One Howard Family

Introduction

It was the marriage of Lilla Belle Howard, the third generation in this line, to Benjamin F.W. Bodenhamer (#5 "The Bodenhamer Line") which brought all the interesting lines connected with the Hannum family to our genealogy.

It was not until 1991 that the parents of John Howard were discovered (#1 in this line, Benjamin Howard, and his wife). This compiler had written a number of letters over the years to both Vermont and Wisconsin, ordered books, even paid a researcher in the effort to learn more about the family, but the results were always negative. It was not until April and May of 1991 that two documents were received: one, the record of all Howard marriages in Pomfret, Windsor County, Vermont, and the other the marriage record of John S. Howard and Mary L. Hannum from Grant County, Wisconsin. It was, of course, just a coincidence that these both arrived within a month of each other. But I also believe that it was because I was on Kwajalein in the Marshall Islands and the record keepers took pity on me and did an extra good search this time! These papers tied together other records, and the maiden name of John's mother was determined.

Much work remains to be done on this line. The Farr, Howard, and Honey names are old ones in New England; and I believe they will lead to other long genealogical lines -- perhaps like those of John's wife, Mary Louise Hannum.

Genealogy

1. BENJAMIN [1] HOWARD was said to be "of Pomfret" in Windsor County, Vermont, when he was married to Mary Watkins on 27 October 1829(*1) in Sharon, Windsor County, by Isiah Tinkham, J.P. MARY FARR (HONEY) EATON WATKINS had two previous marriages: The first, at an unknown date and place, was to Ebenezer Eaton and the second was on 31 December 1820 to John Watkins [born 20 February 1778, the son of John and Mary (Scarborough) Watkins; died 12 October 1828](*2). It is not known if there were children of the Eaton marriage -- none appear in the town records -- but Mary had two with her second husband:

These births are not listed in the Pomfret town records as printed in the cited volume, so it is assumed that they did not occur in Pomfret and were obtained from family members of later generations.

In the twenty Howard births listed in the Pomfret town records, none are for children of Benjamin and Mary. However, the 1850 census of Trumbull County, Ohio, besides revealing that there was a child born shortly after their marriage named Nathan, also shows that both Benjamin and Mary were born in approximately 1797. Benjamin's birthplace is given as Vermont, and Mary's is given as New Hampshire.(*4)

Pomfret is a community actually made up of three small settlements. Pomfret Center is named after Pomfret, Connecticut, from where the original settlers came in 1770. Scarcely any evidence of a settlement remains at the central village buried high in the hills. The first pioneers to penetrate these mountains found evidence of a terrific hurricane which had ravaged the slopes long before the coming of the white man. North Pomfret is a small settlement sprawled along a tree-shaded road. South Pomfret, the chief village of the town, is a pleasant little community resting in a small valley.(*5)

The family moved about 1834 to Trumbull County, Ohio, where they remained for some years. In the early 1850's they moved again to Grant County, Wisconsin.(*6) No further record has been found for Benjamin and Mary or Nathan Howard in Grant County. The Grant County Genealogical Society, which has copied the gravestones in most of the cemeteries, has no record of them; and they have not yet been found in the censuses there. However, it is not at all unlikely that they lived in one of the nearby Iowa or Illinois counties; and these records have not yet been searched. The hunt will continue!

Presumably there were more children than this. A picture of a young woman in the old photograph album of Lilla Belle (Howard) Bodenhamer has the name "Ella Howard" on the back, but her relationship is unknown. It may turn out that she is a daughter of Nathan.

2. JOHN S. [2] HOWARD (Benjamin[1]) was born 2 January 1834 in Pomfret, Windsor County, Vermont, and moved with his family to Trumbull County, Ohio, when he was just an infant.(*7) In the early 1850's they moved to Grant County, Wisconsin.

.....Travel was tedious and difficult over the few main roads then existing, as these were scarcely more than pathways marked out between places of most importance. It took three weeks in 1850 to drive between Milwaukee and Platteville by ox-teams. Proposals for carrying the mails in 1853 called for delivery between Platteville and Mineral Point (a distance of 32 miles) in twelve house...There was much agitation for improved communications, particularly for a plank road from Galena northward to the Wisconsin River, which was a main highway at the time. However, traffic and transportation connections -- principally by water -- with the outside world seemed adequate to meet the people's needs then.(*8)

John wanted very badly to complete his education, but it is likely that he had to support himself and save some money before he could meet that goal.

.....Platteville itself was a very good business center with a trade area of 30 to 40 miles around about, and a thriving place apparently not hurt much by the California fever of 1848-1850. Merchants' stocks were larger and their prices were lower than at any other time before, and no one needed to go to Galena or elsewhere to buy what was wanted. "For the mechanic arts, this town cannot be excelled in Wisconsin," wrote the editor of the Independent American, October 3, 1851. "We have Wagon and Coach Makers and trimmers, Threshing Machine and Fanning Mill makers, Plow makers, Saddle and Harness Makers, a Foundry and Powder Mill, Cabinet Shops -- where the most elegant Furniture can be obtained -- a shop for the manufacture of Chain Pumps, Cooper Shops, Lumber Yards, a good Mill, a busy throng of Tailors, Shoemakers, Carpenters, Masons, Blacksmiths, and a Jeweler and Gunsmith." Business and profits were good, and the remarkable prosperity then prevailing was likely to continue since there was no "extraordinary" cause to produce it, but only a natural condition. As remarked by the editor of the paper: "It is a Mercantile and Mechanical industry and enterprise and our Schools -- therefore it is healthy."(*9)

A letter from Mrs. Dorothy Zenz in Potosi, Wisconsin, says that John was in the saddle & harness business, which is confirmed by his obituary. He is also called a "farmer."(*10) But all was not roses in the little city, which had a population of 2,171 people in the census of 1850,(*11) about the same population that Mountain Home, Arkansas, had a hundred years later.

.....Being a prosperous mining town, the population of Platteville was augmented each season by a considerable floating element, many of whom were directly interested in mining, but many of whom were also more concerned with securing the profits of mining for themselves through the "racketeering" methods of the time. This necessarily emphasized the "seamy" side of Platteville's life ordinarily sufficiently manifested in the vices -- drinking, gambling, swearing, and immorality.
..... Fortunately, though, much of this was localized on what was then called Grocery Street (now called Second Street or Central Avenue) because the village board refused to grant licenses for "Groceries" on Main Street. "In those early days," says a contemporary, "because foodstuffs and drink were supposed to belong to the same category and were dispensed by the same business houses, the term 'grocery' was appended to the store which furnished them. Later, when staple foodstuffs and dry goods were combined in general stores, the term 'grocery' still clung to places where drinks were the principal merchandise. Thus in my early days in Platteville 'groceries' were the equivalent of saloons of later years...Women and girls were not often seen on Grocery Street."
.....In time, a partition divided the front part of the "grocery" room from the rear, thus separating the "groggery" from the grocery proper. Another contemporary who lived in the country as a boy says, "I often saw men reeling on the streets or lying in the gutters. I met men on the road, homeward bound, running their horses at the top of their speed and shouting with all the strength of their voices. Now and then some poor fellow would fall out and break his neck or some of his bones. Well do I remember when Pat was pitched into the Platte. I heard his call for help; when we fished him out he was almost sober, but not quite."(*12)

John was eventually able to attend the Platteville Academy. It is not known exactly when he started; but, as shown by a complete newspaper saved by the family, he finished in March of 1855. He is listed then as being of Hazel Green and giving an "oration" on "America's Danger,"(*13) which was one of two published on the front page of the paper. The final paragraph of the essay follows:

.....The Declaration of Independence gave to the world a new idea of a nation governed by the people. It invaded the empire of Despotism and hurled thrones and principalities to the dust. This idea was borne across the Atlantic, and France shook till her towering edifice of Despotism, reeling in its giddy hight [sic] and groaning in its deep foundation stones, fell to the earth a mass of ruins upon which she reared her fabric of liberty. Other nations have warred too for freedom. It is but twenty four years since Poland made her great but unsuccessful struggle for liberty, and Hungary's bloody fields will tell how manfully did freedom grapple with tyrany. But Hungary and Poland, thy struggles were not in vain. Although tyranny has bared her arm, grasped the sword of vengeance and bathed it in thy reeking blood, still hope on. There is a brighter day to dawn upon your bloody fields, and thou too France, the loved and lamented, to whom our hearts yearn with gratitude for the service thy immortal son bore us in the revolution, although thy vine clad hills and sunny vales are now tilled by the hand of the oppressed, yet again shall Vive la Liberte echo along thy shore, for America is aroused to a sense of her danger and "God and Liberty" is the cry. The nations of the earth have caught the flame and acclamations of joy mingled with groans arise from every quarter of the world and we yet trust there is a good time coming. Poets have not sung in vain. Devouts and seers of all ages in their darkest hours of gloom have looked forward with hope to the future dawn of a better day, and we trust it is near at hand, when with one loud, long and glorious shout Liberty shall greet the downtrodden nations of the earth. When

The paper reported that twelve orations were given, and said

"the orations were well written and delivered, and some of them quite original. In awarding the prize the Committee found some difficulty in deciding between the two pieces which appear on our first page, but awarded the prize to W. H. Sheldon...
.....The exercises of the afternoon, the crowded audience having listened with interest for more than three hours, were closed by singing the following, written by Miss S. E. Patterson, the music by Miss M.E. Page, as a:
               Farewell, companions dear
                  No more with you we spend
               The light-winged hours, where pleasure's
                         flowers
                  With gems of learning blend.

               Farewell ye teachers kind!
                  Your names shall ever be
               Bright golden links in mem'ry's chain,
                  While future years shall flee.

               God bless your work of love!
                  And when life's toils are o'er,
               Oh! may we all unite above
                  Where partings are no more.

With these touching sentiments, we leave Platteville Academy and skip ahead to 19 August 1855.(*14) It was on this date that John S. Howard was married to MARY LOUISE HANNUM of Jamestown, Grant County, Wisconsin (see #7 in "The Hannum Family"). It was most assuredly a double wedding ceremony, for Mary's twin sister, Mercy Hannum, and Orrin Lowry Dodd were married on the same day (see #6 viii. in "The Hannum Family").

It was probably in North Carolina that the idea for the Mountain Home Male and Female Academy was conceived. From National Archives pension papers, we know that Orrin Dodd, who has become known as the founder of Mountain Home, and his wife Mercy, Mary's twin, lived in Johnston County at that time. (They witnessed bounty land application papers in 1856 for Warren Hannum, father of the twins, and Orrin was involved in a law suit there in 1858.) Col. Dodd was later to donate the land for the school around which Mountain Home grew. John and Mary Howard were there, also; they had a son born in Eureka, Johnston County, in late 1858. Shortly thereafter, they were all in Mountain Home.

Since the Howards, who are direct ancestors of the Ramey family, and the Dodds, who are collateral ancestors, were among the first settlers of Mountain Home, it is appropriate that the early history of that town be discussed. It is not known exactly what year Col. Dodd originally came to the area and established his southern home and plantation. Tradition has formerly placed the time as the early 1850's, stating that Col. Dodd also owned a plantation in Augusta, Arkansas. It has been said that his slaves, while traveling back and forth between the two by steamboat on the White River described this as their "Mountain Home" to their south-Arkansas counterparts.(*15) In any case, we now know for sure just exactly when the Mountain Home Male and Female Academy was started, thanks to another old newspaper story. This one, originally printed in The Baxter County Citizen on 16 July 1891, was reprinted in The Baxter Bulletin on 10 July 1969. The story, entitled "EARLY HISTORY - Report of Committee on History to the Old Settlers Meeting of Baxter County on July 4th, 1891," says:

.....That institution was first built near the sight of the present academy.(*16) It was begun in the winter of 1858 and finished in 1859. T.B. Goforth, our present county surveyor, was the contractor. It was built by subscriptions as few of our inhabitants then were. Prof. Howard was the first teacher. It had scholars from Batesville, Jacksonport and many other places and in the country for one hundred miles around. It flourished apace. It increased the value of realestate 300 to 400 per cent., during the short time it was in existence before the war. It was destroyed by fire Dec. 12, 1864. It was rebuilt after the war, principally through the efforts of its former founders. Prof. Truman and Mrs. Truman, Prof. Howard, et.al., conducted the school for many years, during which time it was the only high school, in this section for many leagues around.(*17)

John Howard was "joined for duty and enrolled" in the Confederate army and entered the service on March 11, 1862. He became a private in Capt. Maxey's Company, First Regiment, McBride's Brigade, Arkansas Infantry. The company later became Company E, 27th Regiment, Arkansas Infantry, Confederate, also known as Shaler's Regiment.(*18) Family tradition says that he was captured while home on leave, held in prison in Springfield, and then released at the behest of northern friends. The only documentary evidence of this is a note on his military papers from the National Archives that says he was "Dismounted July 29, 1862--As shown by certificate of mustering officer."

The following two articles shed more light on Professor Howard and his life.(*19)

HOWARD

Professor John S. Howard was born in Pomfret, Windsor County, Vermont, January 2, 1834, and with his wife, formerly Mary Louise Hannum, came to Mountain Home from Platteville, Wisconsin in 1854. Here he established the Mountain Home Male and Female Academy, the institution around which Mountain Home was built. During the Civil War Professor Howard was a quartermaster in the Confederate army and young men who would have been students were called to war duties so the Academy was closed, and later was burned in a bushwhacker raid on the town. Mr. Howard was captured and held by the Federals in Springfield and after his release he and his family went to Iowa Falls, Iowa. Soon after the war was over, however people of Mountain Home wrote asking that he come back and rebuild the Academy. This he did and after many years of devoted service at the Academy, he retired from the teaching profession and bought the Quid Nunc, changing its name to the Baxter County Citizen, which name it retained until it suspended publication a few years ago. Professor and Mrs. Howard were the parents of three children: Lillabelle, who was born in Tafton, Grant County, Wisconsin, April 6, 1856, and married Captain Ben Bodenhamer; Charles O., who was born in Eureka, Johnson County, North Carolina, November 19, 1858 and married Mollie Smith; and Mary, who was born in Lancaster, Grant County, Wisconsin, November 13, 1865, and married Dr. Bob Wilson.

**********

PROFESSOR J. S. HOWARD
MOUNTAIN HOME MALE AND FEMALE ACADEMY

Of the many changes in manners and institutions since the Civil War, one of the greatest is in the methods of education. In the grades the new "free" methods and "inclusive" curriculum contrast sharply with the methods in the days when McGuffey's Reader and Webster's Blue Back Speller were the principal texts, and when pupils recited their lessons to the schoolmaster one by one in the order in which they arrived at school.

An institution of Civil War days which had much influence in improving educational methods as well as prompting educational enthusiasm in every town and community in its section was the Mountain Home Male and Female Academy, opened in 1853, by Professor J. S. Howard, a minister and "schoolmaster" from Platteville, Wisconsin.

"Its effects," says Dr. J.F. Norman of Springfield, Mo., one of the first pupils of the academy, "were felt all over north Arkansas and south Missouri. It had a Normal Department and educated and sent out many teachers, both men and women. Almost every school district for many miles was supplied with a teacher from the old Mountain Home Academy. A New Deal was inaugurated in the educational activities everywhere. Not only the teaching profession was represented, but professional men in almost all walks of life had their training in this school. All of them made good in their positions. The instructions were thorough, the work the best."

The building, a large two-story white frame, fronted on the west with a porch and gigantic wooden pillars, stood where the grade school now stands, three blocks south of the square. The land for the campus was donated by Col. O.L. Dodd, one of the first and wealthiest settlers of Mountain Home. Before the war, the building was used for church services as well as school, congregations of all denominations meeting there.

When the war began, the school was closed because all young and able men had to enroll. Professor Howard was made a quartermaster in the Confederate army. While home on leave one night he was captured by a band of bushwhackers and taken to a Federal prison in Springfield, Mo. Several months later another group of bushwhackers descended on the settlement, burned the academy, Professor Howard's home, Colonel Dodd's, and several other nearby homes. What food they had was stolen or destroyed, so Mrs. Howard decided to take her two small children, Belle, six, and Charlie, four, to Springfield in an ox wagon, driven by a 14-year-old neighbor boy. When within 25 miles of Springfield, one ox died and Mrs. Howard had to leave the children in the wagon while she went to hire someone to take them on. Little Charlie became so frightened at the sight of a group of soldiers walking along the road that Belle hid him under her wide skirts and thus they waited until their mother came back. Through influential friends Professor Howard was released and they went to Wisconsin.

In 1868, the people in Mountain Home sent for them to come back and start the school again. Another building was erected and the enrollment so increased that several additions were made to the faculty, the most important being that of Prof. A.J. Truman, a native of New York state, and a well-known schoolmaster in several states. The Springfield Leader-Democrat of January, 1902, said of him:

"Professor Truman has made for himself much fame as a teacher in south Missouri and north Arkansas. About 20 years ago, Arno, in Douglas County, became the seat of a very popular school and he was its chief instructor. The little town filled up with students. Everybody helped board the scholars. Young men from all the surrounding counties went to Professor Truman's academy. Arno was made a training school for young teachers. A statement from the Douglas County professor that a young man had attended his school almost took the place of an official certificate and the Arno graduates practically monopolized the educational vocation of that section of the country. There were wonderful stories told about Professor Truman's learning. He was certainly a very successful teacher and a man of much character. One of the scholastic feats which Professor Truman's pupils used to perform at Arno was diagramming the Constitution of the United States."

The two professors were fast friends and are now mentioned most often simultaneously. Their names in this section are synonyms for education. Each had his own unforgettable expressions and characteristics. Professor Truman continually urged people to "think" and, according to Dr. J.F. Norman: "One of Professor Howard's chief characteristics was his Christian fortitude. He would open school with worship each and every morning. After this service Professor Truman followed with an enthusiastic lecture which stirred the students to better endeavors. Although 65 years have passed, the good old songs we used to sing in chapel each morning still ring in my ears...One of Professor Howard's favorites was 'Clear the Way, the World is Waking, Night is Gone and Day is Breaking.' Such mottoes as 'Strive to Excel,' 'Go In to Win' were conscientiously followed by the students."

The enrollment, considering the circumstances of those days, was large -- over 100 boarding students, many of them from farther south, Batesville and Oil Trough especially, who came here because of the pleasant and healthful climate. The young women boarders stayed at the new home built by Colonel Dodd at the foot of the hill on which his other one stood. The men stayed at the M.H. Paul and T.I. Hicks homes, which were farther from campus than the Dodd home. Board was from $7 to $10 a month. Many students from town attended, and some from the surrounding country; some of them rode horseback as far as 10 miles each day. For that reason a bell with a carrying tone was needed to warn the students of approaching school time. It was given to the school by the Balmer, Weber Company of St. Louis, from whom Professor Howard had bought a piano for the academy, causing the company to receive many other orders for pianos, Mrs. Bodenhamer said. The bell is still used on the grade school building and despite the noises of industry and traffic and other obstructions to its sound waves, can be heard for several miles.

The curriculum differed greatly from that of the modern school, as did the system of grading and crediting the students. In the grades, pupils were sorted into classes largely according to their reading and spelling ability. They were soon taught mathematics and other subjects and the advanced students were taught Latin and the classics. Music was taught, only singing at first, led by Professor Howard. A melodeon belonging to his daughter was used for the accompaniment. Later, when the piano was bought, Mrs. M.N. Dyer, wife of Captain Dyer, a lawyer, gave piano instructions.

Students enrolled at the academy whenever they were able to attend. Mrs. Bodenhamer tells of one young widow who attended the academy whenever she was not teaching, and who successfully managed her farm when doing either one. While in school they studied what they needed and wanted to know. Practically every one of them was perfect in "ciphering" and spelling, especially those in the Normal Department, because it was a favorite indoor sport, participated in by parents as well as pupils, in most of the schools in those days to "stump" the teacher. Naturally, teachers wanted to save themselves embarrassment and pupils worked all the harder to "stump" them, so the citizenry then was much more adept at spelling and ciphering than it is today. One dollar per month was charged for tuition, according to Polk Walker, another old student of the academy. Ministerial students were admitted free of charge.

The academy did much to mould and benefit the community and its effects can still be felt in Mountain Home. Dr. Norman says: "It brought more business, the land was higher, and Mountain Home gained more prominence in the whole country than any community for many miles." Although the academy is gone, its influence still lives, and the lessons taught by the two fine old professors have been broadcast to hundreds of others, by their pupils, who looked on them, not as mere teachers but as intimate friends.

In the History Room of the Baxter County Library, Mountain Home, is a 27 June 1877 issue of the old newspaper, the Quid Nunc. One of the notices which appears in it states:

J.S. Howard and A.J. Truman, Associate Professors of the Mountain Home Male and Female Academy. Fall term of four months commences 1st Monday in September. Winter and Spring Term of 6 months, 1st Monday in January. Tuition, $1.50 to $3.50 per month, payable at the middle of each session. 10% added if not paid when due. Incidental fee, 50 cents. Board $6.50 to $8.00 per month. Vocal lessons free.

John S. Howard, who had also served from 1882-1888 as Mountain Home City Treasurer, died in Mountain Home on 14 March 1900 and was buried in the Mountain Home Cemetery. His obituary, which was probably clipped from a Baxter County newspaper and saved by Luna (Bodenhamer) Ramey, appears below:

OBITUARY OF JOHN S. HOWARD

Elder John S. Howard was born January 2, 1834, in Pompfret, Windsor County, Vermont. His parents moved, in his infancy, to Trumbull County, Ohio. When he was 16 years old the entire family moved to the state of Wisconsin, near Platteville, at which place he obeyed the gospel before he was 20 years old. His parents were poor, but honorable. He had an early inspiration for a thorough education. He worked under a severe apprenticeship at the saddlery and harness trade, entered a piece of land, which he sold and completed his education at the Platteville Academy, March 9, 1855. He was married to Miss Mary Hannum August 19, 1855, with whom he has lived happily for near 45 years. After marriage he moved to Bloomington, Wisconsin, remaining there two years. Emigrated to Arkansas in the spring of 1858.

He was the pioneer of education at Mountain Home and in North Arkansas. With Professor A.J. Truman he conducted the Mountain Home Male and Female Academy successfully for many years.

He departed this life on Wednesday, March 14, 1900, at 4 p.m., after a brief illness of one week with pneumonia. He leaves a devoted and pious Christian wife, two daughters - Mrs. Belle Bodenhamer and Mrs. Rena Wilson - and one son Charley, and a number of grandchildren. Among his final words were, that it was his heart's desire that they all might meet him in heaven, and that the legacy he left them was his uniform life of pure Christianity. Truly a great man has fallen in Israel.
Servant of God, well done,
Rest from the loved employ;
The battle fought, the victory won,
Enter Thy Master's joy.
........... -- An old-time Comrade and Christian Friend.