Southworth HOWLAND b. 1775

Southworth HOWLAND1,2 was born on 29 Mar 1775 in Barnstable, Mass. He died on 8 Jun 1853 in Worcester, Mass.

Worcester Society of Antiquity, pub 1889

Proceedings of the Worcester Society of Antiquity_Worcester, Mass Worcester Historical Society for the year 1888

By Clark Jillson

__John and Hannah had eleven children, Southworth Howland being the tenth. He was born in Barnstable, MA, 3/29/1775 m. Polly Ware of Wrentham, Suffolk, England to whom lands were granted by the Crown, in Dedham, MA, in 1642. Mr. Howland removed to Brookfield about the time of the Declaration on independence, and in that part of the town afterwards known as West Brookfield he resided more than half a century. Like all the Howlands before him, he was not satisfied with the progress made by reformers, and became restless under the slow advance wrought out by evolution. He was always the first to grasp a new theory and deal with it in the light of reason and plain common-sense, discarding all verbiage or what would tend to mislead those unused to critical investigation. He became a pronounced advocate of the Temperance Cause, and his zeal was such that in 1815 he had reprinted “Rush’s Essay” against the use of aren’t spirits, and circulated a large edition at his own expense, hoping to reform and bring up to his standard a great army of drunkards. His published essay, his personal example, his efforts to reform the wayward, his zeal in a noble cause, his ambitious strife with the desolation of our American homes, all failed to usher in the millennium, and Southworth Howland was still an adventurer in the interest of law and order, a position he never abandoned while life remained.__He was a mechanic and inventor, constantly trying to develop new devices for the comfort of mankind regardless of his pecuniary welfare. In June, 1809, he made the first artificial leg produced in this country, and was for many years the only manufacturer of wooden limbs in America. He died in Worchester June 8, 1853, at the age of seventy-eight years.

Southworth married (MRIN:4576) Polly WARE1,2 on 13 Mar 1816 in Conway, Massachusetts. Polly was born on 5 Dec 1785 in Conway, Massachusetts. She died on 11 Feb 1870 in Conway, Massachusetts.

Appendix A  -  Sources

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1    Worcester, Mass Worcester Historical Society for the year 1888, Proceedings of the Worcester Society of Antiquity.

2    Compiled by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Ancestral File (R) (Compiled by: Family History Library; FamilySearch; (http://familysearch.org)), Family History Library, 35 North West Temple Street, Salt Lake City, UT 84150-3440.