Background on Creator:
Donald Howe was a descendent of the John and Solomon Howe, the best known printers in the Quabbin region during the nineteenth century. Based in the relatively remote towns of Greenwich and Enfield, the Howes built a vibrant practice, printing almanacs, songs and occasional poems, pamphlets and small books for a popular audience.
A graduate of the Cushing Academy and one-time student at Bates College, Donald Howe was treasurer of Ware Coupling Co., and owner of the Quabbin Book House and Radio Station WARE. In 1951, he wrote Quabbin, The Lost Valley, one of the first personal accounts of the evacuation and inundation of the towns Greenwich, Enfield, Dana, and Prescott, as the Swift River Valley was dammed up to create the Quabbin Reservoir to provide Boston with water.
Family history
Generation A
- John? Howe of Sudbury?, MA.
Generation B
- Solomon Howe
b.: Sept. 14, 1750, North Brookfield, Mass.
m.: Mary (Polly) Holmes of New Braintree, daughter of Adam and Hannah Holmes (1753-1833)
8 children: Jedidiah, Silas Warren, Nancy, Solomon Jr., Jonah, Abigail, Hannah, John Milton
m.: (2) Catherine Grant (d. Nov. 18, 1835, New Salem, Mass.)
Solomon was a 1777 graduate of Dartmouth, a Baptist minister, printer and farmer in various towns like Brookfield, Enfield, New Salem. A hymn book he wrote, wholly or partially, is held at the American Antiquarian Society. The Dartmouth Alumni Sketches (1867) describes Solomon Howe, "His life was eccentric and desultory."
Generation C
- Milton Howe
b.: Brookfield, Mass., Dec. 20, 1783 or 1785
m.: Rhoda Babbett of Ware, May 1815 (d. 13 Sept 1837)
m.: (2) Fanny (d. 16 Feb. 1845, Enfield)
6 children: John Holmes, Myra M., Frances M., Henry Clay Milton, Solomon Bolivar Jackson, Fenelon Warren
John Milton Howe was a printer, farmer and storekeeper in Enfield. He printed Howe's Genuine Almanac 1804-1826, reportedly doing the astronomical calculations himself (see Special Collections for several editions). Note: Enfield was part of Greenwich until legally incorporated in 1816. John M. Howe was an Enfield Town Collector.
Generation D
- Henry Clay Milton Howe
b. Jan 10, 1823, Enfield
m. 1848 Theodocia Ann Johnson of Dana, (b. April 20, 1824, d. Sept. 18, 1898) daughter of Nathaniel Johnson and Martha Joslyn
4 children: Edwin H., Henry J., William F., Theodocia Lillian (Lillie)
H.C.M. Howe was a Methodist, a Democrat, a surveyor, assessor, storekeeper, and postmaster in Enfield.
Solomon Bolivar Jackson Howe, "Bolivar", brother of H.C.M. Howe, attended Amherst Academy (?), was a schoolteacher in Delaware, then a bookkeeper in Philadelphia during the Civil War and after. He expressed radical politics in letters home to Enfield.
m.: (1) Francena; (2) Mary M. (d. 1869)
Fenelon Warren Howe, brother of H.C.M. and Bolivar, moved to California during the gold rush, wrote home from Placerville 1856, Castroville 1872. Apparently went bankrupt.
Generation E
- Edwin H. Howe (b. March 9, 1859, Enfield)
m.: Annie A. Williams of Hyde Park, Franklin, Mass. (d. Feb. 10, 1943, Ware)
3 children: Henry C., Donald Williams, Milton Freeman
Edwin H. graduated from the Eastman School of Business, Poughkeepsie, N.Y. in 1882. He ran the store and was Enfield postmaster for 25 years beginning in 1889, started a telephone exchange, was on the school board, and was a town clerk.
William F. Howe, brother of Edwin H. (b. Nov. 17, 1855)
m.: Harriet Hubbard
William F. was also storekeeper and postmaster at times in Enfield.
Generation F
- Edwin C. Howe,"Ned" (b. Aug. 6, 1898, Enfield)
m.: Ruth Ward
Edwin C. was the last postmaster of Enfield before the Quabbin was built.
- Donald Williams Howe (b. Mar. 18, 1892)
m.: (1) Josephine R. Bradford, 1914
4 children: Donald Jr., Elizabeth Bradford (m. Roger Nye
Lincoln), Malcolm, Nancy (m. Howard Buckner)
m.: (2) Antonia Blyskal 1948 (d. after 1960)
Scope of collection
The Howe Family papers, collected by family members over two centuries, are important not only for biographical or genealogical purposes, but also are useful for reconstructing the social history of Enfield and the Swift River Valley in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Especially when used in conjunction with other collections in the Special Collections and Archives Department and with public records, they reveal much about the society and culture of the area from 1800 to the 1930s when the Quabbin Reservoir flooded the valley.
The collection is organized into the following series, including Correspondence, 1840-1940, Legal Documents, 1809-1892, Howe Genealogy, 195?, Account Books, 1730-1920, and Printed Memorabilia and Clippings, 1884-1955.
The most interesting correspondence in the collection is that of Henry Clay Milton Howe and his wife Theodocia Johnson Howe, letters from 1840-1877. These letters reflect the lives of some of the more well off residents of rural Enfield. Theodocia's letter from her sister Charlotte tells of the 1840 revivals in New Salem, for example. Other letters are from her Johnson relatives who are rising entrepreneurs and state representatives in nearby Dana (folder 2). H.C.M. Howe stayed in Enfield having inherited the family store and farm, but his brothers wrote home to him from the gold fields of California (folder 3) and from Philadelphia. The Philadelphia brother wrote to his small-town capitalist brother about radical criticism of the Civil War, and about the death of Abraham Lincoln (folder 4).
The taking of Enfield and Howe family land is documented in letters and clippings about the creation of the Quabbin Reservoir of interest to researchers of that era (folders 11 and 31).
The deeds and other legal documents are from 1809 when the Howes first bought land in Enfield and began their farming and storekeeping there. These documents help to show the status of the Howes in the community.
The set of bound account books that the Howes kept from 1730-1920, (with large gaps) shows the growth of rural society from a barter economy to a very commercial one, with the accompanying change in the Howe family males' occupations from storekeeper, to minister-printer, to printer-storekeeper, to storekeeper-postmaster, to storekeeper-postmaster-telephone exchange owner to storekeeper-postmaster-gas station owner. Incidentally the account books show the professionalization of bookkeeping methods in the nineteenth century. The early books were used to record sales, but also deaths, even poems. Later books are more specific in use. The 1796 book is not an account-book, but relatedly, the childhood arithmetic exercise book of John Milton Howe who kept the 1821 book for his store in Enfield. The first page of the exercise book admonishes, "Arithmetic . . . the knowledge of which is so necessary that scarcely any thing in life, and nothing in trade can be done without it."
The account books record credits and debits with many of the other people in the small community and outside of it. Careful reading of the accounts can unfold a rich lode of information. For example, Samuel Fowler Dickinson of Amherst was buying hundreds of board feet of lumber in 1821, at exactly the time he was helping to get Amherst College built (folder 24). John Howe was taking braid in trade early in the 1820's from women in the community who were the beginning of the palm leaf hat and mat industry (folder 24). Mrs. Hannum's bill was paid for by the town of Greenwich, and was being picked up by an S. Peebles--rum, flour, tea, and mackeral . . . a woman on welfare? (folder 24).
The accounts of the estate of John Milton Howe, who died in 1845 but whose estate was not settled until the 1850s, show that Howe had accumulated quite a large amount of money which was being lent out to various individuals and businesses and even to the town (folders 25 and 26). Later accounts show the growing complexity of life in Enfield. In use with other documents from Enfield and the Quabbin region, MS 19 should prove to be an invaluable source for a wide variety of researchers.
Arrangement
This collection is organized into five series:
