Joseph Howland - Early Life

Early Life

Howland was born into a prominent merchant family that had grown rich in the China trade. His first American ancestor, John Howland, was one of the Pilgrim Fathers and a signer of the 1620 Mayflower Compact, the governing document of what became Plymouth Colony. Howland’s father was Samuel Shaw Howland, a partner in the shipping firm of Howland & Aspinwall; his mother was Joanna Esther Hone, the niece of Philip Hone, the noted diarist and mayor of New York City. The Howlands were a deeply religious family; at one time Howland considered entering the ministry, but gave up those plans due to ill health. This same ill health also prevented Howland from attending school and university; he was educated at home, with several years of European travel to round out his education.

At the age of twenty-one, Howland married Eliza Newton Woolsey of New York, one of seven sisters well known as prominent reformers and anti-slavery activists. The couple honeymooned in Europe and the Holy Land. While touring Italy, the Howlands commissioned two marble busts of themselves from the Italian neo-classical sculptor, Giovanni Maria Benzoni; these busts stand today in the Howland Public Library in Beacon, New York. The couple returned to the United States of America in 1859. That same year Howland bought an estate along Fishkill Creek in the upstate village of Mattewan, naming his new home Tioronda.