The Howes.

There are difficulties in the way of tracing back this family 
to its English origin. Tradition has to be largely relied upon, 
and this, as presented by different branches of the family, 
differs as to the first of the family that crossed the Atlantic, 
and as to the place of first settlement. One statement is that 
a Joseph How, belonging to a family of that name long domiciled 
in the state of Massachusetts, enlisted and served as a soldier 
in the French and Indian War, in which he was supposed
to have been lost, but was afterwards found in the New 
River Valley, where later he added the letter "e" to the name, 
the original spelling of the name being How, afterwards Howe. 
How much of this statement is correct cannot be determined. 
The author has chosen to follow copies of the "Howe
MSS.," furnished him by Honorable J. Hoge Tyler, late 
Governor of Virginia, who is a direct descendant of the 
Joseph Howe, a sketch of whose family here follows:

The Howe family, not unlike the Hoge family, with which it is 
so nearly related, also commences with a little romantic 
episode in the lives of the first American representatives. 
Joseph Howe, an English gentleman, first cousin of Lord Howe and 
General Wayne of Revolutionary fame, came to America in 1737. 
On board the vessel that brought him over was a beautiful
and captivating girl by the name of Eleanor Dunbar; the two 
young people fell in love with each other on the voyage and 
married soon after landing and settled near Boston, Mass., 
from which point they drifted southward and finally settled 
in the rugged regions of southwestern Virginia when
the country was quite a trackless wilderness. 

They made  their home on Back Creek, as nearly as can be 
established, in 1757 or 1758, and this old homestead, the scene 
of many pleasant revelries and charming reunions, is
still in possession of one of the representatives of the 
family, Mrs.Agnes Howe DeJarnette, a great-granddaughter of 
its founder. Joseph Howe had three sons, Joseph, John and 
Daniel; of Joseph there is nothing known,he having left home 
in early life; John seems to have left no family.

Daniel was an officer in the Revolutionary War, was a man of 
strong mind and high character. He married Nancy Haven and had 
three sons, Joseph H.,John Dunbar, and William H.; and seven 
daughters, Ruth, Julia, Eleanor,Elizabeth, Lucretia, Nancy, 
and Luemma. Joseph married Margaret Feely;John D. married Sarah 
Sheppard; William married Mary Fisher; Ruth married Thomas Kirk, 
and removed to Missouri; Julia married Zecharia Cecil;
Eleanor married General James Hoge; Elizabeth married 
Colonel George Neeley Pearis; Lucretia married Colonel 
William Thomas; Nancy married Honorable Harvey Deskins, and 
Luemma married Dr. Jackson.

The children of John Dunbar Howe and Sarah, his wife, are as 
follows: Margaret, who married George Shannon; Susan, who 
married J. M. Thomas; Eliza Jane, who married Charles J. 
Matthews; Ellen Mary, who married J. G. Kent; John T., who 
married Sallie DeJarnette; Samuel S., who died a prisoner of 
war at Point Lookout; Haven B., who married Kate Cloyd;
Willie, who died in infancy, and Agnes, who married Captain 
E. G. DeJarnette and lived at the old place.

The children of William H. Howe and Mary Fisher Howe are: Belle, 
who married Dr. Charles Pepper; Lizzie, who married W. W. 
Minor; William G.,who married Alice Brown, Augusta, who married 
Dr. Hufford; Sallie, who married Mr. Harmon; Alice, who married 
Charles Bumgardner; Ellie, who is unmarried. A daughter of 
Thomas Kirk and Ruth, his wife married a Mr. Peery.

The children of Julia Howe, who married Zecharia Cecil, are: 
Russell,Giles, Daniel R., Zecharia and Nancy. The children of 
Eleanor, who married General James Hoge, are: Daniel, James, 
Joseph H., William; and Eliza, who married George Tyler, of 
Caroline, the father of Governor J. Hoge Tyler.

The names of the children of Elizabeth, who married Colonel 
George N.Pearis, are as follows: George W. Pearis, Daniel H. 
Pearis, Nancy, who married Archer Edgar; Rebecca, who married 
George D. Hoge; Ardelia, who married Daniel R. Cecil; and 
Elizabeth, who married Bejamine White. The children of Lucretia 
who married William Thomas, were Giles, William, Mary
Anne and Julia. Nancy, who married Harvey Deskins, had no 
children. The children of Luemma, who married Dr. Jackson, 
are: Mollie, Sue, and Luemma.

John Howe, son of the first Joseph and his wife Eleanor Dunbar 
Howe, was an active business man, engaged largely in the 
acquisition of wild land by survey and grant in the early years 
of the settlements along the tributaries of New River, in what 
is now Giles County, Virginia, and Mercer County, West Virginia. 
He made a survey and obtained a grant for a tract of four hundred 
acres of land on Brush Creek, near where the village of Princeton 
is now located.

Major Daniel Howe, an officer in our War for Independence, was 
often on detached service in search of Tories. The story is 
told that one John Haven, of Plum Creek, was suspected of being 
a Tory, and that Major Howe was sent on more than one occasion 
to arrest Haven, but was unable to do so, and that finally a 
pretty, black-eyed daughter of Haven, whose name was Nancy, 
caught the Major and she became his wife, as already stated.