The Howland family line
An interesting branch of my family tree is the Howland line, for which I have reviewed records from as early as the sixteenth century.
A detailed volume entitled “A brief genealogical and biographical history of Arthur, Henry, and John Howland and their descendants” provides some conflicting evidence as to the origins of the Howland line in England.
John Howland (1512-1870) was possibly born in Newport Pond, Uttlesford, Essex County, in England. The name ‘Newport Pond’ refers to a fish pond which was dried up by the 16th century.
Hemarried Lady Anne Agnes Greeneaway (also spelled Greenway) on 16 June 1539 at the Saint Lawrence Jewry and Saint Mary Magdelene. This church was destroyed in the Great Fire of London more than a century later. The marriage record shows the spelling of his surname as “Holland”.
The next potential ancestor down on our ancestral ladder is John’s son, also named John (we see how there are many opportunities for confusion) was born in 1537 and died in 1574.
Caveat: Records related to the children of John Howland and Lady Anne Agnes do show a John Howland; however, the birth and death dates differ. It is unknown whether the link is reliable, as records also show that the John Howland who was the child of John and Anne had three children of his own, the names of whom seem to differ from “our” John Howland’s.
Henry Howland (1569-1656) was born in Huntingdonshire, England, in 1569. There are a lot of family trees that have been shared online that show unverified relationships and differing dates of birth/death. At this point I am hesitant to state that the dates of birth/death that I have noted are correct, but I have left them in place as a placeholder. Nor is a spouse mentioned.
Henry Howland (1602-1671) is a more certain ancestor. He is presumably the son of Henry Howland, above, and may (or not) have been the brother of one John Howland, who sailed on the Mayflower. Interestingly, John fell overboard at one point in the voyage but managed to grab hold of a halyard and was pulled back onto the ship.
Returning to his (possible) brother Henry, we have reliable evidence of his marriage to Mary in 1628; the notation “not Newland” is somewhat confusing, however.
So there is debate as to whether Henry Howland and John Howland were brothers or cousins.
In the comprehensive text noted above, it is noted how a later Howland descendant hired an English lawyer to make inquiries as to the provenance of the Howlands who eventually made their way to the New World. Colonel Joseph L. Chester was a “barrister and noted antiquarian of London”. This gentleman determined that the surname was found “in no other county in England than Essex”. There were several distinct families, probably all interrelated, and described by Chester as follows:
- A branch headed by “John Howland of Newport Pond” (as noted above), whose will was proved in 1550. He had a son, John (a “salter”), who married Agnes, daughter of John Greenway. This ‘salter’ John and his wife Agnes had 11 sons, and one daughter who died in infancy. One of the sons, Richard, went on to become a Bishop. Another son, John, married “Emme, daughter of Nicholas Revell” and had another son, also named John. It was this John that is claimed by some to be the one that sailed on the Mayflower, but Mr. Chester apparently “conclusively” proved that this individual died unmarried and was buried in England.
- A second family is traced back to “John Howland of the Stone” of Wicken, Essex, who married Blanche Nightingale. They had four sons and three daughters. One of these sons, Jeffrey, was left some estates by a close relative (Sir Giles Howland). Jeffrey’s lineage culminated in an heiress who married into nobility.
- Another John Howland, referred to as “John Howland of the Wood, in Wicken” was identified but the London records reviewed by Colonel Chester revealed nothing.
- A fourth John Howland, referred to as a “husbandman” was also regarded as being an unlikely forebear of the John Howland who was on the Mayflower.
- However, “just at the close of his investigations”, Chester discovered another family consisting of sons Humphrey (a “citizen and draper”), Arthur, John, and Henry. Unfortunately, Chester made no further progress in investigating this branch as he died before he could proceed further, but it seems to be accepted that the trio of Arthur, John and Henry are the ones that we should be interested in and for which there is better evidence of having been the ancestors of the later Howlands of New England.
So, following the uncertainty of the origin of the Henry Howland from whom we are descended, and with the possibility that at least one of the three “brothers” may have been a cousin, we can track Henry from his arrival in Plymouth until his death in 1671. This Henry Howland did in fact marry a woman named Mary Newland, so the notation in the marriage records is a bit of a mystery.
Henry and his wife had eight children, with Samuel (abt. 1650-1716) being our ancestor. We do have some will and probate records to go by, as well as an entry in the Freetown Town and Vital Records:
Samuel married Mary Sampson in 1673 and they had nine children. Of these, Abraham Howland (1680-1745) is the next step in the lineage. He married an Anne Colson (1643-1747) and they had a child named Samuel (1717-1809). Abraham is buried in Hanson, Plymouth County, Massachusetts.
Abraham and Anne’s son, Samuel, was born on 25 December 1717 in Pembroke, according to the vital record transcripts:
Samuel married Lydia Robinson in 1770, when he would have been 52 or 53 years old (she was presumably somewhat younger).
This couple had four children: Robinson (b. 1770), Lucy (b.1771), Sarah (b. 1773) and Warren (b. 1775).
Though a Zebulon Howland is the next step down towards the present, there is a problem. Zebulon was born in 1739, 31 years before the marriage of Samuel and Lydia. It would therefore seem that either (1) Samuel had a first wife, and that Lydia was not Zebulon’s mother, or (2) we have an incorrect Samuel Howland identified as an ancestor.
I found one record on Geneanet that would seem to suggest that Zebulon’s mother’s name was Sarah Joy (c. 1720-1809). This is somewhat odd, as divorce was not common in those days (usually men only remarried after the death of their wife). It is therefore possible that the Samuel who married Lydia Robinson was another Samuel altogether.
This extract from the Massachusetts Compiled Birth, Marriage and Death Records shows both marriages, but it is not clear whether it is the same Samuel Howland:
There is this interesting entry in the Mayflower Deeds and Probates, 1600-1850:
The actual probate estate file is also available online and contains some mention of Sarah’s dower rights.
Zebulon Howland (1739-1824)
There is a great deal of information about this individual, who is my 4th great-grandfather. He was born in Pembroke, Massachusetts on 19 August 1738 and died on 19 February 1824, in Maine. He is buried in the Sprague-Howland Cemetery in Avon, Maine.
Zebulon married Lydia Cushing on 26 January 1758. Lydia died in 1771, presumably in giving birth to my next ancestor, Elizabeth Cushing Howland (1771-1847). The couple had a total of (at least) four sons and three daughters.
He went on to be a Second and First Lieutenant in Captain John Boyd’s Company of Matrosses in the War of the Revolution.
Elizabeth Cushing Howland (1771-1847)
This is the end of the Howlands insofar as my ancestors are concerned. Elizabeth married Jeremiah Russell on 25 March 1790 in Providence, Rhode Island and they had an enormous family of at least 15 children. She and her husband were also the last of our ancestors to live out their lives in the United States following the American Revolution.
Jeremiah Russell was born on 25 June 1764 in Bristol, Rhode Island, and died a few years before his wife.
Their son, John Russell, was born in 1802 in Nobleboro, Maine.
As this marks the end of the Howland line of my ancestors – see the Russell family line for members of that family both before and after it intersects with that of the Howlands.