7.Addenda - Bellsouthpwp.net

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Bush and George W. Bush. Henry's descendants include Hannah Milhous, the Quaker
mother of President Richard M. Nixon. Arthur's descendants include Jenny Jerome,
mother of British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. And, as you will see in “Rich
and Famous Howlands,” their descendants also include financiers and captains of
industry.
It probably is safe to say that most Americans with English ancestry want
to push the line back as far as possible to see if they can connect to nobility.
So we'll shift gears at this point and see what we can say about the forebears
of Henry, Arthur and John.
The research of Col. Joseph L. Chester, a London barrister, in 1879 is
still cited by many as the definitive work on the topic. Franklyn Howland, who
was among the first to try to document the Howlands of America, wrote:
“Col. Chester's investigations show that the surname Howland is found in no other county in
England than Essex, and originally in no other locality in that county except at Newport, Wicken and
their immediate vicinity. At the period of the Pilgrim Howland's birth, there were living there
contemporaneously several distinct families of the name, who were all in some way connected.”
(6)
One Howland family which Chester found in his research included the Rt.
Rev. Richard Howland, Bishop of Peterborough, who was granted a coat of arms in
1584 during the reign of Queen Elizabeth. At one time, it was believed that the
bishop's nephew, John, was the Pilgrim John Howland, but that was later shown to
be incorrect. Still, some of the Howlands in the New World used the Howland arms
on their tombstones. (7)
Another Howland family which Chester found was the one from which we
descend, including brothers John, Arthur, Henry, Humphrey and a fifth brother,
George.
Now, about that coat of arms with which this segment begins. Franklyn
Howland wrote:
“The Arms were confirmed to Richard Howland, D.D., son and heir of John Howland of London,
Gent., and allowed to him, and all the posterity of John Howland, father of the said Richard, under
the hand and seal of Robert Cooke, Clarencieux King of Arms, by patent dated 10th June, 1584.
Act 27, Elizabeth”
“It was believed that the Howlands of America could be traced back to this distinguished and highly
honored family' but the family, by careful and accurate research, has recently been traced to
extinction in England by Col. Chester ... Col. Chester drops this crumb of comfort, however: `I am
persuaded that these and the emigrant Howlands came from the same stock.'
Another hint of a link to nobility comes from researcher Hubert Kinney
Shaw. (8) Noting Col. Chester's comment about several discrete but related
families of Howlands living in fairly close proximity, Shaw writes:
In two of these lines, the Howland name terminated in heiresses, one of whom, Elizabeth by name,
bequeathed the Streatham Estates to her husband, the Duke of Bedford, who then acquired the
additional title of Baron Howland.