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Picture taken by John Buczek 2000
John Howe House
Marlborough John Howe Homestead
Massachusetts Historical
Commission
80 Boylston Street
Boston, Massachusetts 02116
Additional information by Anne Forbes, consultant to Marlborough Historical Commission, 7/6/95:
ARCHITECTURAL DESCRIPTION.
Even if this house does
not contain the pre-1660 cabin of first settler John Howe, (an architectural
inspection of the interior would be necessary to tell whether it might,)
it was undoubtedly enlarged and updated many times during its long history.
Today, it is a typical 2 1/2-story, 5- by 2-bay, center-chimney colonial
farmhouse embellished with later details. A long one-story ell extending
to the west has a two-car garage inserted at the outer end. The ell also
has the other main alteration--the installation of casement windows on
the facade.
The other windows are presently 6-over-6-sash, with molded surrounds; they probably replaced 2over-2-sash sometime after 1927. The main entry has a mid-nineteenth-century four-panel door with applied moldings in an earlier, Federal period surround of flat pilasters, narrow divided 2/3length sidelights, and a high frieze with overhanging lintel. Another four-paneled door is located in the ell facade. At the main roofline is a molded, boxed cornice with a complex bed molding, characteristic of the Federal period. The house has narrow corner boards, and is presently clad in wood shingles. The roof is asphalt shingle, the foundation is granite block.
This house was also the first tavern in Marlborough for there is a petition for renewal of his license in 1670. His son John Howe Jr. was killed by the Indians near Sudbury in 1675, and John Jr.'s daughter Elizabeth was taken captive by the Indians in Lancaster, from the house of her brother-in-law Peter Joslin in 1692, she being the only survivor was later ransomed by the government after nearly four years of captivity.
Probably because John Howe's son, John Howe, Jr. (b. 1640), was also a tavern-keeper, (his tavern was on the eastern section of the Boston Post Road,) there has been some confusion as to whether or not this house stands on the site of the first house built in Marlborough. If Charles Hudson is to be believed, this building does indeed stand on or near that site, and certainly occupies part of John Howe's farm. Whether it contains any part of that first cabin of ca. 1657, however, is unknown, although it is quite likely that it does incorporate a house of some sort that he occupied before he died in 1689. Hudson, writing in 1862 and referring to landmarks of his own time, says that the home of John Howe, who is generally acknowledged to have been the first settler in what was to be incorporated in 1660 as the town of Marlborough, was located "100 rods from the Spring Hill meeting house, a little east of the present road from Spring Hill to Feltonville" on the property "recently occupied by the late Edward Rice." (Hudson, 381). Pacing 100 rods north of the meeting house would apparently place either the cabin or a slightly later John Howe House squarely on this property. "E. Rice" is shown as one of its owners on the maps of 1830 and 1835.
Deed research will be necessary to reveal the exact line of ownership of the house. It shows first on maps as having belonged sometime before 1803 to Francis Howe (1750-1833). Francis Howe, who married Mary Hapgood in 1773, was a direct descendant of one of John Howe's younger sons, Col. Thomas Howe (1656-1733), who was also a tavern-keeper, and it is possible that Col. Thomas, rather than John Howe, Jr., inherited their father's house and continued to keep the tavern here at this location.
If he did carry on the house,
tavern business, and farm, then the property may have passed by way of
his son and grandson (also both Thomas Howe) to Francis, who was the third
Thomas's son.
Also, if Col. Thomas was
the owner of this house in 1711, then it is likely that this was the building
referred to as "Capt. Howe's garrison", one of 26 houses designated at
that time as places of refuge in the event of an Indian attack.
By 1803 the house was owned by Joseph Brigham, possibly a cousin of Francis Howe through his mother, Dorothy Brigham. This may have been Joseph Brigham, Esq., the first "settled" lawyer in Marlborough, who was also Justice of the Peace in 1804. By 1830, the property had apparently come under the ownership of members of the other Howe family in Marlborough, the line of original settler Abraham Howe. The owner in that year was the "Widow J. Howe", with Edward Rice. It is likely that this refers to Mrs. Jerusha (Gates) Howe, widow of Joel, and her brother-inlaw, Edward Rice.
The house is next shown on maps, in 1853 and 1856, as belonging to W.H. and M.E. Howe. Two of Jerusha Howe's children (possibly twins, as they were baptized on the same day in 1823), were William Henry and Mary (Mariah) Elizabeth Howe. Jerusha died in 1847, and from the initials on the maps, it appears that William Henry and Mary Elizabeth inherited this property jointly. By 1875 the property is shown under the name of W.H. Howe alone. Farmer Ephraim Howe, who made his home on Bolton Street, was apparently the next owner, by 1889. By that year he had begun the subdivision of part his own fifty acres, as well as the thirty-three acres of William H. Howe's former property. In all, he laid out 69 small lots fronting on Bolton, Union, and the new State Street. Fowler Street itself, where 19 lots were laid out south and west of the farmhouse, was to be extended to Bolton. Early in this century the property was acquired by Charles Nourse. He died sometime before 1927, when it was owned by his heirs.
John Goodman Howe House
On this plantation lied the first white inhabitant of Marlboro, John Howe of Sudburv was one of the petitioners in 1657 for the new grant, and was the son of John Howe supposed to be the John Howe Esq. who came from Warwickshire, England, and who was a descendant of John Howe, the son of John of Hodinhull and connected with the family of Sir Charles Howe of Lancaster in the reign of Charles first. John Howe with his wife Mary resided first in Watertown and afterwards in Sudbury where he was in 1639. He was admitted freeman in 1640 and he and his wife both died in Marlboro 1687. John came to Marlboro about 1657 and on the above spot of land not far from the Aaron Stevens Homestead a little to the east of the Indian Planting Field, he built him a cabin which has been enlarged or rebuilt and occupied by his descendants for many generations. His proximity to the Indian Plantation brought him in direct contact with the natives, but by his kindness he gained the confidence and good will of his savage neighbors who accordingly not only respected his rights but in many cases made him Judge in cases of difficulties among themselves.
One day two Indians got into a dispute ,when a pumpkin vine sprang on the land of one Indian and the fruit ripened upon the premises of the other. Each claimed the property but decided to go to John as Umpire. "Pale face Chief him tell where sun fruit go ; white face chief, him know a heap, him tell." Quickly John calls for a knife and severing the fruit gives half to each. "Pale face Chief him big man; Chief, him know, him tell; him very big Chief." And John went up a notch still higher in the good opinion of his red faced neighbors.
Nor was a sense of his justice and impartiality confided in by Indians alone. When in 1662 Thosmas Danforth Esq. made a demand upon the colony for a further compensation for his services the Court ordered that he "shall have granted him so much land as Goodman Rice and Goodman Howe of Marlboro shall judge to be worth ten pounds; and they are empowered to bound the same to him."
Goodman Howe seems to have inherited some of that fine trait of character of the ancestral scholar and chaplain of Cromwell, who one day when the eloquent preacher was soliciting aid or patronage for some person whom he thought deserving, turned sharply and queeried "John Howe you are always asking something for some poor fellow, why do you never ask anything for Yourself ?" John Howe at Sudbury was Selectman and appointed "to see to the restraining of youth on the Lord's Day." As time went on he opened the first public house in Marlboro, and if that be true then this Homestead was an Inn or Tavern, and about 1670 we find his petition for a renewal of his license and he speaks as tho he had been in the business for some time. At the time he was licensed "to keep a house of entertainment" there were but two houses between his tavern and Worcester. At this, Ordinary, his grandson, David Howe who afterwards in 1700 built and kept the Red Horse Tavern at Sudbury to distinguish it from the Marlboro "Black Horse Inn," may have been favorably struck with the occupation of an Innholder which in early days was considered quite a distinguished occupation. the landlord being the great man of the town and Esquire. Selectman and local Magistrate.
Everything was posted at the tavern which became the general place for news, and distances were computed from tavern to tavern.
The descendants of John Howe were numerous. In his will proved in 1689 he gave Thomas "the horse he troops on" and he mentions among the others John Howe, Jr. a son of his son John who was married to Elizabeth Ward and killed by the Indians in the east part of Marlboro, near Sudbury and as the Probate Record says "his housings were burned by the Indians." They say the latter kept a tavern on the Munroe Wilson place and that he was killed aid his buildings burned the day before Capt. Wardsworth was kil1ed at Sudbury. His daughter Elizabeth or Mary came near sharing her father's fate, for in 1692 she was in Lancaster at the house of Peter Joslin who married her sister, when the Indians attacked the house, murdered the family and carried her into captivity.
For several years the name
How, as formerly written, has been the prevailing name in numbers in this
town. In 1762 there has been the prevailing name in numbers in this town.
In 1762 there were 18 persons by the name of Howe taxed in the southern
part of Marlboro. In 1770 twenty Howes were taxed. In 1798 thirty-one
Howes were taxed. In 1826 there were 28 of the name on the list of voters
and in 1840 the Howe voters were 42. Over one hundred years ago Marlboro
,was said to be the hive of the Howes and more than one hundred and fifty
families by that name had then resided here.
Massachusetts Historical
Commission
80 Boylston Street
Boston, Massachusetts 02116
Additional information by Anne Forbes, consultant to Marlborough Historical Commission, 7/6/95:
ARCHITECTURAL DESCRIPTION.
Even if this house does
not contain the pre-1660 cabin of first settler John Howe, (an architectural
inspection of the interior would be necessary to tell whether it might,)
it was undoubtedly enlarged and updated many times during its long history.
Today, it is a typical 2 1/2-story, 5- by 2-bay, center-chimney colonial
farmhouse embellished with later details. A long one-story ell extending
to the west has a two-car garage inserted at the outer end. The ell also
has the other main alteration--the installation of casement windows on
the facade.
The other windows are presently 6-over-6-sash, with molded surrounds; they probably replaced 2over-2-sash sometime after 1927. The main entry has a mid-nineteenth-century four-panel door with applied moldings in an earlier, Federal period surround of flat pilasters, narrow divided 2/3 length sidelights, and a high frieze with overhanging lintel. Another four-paneled door is located in the ell facade. At the main roofline is a molded, boxed cornice with a complex bed molding, characteristic of the Federal period. The house has narrow corner boards, and is presently clad in wood shingles. The roof is asphalt shingle, the foundation is granite block.
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