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
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.