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Old Family Friends
In searching through records of Quaker meetings, I was surprised to find the names of Nixon and Milhaus present at meetings attended by my Howard ancestors. Today I find that the Howards were more than casually acquainted with the Milhaus family. On July 4, 1869, my 3rd-Great-Grandmother, Mary Howard Affleck, wrote to her sister, Sarah […]
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A Stanton Cousin
An anecdote appears in The Life and Times of Edwin McMasters Stanton. Variations of this anecdote appear elsewhere in histories of the man who would become Secretary of War under President Lincoln. Stanton was living in Columbus, working at a bookstore, and boarding with the Howard family, when “during the spring and early summer of […]
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Heirloom roses
April 28, 1864 – Mary Howard had just returned from a visit to her sister, Sarah Forrer, and wrote: “The flowers came in good order and are the wonder and admiration of the neighborhood, but the chickens have commenced their depradations, and I shall be obliged to keep them out of their reach. The first […]
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War in the good old days
Had a great day at the Historical Society. I’ve transcribed many letters written home by Howard G Affleck (along with his mother’s introduction, and most of a letter written home by Dr. Affleck when he visited his son at Philippi. West Virginia, after the early battle fought there.) I am struck, reading these letters, with […]
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Nat Turner’s Rebellion
Transcribing a letter from 4th-Great-Grandfather Horton Howard in Nov 1831, and find he was a man with complex and universal compassions. One letter, written on travells through VA & SC etc, includes the following, which seemed contradictory to his antislavery/abolitionist stance “they are determined to remove to one of the Free Western States as soon […]