John Howe (loyalist)

John Howe was the son of Joseph Howe, a tin plate worker of Puritan ancestry, and Rebeccah Hart. John was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on October 14, 1754. He was a loyalist printer during the American Revolution, a printer and Postmaster in Halifax, the father of the famous Joseph Howe and eventually a Magistrate of the Colony of Nova Scotia.

Early Years

John Howe was born in the same year that the French and Indian War or Seven Years' War (1754-1763) began. It was the consequences of this conflict that motivated the British to demand greater taxes from, and assert greater control over, their American colonies and it was the consequences of this conflict that raised and disappointed the English-American colonists' expectations about their opportunities for expansion, all of which contributed to the colonists' determination to revolt against an increasingly costly, authoritarian, and obstructive British rule.

Related Topics:
French and Indian War - Seven Years' War - American colonies

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John Howe's family were converts to a religious sect called the Sandemanians, whose most well-known member was Michael Faraday, the famous scientist. The sect began when the Rev. John Glas (1695-1773), who had been the Presbyterian minister at Tealing, Perthshire, Scotland, sought a return to a "New Testament Christianity" that included Agap?s, pacifism, good works, charity, communal property, as well as a strong opposition to state control over the church. These views led to his suspension from the Church of Scotland in 1728. With the help of his son-in-law, Robert Sandeman, the sect grew to several churches in Scotland and England. Sandeman first moved to London in 1760 and then, in 1764, to New England. He arrived in Boston, where he helped his nephew get established as a bookseller, and then moved to Danbury, Connecticut, where he lived until his death in April, 1771. Sandeman's teachings to live a more purely Christian life appealed to New England's Puritan descendants and, with the rising tensions between the colonists and royal rule, Sandeman's command to "Fear God and honour the King" and "if it be possible... live peacefully with all men" found a receptive audience amongst the loyalists. A Joseph Howe is listed as a member of the Boston Sandemanians; this was probably John's father, but it might have been John's elder brother. John Howe's Sandemanian beliefs likely contributed to his loyalist stance, and definitely contributed to his lifelong pacifism.

Related Topics:
Sandemanians - Michael Faraday - Presbyterian - Agap?s - Puritan

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In about 1769, John Howe began his apprenticeship as a printer to Richard Draper, the King's printer in Massachusetts and the publisher of the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News Letter, the oldest English newspaper in the Americas. As Richard Draper was known to be a frail and sickly man, John Howe probably witnessed and wrote the article about the Boston Tea Party that appeared in the December 23, 1773, issue. Less than six months after the report on the Boston Tea Party, Richard Draper, owner of the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News Letter, died on June 5th or 6th, 1774, leaving the paper in the hands of his widow, Margaret Draper. Richard Draper may have anticipated his demise, as he formed a partnership with John Boyle in May, the month before his death, but Margaret Draper soon ended this partnership (between August 4th and 11th, 1774) as Boyle did not share her loyalist sympathies. Margaret Draper published the paper by herself from August 11, 1774.

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On April 19, 1775, the opening battle of the American Revolution occurred, when the British forces raided inland from Boston to Concord "to destroy a Magazine of Military Stores deposited there." When the raid broke into a firefight, the "Troops had above Fifty killed, and many more wounded". In the April 20, 1775, issue of the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News Letter a short article appeared that briefly described and—a day or more later—a broadside reporting on the Battle of Lexington and Concord at greater length, were quite possibly both written and printed by John Howe. After the Battle of Lexington and Concord, news of the event quickly spread to the other colonies and American patriots came in great numbers to lay seige to Boston. On June 17, 1775, American forces seized a hill to the north of Boston and began building fortifications upon it from which they would be able to fire upon the town and harbour. In the morning light, a British ship in the harbour, seeing the fortifications being constructed on the hill, began firing on the hill. Soon, British troops were ferried from Boston to Charlestown, where they charged up and took the hill, although at an enormous cost in lives. In later years, John Howe described his experiences at the Battle of Bunker Hill to his youngest son, Joseph. He watched as General Sir William Howe led the final bayonet charge up the hill "with the bullets flying through the tails of his coat." After the battle, John told of aiding "a young officer whose leg had been amputated and who he cured of a raging fever by letting him drink a bucket of cold water." Shortly after the battle, John Howe proposed to Marth Minns, who accepted and became his fiancée.

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