land for his encouragement to settle in the work of the ministry, and Sampson Howe was appointed one of the committee to lay out this land. On July 9, 1728, the inhabitants of North Killingly met together to organize a religious society, "they voted and chose Sampson Howe Clerk for said Society." They set about the work of erecting a meeting house, and Sampson Howe was one of a number "chosen to take care to provide for raising, and under their supervision the work was faithfully accomplished and the frame raised before the setting in of winter." In 1730 he was chosen captain of a military company organized by the inhabitants of Thompson parish. The meeting house being completed, to him was appointed "the delicate task of assigning the seventeen pew spots * * * to the persons they most properly belong unto." To Sampson Howe was entrusted the work of gathering the land tax, and in 1734 he acted as one of the agents of the town in a dispute over the boundary line between Thompson and Killingly, the settlement of which established the boundary between Massachusetts and Connecticut at that point. For more than twenty years he was one of those in charge of the public lands of the township. Captain Sampson Howe died in 1736, and was buried with military honors. He left a large estate to his widow and sons. His will shows that he left along with other property two negroes valued at £200. The woman Leah was left to his son Sampson; Caesar, the man servant, to Perley. His children were: Sampson, and Perley, born about 1710. There were probably other children. Perley, son of Sampson, was born in Killingly, about 1710. He was graduated at Harvard College in 1731, ordained a Congregational minister at Dudley, Massachusetts, June 12, 1735, and removed from there to Killingly in 1746. He married Damaris, daughter of Lieutenant Joseph Cady, of Killingly. The latter was one of the most prominent citizens of Killingly, and was associated with Captain Sampson Howe in many of his activities in connection with the religious and civic life of Killingly. The Cadys are mentioned among the "ancient and leading families" of Killingly, and Joseph Cady as one of the "prominent and influential men" whose plea "could not be disregarded" by the general assembly. In 1745 the scattered members of the old or first religious society