"HOWE'S WAR"
by
Francis H. Straus II

Delivered to The Chicago Literary Club
April 4, 1994

"Howe's War"leaves a considerable amount of leeway for the scope of this paper. We could develop a detailed biography of John Howe who lived from 1630 to 1706. His war was the Puritan religious conflict in England where he served as domestic chaplain to Oliver Cromwell, Puritan Lord Protector of England, Scotland .and Ireland. After the collapse of the Puritan commonwealth and the passage of the Act of Uniformity, John Howe was required to go underground and preach only to handfuls of trusted believers. This is not the material for a Literary Club paper. Moving ahead from the middle 17th century we can push forward to the 18th century and focus on the two Howe brothers. One, Earl Richard Howe Howe, lived from 1726 to 1799 and his younger brother 5th Viscount William Howe Howe from 1729-1814. Earl Richard started in the Royal Navy at 14 years of age and moved steadily up the officer ladder making lieutenant in 1744, post-captain in 1746, Admiralty Board member 1763-65, Treasurer of the Navy 1765-70, Rear Admiral 1770, Vice Admiral 1775, First Lord of the Admiralty 1783-88; he commanded the Channel fleet and won the battle of the "lst of June" in 1794 and was given the Knight of the Garter in 1797. His was a brilliant naval career aided in its earlier years by the fact that his mother, Mary Sophia Charlotte, after the death of her husband became King George I's mistress.

Younger brother William Howe joined the cavalry in 1746, was lieutenant one year later, then captain and major, and became a lieutenant colonel by 1757. He commanded the 58th regiment of foot, capturing Louisburg and then landing with Wolfe in the battle for Quebec in 1758. He marched on Montreal and defended Quebec through 1760. Then as Adjutant General he captured Havana in 1762 He was promoted to full colonel in Command of the 46th regiment of foot in 1764 and then major general in 1772. He was sent to Boston in 1775 serving second in command under General Gage, whom he did not respect, and led the troops in storming Bunker Hill. Later he left Boston for Halifax in the British withdrawal from Boston. In 1776 he was promoted to Lieutenant General and given command of all the land forces in North America. At the same time his brother Richard was placed in command of all the naval forces in North America..

Two years later Lord North's ministry sent a new peace commission to treat with the leaders of the rebellion and both Admiral and General Howe resigned their commands in a pique, feeling their home government had not supported them enough. Unfortunately Admiral Richard Howe's resignation came only after a strong French fleet under Count d'Estaing had joined in the American Rebellion requiring Richard to remain on station to fool the French squadron at Sandy Hook and then prevent them from landing at Newport, Rhode Island. General William defended his actions before members of the House of Commons. He was put in charge of ordinance and in 1790 led some land forces against Spain. He was made full General in 1793 later retiring to become Governor of Berwick-on-Tweed and later Governor of Plymouth.

Both of these Howe brothers took part in aspects of the Seven Years War: Earl Richard as Captain of "Dunkirk" captured the French warship "Alcide" as the opening engagement of the war, and William saw action on the Plains of Abraham. Besides this their eldest brother George Augustus Howe lost his life in the Battle of Ticonderoga on July 6th, 1758, so by simple numbers this war could be called Howe's War. However as you have already heard, the two brothers as more senior officers were leaders of the British military forces in the American Revolution so that conflict could also justifiably be designated Howe's War.

The Revolution as you all learned in grammar school stemmed from Great Britain's desire to receive raw materials from its colonies and then resell finished products back at considerably magnified prices. To this basic economic goal was added the perceived need to get the colonies to pay their share of the British military costs expended to protect the colonies from France and other governments. These economic policies were energetically carried forward by George III.

The King was a prematurely born sensitive introvert who was slow to learn as a child and later tended to be stubborn and firm with his subjects. He felt that Great Britain had treated the Americans with too great a leniency, increasing their pride which encouraged them to think independently. Now he felt it his duty to apply these economic policies with firmness to bring the Americans back into their dependent role. Lord North, Prime Minister from 1770 to 1782, was a total pawn to the King's wishes concerning the American colonies. Yet there were several members of the House of Commons who voiced strong arguments against this primitive economic policy. They were led by Edmund Burke, Charles James Fox, and James Wilkes whose strong speeches were like a tiny rumble beneath the royal battering ram. So with minor exceptions Parliament carried out the King's wishes.

One of the reasons Massachusetts led the way in the American Revolution was its economic need as a maritime power to oppose the restrictive "Acts of Trade and Navigation" by using all ports and trading with England's rivals. New England farm land was not as fertile as Virginia and there were few furs to collect so ship building, fishing and trading became of the utmost importance to this geographic area. New England trading reached out in many directions but the West Indies was a main focus where agricultural goods and fish were traded for molasses and sugar causing rum to replace beer as the most popular beverage in New England. For a while England overlooked the propensity of New England merchants to trade illegally ("smuggle") but with the King and Parliament making such heavy work of it, colonial ministers and representatives in the armed forces began to enforce these rules more stringently. The Townshead Acts of 1767 were imposed placing duty on a long list of imports. Then they were rescinded leaving only the tax on tea. The colonials responded with the Boston Tea Party in 1773. This flagrant destruction of the imported tea confirmed George III's resolve to use force to reduce Massachusetts to submission. The port of Boston was closed and Parliament passed the punitive "Intolerable Acts". Troops had been stationed in Boston since 1768 and they enforced the new legislation.

This effort accomplished what none of the events up until then had, it brought the thirteen colonies together in Philadelphia where the "radical" elements took over ordering a boycott of British goods and a firm statement that Parliament had no constitutional right to legislate for the American colonies. With this evidence of togetherness colonists began organizing minutemen and stock piling guns and arms.

It was almost inevitable that on April 14, 1775, British soldiers searching for some subversives and brass cannon in Lexington would engage with the minutemen hastily assembled there. They did destroy some more arms in Concord, but had to withstand a running retreat back to Boston, suffering heavy casualties in the process. Two months later the Americans had built a small defense structure on Bunker Hill in Charlestown, north of Boston. General Gates' second in command, William Howe, led the British charge on the hill and after a very bloody battle managed to dislodge the insurgents but only after losing an immense number of soldiers. The Americans retreated, but in fact had won a victory.

Amazingly rapidly Washington was appointed Commander in Chief of the Continental Army which was now made up of the many small militia groups that had started preparing for active service. The first thing General Washington did was order the cannon from Fort Ticonderoga to be brought 300 miles overland to Boston where they were set up on the Dorchester Heights. From this location the rebels could bombard the British fleet supporting the soldiers stationed in Boston. Besides this there were many small raids constantly harassing the perimeter of Boston. This led to the British army withdrawal from Boston on March 17th, 1776, with all their troops and any loyalists who wished to join them in moving to Halifax.

That was the end of General Gates, he was recalled back to England and William Howe was elevated to Commander with his brother Richard in charge of the naval aspects of the war. George III did not have a large enough armed force so he called on his cousins in German principalities to provide mercenary "Hessian" solders to augment the English. No formal declaration of war had yet been made. The Howe brothers were indeed given strengthened military forces but at the same time were instructed to try to negotiate a cease fire and a return of affairs to the previous mother kingdom--colonial relationship.

Unfortunately for the crown a dyspeptic ex-Londoner by the name of Thomas Paine had written a pamphlet called Common Sense which persuasively attacked the monarchy and the monarch. Small committees throughout the colonies sent men to the continental army and pressed for a formal declaration of independence.

Almost at the same time that the Continental Congress appointed several of their members, including Jefferson, Franklin and Adams, to draw up such a declaration, England decided to attack the middle colonies separating New England and the South. The Howes started landing a large military force on Staten Island. Ten days after the Declaration of Independence was approved by the Congress, the Howes tried to negotiate with General Washington. He referred them to the Continental Congress, but this came to nothing.

With that the Howes focused their 32,000 trained professional soldiers, 30 warships, and l0,000 seamen at Long Island. To deal with this Washington had at best 20,000 poorly equipped, poorly trained, poorly led troops. The Americans lost Long Island, then New York City, then White Plains in Connecticut. The revolutionary forces were depending on two forts on either side of the Hudson River at upper Manhattan. The eastern one was Fort Washington and the western one Fort Lee. This western fort was named after General Lee an ex-British army officer who came to the colonies and offered to help in the cause of independence. His rank was just beneath that of General Washington, a status he did not much appreciate.

Using his troops well General Howe managed to take both forts, and then sent the American forces in swift retreat southwest across New Jersey, with General Cornwallis chasing them across the Passinc River, the Rahway River and then the Raritan River, Millstone Creek and finally the Delaware River. The continental forces were despondent, sick and worn out, and their leader Washington was not much better. He tried to get General Lee up in Connecticut to join him for a stand against the harassing enemy at his rear but General Lee was taking his time and in fact never got there as we will hear later.

Eventually, towards Christmas 1776, General Howe went back to his mistress in New York City. General Cornwallis also returned to New York and was about to sail for England when he was called back to New Jersey after the Battle of Trenton. The English-German troops were settled in winter quarters strung out between Trenton on the southwest and New York at the northeast. New Jersey had been good territory for the British military forces as many residents had given them intelligence and taken oaths to respect the monarchy.

At Christmas with the one year enlistments running out for his entire army General Washington decided to attack back across the Delaware River, taking the German troops completely by surprise. Trenton and then Princeton were recovered and the British were pushed back to eastern New Jersey. Then the continental army settled in Morristown for the winter.

The English leaders were not worried about their cause because they had a plan for the next year. General Burgogne had a master plan which would center on the Hudson River valley with a strong force marching down from Canada, another army marching from New York up the river, and a third military force coming down the Mohawk Valley from Oswego. This impressive plan never worked because Howe decided to attack Philadelphia first and never was in a position to help General Burgogne and the Oswego force was detained by other American forces. Burgogne ended up surrendering a large army and its equipment to the American General Gates near Saratoga, New York.

This essentially ended the Revolutionary War in the north. The British maintained occupation of New York City. The next year the Howe brothers resigned their commands, the French entered the war, and eventually the Americans won the battle of Yorktown, finishing all hostilities until the peace agreement.

There were another set of How brothers in this time period. They were Johnathan, James, David and Isaac, all sons of James How, a farmer in northern Massachusetts near Haverhill. Howe can also be spelled H-O-W or H-O-W-S. It is an old Anglosaxon name meaning hill or hollow. Due to the vagaries of English social and economic interactions, over the years a few Howes made it into the aristocracy and many Howes were left in the lower classes. Needless to say our Admiral and General were in the former category. The Massachusetts family referred to above were in the latter group.

This small branch of Howes came from Hatfield, Broad oak, Essex, England. They were Puritans and by the early 1600's were being persecuted for their religious beliefs. They emigrated to the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1635, settling first in Salem. A member of the second generation married a woman who later was accused of being a witch and was hung. Some time later the colony gave her children two pounds 7 shillings each, as a recompense for the unlawful death of their mother. The next generation moved to Ispwich and one son two generations later moved to Haverhill. This was the grandfather of the four boys who all enlisted in the army at the time of the revolution. Fortunately David How kept a brief journal of his revolutionary experience. Do not think that this account is a deep philosophical expression of his beliefs and motivation for fighting to gain liberty. In fact it is a down to earth account of his travels and daily chores. He notes a few things he heard from fellow soldiers and most important to him it records some of his trading, an occupation which occupied much of his attention. He was very young and resilient, standing up well to the physical hardships forced upon him by the war. Above all David How was a young American with little education, little money, and was very much like many of the Americans who gained liberty for us. His view of the conflict is the "worm's eye view", quite different from the history books and the biographies of famous generals.

David How was born in Haverhill, Massachusetts, in 1758, the third of ten children. He learned the trade of currier (leather worker) in Andover. As a young "minuteboy" David and two of his brothers responded to the post-Lexington alarm, headed to Cambridge and was one of those occupying Bunker Hill the night preceding the June 17th, 1775, battle. During the attack the solder at his side was gunned down. David is said to have grabbed and thrown his comrade's musket at the advancing redcoats and then retreated undercover of the gun smoke.

He enlisted in the army of the revolution at the end of December 1775 when he was 17 years old. He became a private in Colonel Paul Dudley Sargent's regiment of the Massachusetts Line. First he marched with 1200 other enlistees south to the Mystic River, but they could not cross because the ice was not strong enough. They made camp, he sold a blanket for two dollars, had his gun inspected and five days later walked 28 miles home to Haverhill. He was there for two days, then returned via Andover to Cambridge to work for a Mr. Watson. He was not yet officially in the Continental Army but he writes that on the night of January 8th "this night our soldiers went over into Charlestown and burnt up eleven houses. Took six prisoners. None of ours killed." This expedition was designed to harass the enemy and deprive them of housing. How cut and transported wood until January 22 when he officially entered the Continental Army, again in Colonel Sargent's regiment.

Diary entries for the rest of January tell us that How cooked, bought 3 barrels of cider, 7 bushels of chestnuts, a wild turkey and 4 bushels of apples, and then sold portions of them to other soldiers. On February l he moved into lodgings at Harvard College. He worked making rifle balls and cartridges as well as participating in the burning of a mill in Charlestown in another night raid. He tells us that a fellow soldier died from excessive drinking and another "was found dead in a room with a woman". In the middle of February he described some British troops leaving Boston by boat and landing to the south on Dorchester Heights surprising the guard there, burning some houses and taking one inhabitant prisoner before they returned to Boston. For the rest of the month he made cartridges, collected money owed to him and helped to move four cannon to Lechmere Point during the night. His older brother James came and spent a night with him.

On March 2nd there was an exchange of mortar and cannon fire all night between Lechmere Point and Boston. Two continental mortars burst without loss of life and one British cannonball landed in the fort at Prospect Hill also without much damage. On March 4 American General Thomas occupied Dorchester Heights, built a fort there and set up some artillery. Private How helped in the construction. It was this artillery position controlling the Boston Harbor that forced the later British withdrawal from Boston.

James How came to visit on the 5th and brother Jacob How visited David on the 7th. He bought a pair of leather pants for five dollars and a new pair of half boots. On the 15th a large barracks in Cambridge burnt down and David sold his gun for 3 pounds. The British burned Charlestown as they left and all their troops marched aboard ships with the American loyalists who wished to accompany them in the mass pull-out of the army from Boston. The fleet moved out to the Nantasket Road and sat there for seven days while the American forces occupied Boston. David was first assigned to Fort Hill. Several soldiers were punished by whipping for not coming on duty, for drunkenness or for stealing. The punishment for stealing a cheese (size unspecified) was 30 lashes.

In early April David packed a lot of cartridges. He was then chosen to load and carry cartridges, lead balls and filled powder horns to Norwich. Eight wagons and eight carts made up the ammunition train. It took seven days to reach Norwich, Connecticutt where the load was put aboard a ship for New York; it took them five days to return to Boston. The next task David was assigned to was tearing down enemy works on Bunker Hill and constructing a new fort on Charlestown point. He regularly was assigned to guard duty and he always lists the sentry code word in his diary, such as "Canada", "Adams", "Ohio", "Virtue", or "Received". In May he was sent to Noddles Island (now East Boston) to build a fort there. He still got away to Boston and/or Cambridge every few days and washed his clothes once a week. May 17th he reports the capture of the large British transport ship "Hope" by a privateer called "Franklin" out of Marblehead. The capture included 1500 barrels of gunpowder, l000 rifles, as well as other valuables. Several days later a British naval force came into Boston harbor attacking the same privateer in retaliation. The American captain was killed but many British sailors were drowned and David writes that "the attackers were obliged to go off ashamed".

June brought rain and on the 3rd David says "I went on for teag at the fort". This meant fatigue which in modern parlance means worn out, needing rest, but in his vocabulary meant hard work, enough to wear you out. He carried rocks, unloaded cannon, moved earth, all to build this fort protecting Boston harbor. After the first week he went home to Haverhill on leave, went to church which he calls "meeting" and stopped at Andover on the way back. Starting in the middle of June he records several regiments of soldiers being sent by ship to Nantucket and Long Island to prepare for an expected British occupation. These troop transports had to run a British warship blockade getting out to sea. On the 22nd he had time to "make me a chest this day". He was on guard duty on the 4th and the code sign was "New York". This of course was the day the Continental Congress voted to submit the Declaration of Independence to England. On the 7th and the 17th he went to the small pox hospital at Sewell's Point, Brookline, to visit patients there. He reported that two more British ships from the West Indies were captured, one with rum and one with assorted cargo. Samuel Eliot Morrison points out that after the British withdrawal from Boston the most important role of New England in the war was the continued privateer captures of enemy shipping. This disrupted the British efforts in America and it provided much of the necessary arms and provisions for a very poorly equipped army.

On July 15th David's regiment got their orders to march to New York and on the 18th they left for Norwich, Connecticut. Apparently David How stayed behind because for the next month he was still walking around Boston burying a friend who had died of small pox and visiting at home back in Haverhill. By August 13th he finally started for Norwich with six teams of horses and wagons carrying gunpowder. It took five days to reach Norwich and a day to load the goods on a sailing ship. The trip was a difficult one because the ship ran aground several times, faced contrary winds and only reached Hells Gate eight days later. They rejoined their regiment 6 miles from New York City.

This was August 22, exactly the time that the British left Staten Island and attacked Long Island routing the Americans from Brooklyn and to the north towards Long Island Sound. David was in a skirmish with British scouting parties but by the 29th all the American troops and baggage were brought to New York in their sad retreat from defeat on Long Island.

The Americans built a fort at Horns Hook and the British built one opposite across a short stretch of water. They connonaded back and forth. David reports that both Corporal Haduc and Isacc Fowls had their heads shot off. This went on for ten days until the enemy crossed to York Island and the Americans had to leave the lower part of town so that ships' cannon could not reach them. Soon the British followed them up the island of Manhattan and there was a noteworthy battle on Harlem Heights.

The Americans continued to fall back, many settling into Fort Washington and Fort Lee built on either side of the Hudson River at the point just south of where the George Washington Bridge now stands. David How's regiment marched over Kings bridge at the tip of Manhattan to Westchester up the Hudson, setting up camp on September 19th. For the next several weeks there were only local travel, reports of whippings, trading of clothes, fixing and polishing his musket, listening to general orders and serving on picket guard.

On September 9th the British sent three warships up the Hudson River to a point above the two forts. The ships did get some damage as they passed between Forts Washington and Lee. An alarm went up and David's company was sent to Dobbs Ferry 12 miles up river to repulse an expected landing there but in fact the warships were waiting for the main attack on Fort Washington which would come in early November. The regiment marched several times to Throggs Point where a group of the enemy had landed and encamped. They also had guard duty at Fort Independence in Yonkers. On October 22nd the regiment packed and marched to White Plains, New York, where they camped until the British regulars came on the 28th. Shots were exchanged and the Americans moved back a few miles, then on November 6 the British army unaccountably packed up and went south towards New York. In fact their move was to start the siege on Fort Washington. David stayed outside White Plains standing guard duty and treating himself for the itch.

On November 17th they heard of the surrender of Fort Washington with many Americans captured and the loss of cannon and provisions. By the 27th Colonel Sargent's regiment was ordered to pack up and get ready for a march. They moved out the next day for Peekskill, crossing the Hudson at Stoney Point on December 2nd. Moving south west they reached Ringwood, New Jersey on the 6th and Morristown on the l0th.

Two nights southwest of Morristown on December 12th the portion of the Continental Army under General Lee camped in the woods. How records in his journal that in the morning "British light horse took General Lee as he was 3 miles from our army. We went with a party to pursue them for 8 miles but were too late."

You will recall that Lee was an ex-British regular army officer who supported American independence in England. He received a cold shoulder so came to America and offered his services to the rebelling government. After considerable debate Congress appointed Washington commander-in-chief and Lee just subordinate to him. General Lee was convinced he was the better general and told all who would listen of his superiority.

After the surrender of Fort Washington followed by the surrender of Fort Lee the remnant of Washington's army beat a hasty retreat southwest across New Jersey with General Cornwallis chasing behind. Washington sent message after message to General Lee in Connecticut and White Plains to join him in order to generate some resistance to the British invasion toward Philadelphia. General Lee sat on his heels hoping General Washington would get bogged down in his own problems. Later, however, he did start his march down through New Jersey and this included Private How.

At Morristown General Lee considered attacking British outposts at Brunswick or Princeton on his own to improve his reputation and diminish Washington's. He also attempted unsuccessfully to persuade General Gates to join him. On December 11th Lee left Morristown two days after his troops. He had almost caught up to them when he passed Widow White's tavern. It seemed much cozier than the cold snowy bivouac of his troops in the woods so he moved in for the night with about 15 of his personal guard. British Lieutenant Colonel Harcourt with a troop of light dragoons was out looking for General Lee and his portion of the continental army. After capturing one or two advance patrols they soon learned where General Lee was staying and with little difficulty overcame the defense force and carried the General away to Brunswick and later New York.

Lee lived in New York like a prince, put up in a big house with his personal servant and favorite dog, drinking the best wines and having only a very light guard. Lee stayed in New York for 16 months before being exchanged. This required the Americans to have captured an officer of equal rank. Two months after his exchange and return to duty he was court marshalled for his conduct in the battle of Monmouth. Cashiered from the service in 1780 he died in 1782 a bitter and poor man.

When told of Lee's capture Washington only said "unhappy man, taken by his own imprudence". It was on the surface another enormous blow to the forces for liberty added to the already long list of losses but in fact Lee's capture was a blessing in disguise. Now Washington did not have an arrogant egotistical immediate subordinate pushing from behind and Washington soon showed improved leadership.

Two days later on December 15th David Howe crossed the Delaware River at Phillipsburg and made camp at Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, where they stayed until marching south on Christmas Day. The regiment was in very poor shape with minimal clothes, shoes and food. There were 14 officers, eight sergeants, five fifes and drummers, 122 privates fit for duty, six privates present but sick and 235 privates sick and absent. They were now given stockings and shoes by the colonel, a ration of rum and on the 23rd were moved into warm local houses. The 24th found them making cartridges and provisions for a "scout".

December 25th the regiment marched 12 miles south and crossed the Delaware with a "large body of men and field pieces" during the night. How tells us that at 4 a.m. they started the eight mile march to Trenton "where we were attacked by a number of Hessians and we captured l000 of them besides the ones killed. Then we marched back with all the prisoners and got them across the river." In fact How and his fellow soldiers were the attackers, not the Hessians [but at the time of a battle this may not be clear to a common soldier.]

The above entry covers the Battle of Trenton, the first battle victory for the rebels in the American Revolution. It had been a long year and three quarters during which the American forces had been beaten in every big armed engagement and had steadily pulled back or openly retreated in the face of superior British firepower. All the one year enlistments in the Continental Army were about to end on January lst which would leave the Army weak and impotent. But Washington had rallied his forces in time and the British had left themselves prominently exposed in their inactive winter quarters. Washington had gotten good intelligence, acted decisively, and earned a stunning surprise victory which was badly needed to sustain the independence movement. It is interesting to me that we have aircraft carriers named Lexington, Saratoga, and Yorktown, but I do not know of a Trenton. It is an action that deserves much more notice than it has received.

By December 30th the army was back occupying Trenton and planning the move on towards Princeton. Meanwhile there was a parade and energetic officer persuasion of the troops to sign up for an additional six weeks service for ten dollars of extra pay. General Washington reporting to Congress said more than half of the soldiers consented for this extra duty, but not Private How. Jan lst 1777 David collected his pay and vegetable money and started walking back to New England through Morristown, Peekskill, Waterbury, Hartford, and Concord to Haverhill. The trip took fifteen days of steady walking and this ended his third enlistment. His first was as a minuteman after Concord, the second as a Massachusetts militia man in the last days of 1775, and the third as a member of the continental army through 1776.

David must have been a real patriot because on September 29th 1777, a call went out for armed men to enlist, to come to the aid of American General Gates who was charged with the task of defeating the British General Burgogne in the Hudson River campaign, in which, as you recall, Burgogne was coming down from Canada. David How signed up and started marching to the Hudson River on October lst, his group moved west across Massachusetts, then into southern Vermont getting to Bennington on October 9th. There is no mention of crossing the Hudson River but he reached Saratoga, New York, on October 11th. He was assigned to Fort Edward getting there the next night, and building camp on the 12th. The next day David reports that scouts captured and brought in a number of British soldiers and loyalists. The following day the scouts brought in 50 Indians who were carrying silver, gold and blankets much to the financial gain of the revolutionaries. On the 17th David's corps marched back to Saratoga getting there just in time to receive the British troops as General Burgogne surrendered.

By afternoon the same day David and his comrades were drawing provisions for guarding the new prisoners on the long march back to Boston. Starting on the 18th and marching through rain and sometimes snow, having to wait for the wagons carrying the sick and wounded prisoners, they finally reached Boston and turned over their prisoners on Prospect Hill on November 6th, an eighteen day journey. David How reached home in Haverhill the next day. He is not known to have participated in any further aspects of the American Revolution.

You as recipients of this narrative might reasonably ask why the deep interest in the revolutionary Hows. The answer is easy. The author of this revolutionary journal is my great great great grandfather. His grandson, my great grandfather, Francis Saltonstall Howe graduated from Harvard Law School and came to Chicago from Haverhill, Massachusetts, to make his fortune.

You might also be interested to know what happened to this young patriot thrown back into civilian life at the ripe age of nineteen years. After the war David How went to New London, New Hampshire, purchased and cleared land in order to start a farm. He and his young wife soon realized that they did not like the wilderness so they sold the farm and moved back to Haverhill. David began a leather business in the basement of a small shop on Water Street. He always had shown a propensity to bargain and dicker, and combining these skills with great industry and strict integrity he soon developed a firm hold on business. From leather goods he expanded to textiles, tools, and other articles for sale until he became the largest trader in Haverhill. First he built a larger store, then finally he built a whole block of stores. In 1812 he was offered $l00,000 for the stock then in his stores but he refused.

Mr. How started a wholesale shoe manufacturing business which may have been the beginning of the New England business enterprise which still flourishes today. Besides his successful merchantile activity David spent his extra time buying farm lands around Haverhill and enjoyed being an intelligent agriculturalist. He learned the value of liming his fields and loved to plant fruit trees. He helped to found the local bank and was one of the partners in building the Haverhill toll bridge over the Merrimack River. David How died a respected businessman in 1842 in his eighty fifth year.

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