John How(e) 1602-1680
John How was definitely a pioneer in fact as well as spirit. Although we don’t know exactly when he came to this continent from his native England, it must have been in the 1630’s. He was part of what is known as the Great Migration, when 20,000 immigrants, mostly English Puritans, flooded the Massachusetts Bay Colony. In the first decades after the Mayflower arrived, emigrants created new communities–35 in the first ten years– across what is now New England.
John How probably lived briefly in Watertown, Massachusetts, but he first shows up in public records as one of the 54 men who started Sudbury in 1637.
Site of the first Sudbury Meeting House. Marker located in Sudbury Old North Cemetery, now in Wayland, Massachusetts. Massachusetts.
Plaque on marker of Sudbury First Meeting House.
It was there John first became a Freeman (1640) and he was elected a selectman in 1642.
But the families there soon wanted more land and John was one of 12 who pushed into the wilderness to found Marlborough. It is said he was the first white man to build a home in the area in1657. In 1670 he opened a tavern, or ordinary as it was called then.
This was the start of a long line of Howe tavern keepers, both in Marlborough and in Sudbury, where John’s son Samuel moved.
Even my grandmother, John Howe’s 6th great-grand daughter, ran a bar-restaurant, as you can see at the top of this page.
So it was fitting that a group of descendants of Vera Stout Anderson and John Howe gathered at Longfellow’s Wayside Inn, formerly known as Howe’s Tavern. Here in front of the Martha and Mary Chapel, added by Henry Ford (more later about how Henry gets into this story), we snapped pictures of representatives of four generations.
Four generations of descendents of John , Samuel, David, and Elizabeth Howe.
john was married to a woman known to history only as Mary. In an age when people routinely lost infants and young children, John and Mary lost 3 of 12 children in infancy. But life was hard for the hardy souls who occupied New England in the 17th and 18th century, particularly in 1675 and 1676, during the conflict with natives known as King Philip’s War. (See an article I wrote enumerating the How/Howes killed or taken captive during that war and the Frenchband Indian War 75 years later.)
John lived next to hunting grounds of the Nipmuck tribe, and according to English/American histories he made friends among the indigenous people. Nevertheless, the Nipmucks and their allies the Abenaki tribe did not spare his family when they went to war to drive Europeans from Indian lands.
The children of John and Mary Six were bOrn in Sudbury and the last six, three of whom died in infancy, were born in Marlborough.
John (1640-1676) Married Elizabeth Ward. Like most men at the time, John was a militiaman. When warring Indians attacked Sudbury on April 20, 1676, his house was destroyed and he was killed, leaving four small children.
Samuel (20 October 1642) My 7 times great grandfather, married Martha Bent, my 7x great grandmother. Their 6 children included my 6x great grandfather David How. Martha died in 1680 and in 1685, Samuel married Sarah Leavittband had six more children.
Sarah (25 Sep 1644) Married Samuel Ward.
Mary (18 Jun1646) Died young.
Isaac (8 Aug 1648) M. Francis Wood and became quite wealthy.
Josiah (1650) The last of the family to be born in Sudbury. Married Mary Haynes. Militiaman who fought in King Philip’s War. Died in 1672.
Daniel (3 Jan 1658) . Died in1661
TWINS Alexander and Daniel, born Jan 1661. Died as infants.
Cpt. Eleazar (18 Jan 1662) Militiaman who fought in King Philip’s War< and according to one source, rose to rank of Colonel. Married Hannah How, from a different line of Hows. Eleazar became quite wealthy.
John died in Marlborough in 1680 and his wife, Mary died in1687
How I am Related
- My maternal grandmother, Vera Stout (Anderson), was the daughter of
- Hattie Morgan (Stout), the daughter of
- Mary Bassett (Morgan),the daughter of
- Elizabeth Stone (Bassett) the daughter of
- Elizabeth Howe (Stone), the daughter of
- Israel Howe, the son of
- David How, the son of
- Samuel How, the son of
- John How.
Notes on Research
As Ancient Is This Hostelry: The Story of the Wayside Inn, by Curtis F. Garfield and Alison R. Ridley(1988)
A History of Longfellow’s Wayside Inn by Brian E. Plumb (2011)
Howe Genealogies by Daniel Wait Howe (1929), Massachusetts Historical and Genealogical Society. This is said to be the best of the several genealogies of the family. Although I do not have a copy of the entire book, portions of it are available on the Internet.
Middlesex County records found on Ancestry.com. Birth, death and marriage.
Historic Homes and Institutions and Genealogical and Personal Memoirs of Worcester County Massachusetts Vol. 1, ed by Ellery Bicknell Crane (1907) Available as a Google Books e-book.
FindaGrave.com
I also have had assistance from the archivist and Longfellow’s Wayside Inn historian Richard Gnatkowski and Sudbury historian Lee Swanson.