Isaac Howland

Lieutenant. A son of the Mayflower passengers John Howland and Elizabeth Tilley, born at Plymouth in 1649. He settled at Middleborough on land his father left him and was “very prominent in the early settlement of Middleborough” (Howland Quarterly, July 1937). He was sworn constable of Middleborough on 3 June 1674 (PCR 5:145). The 1937 article also gives him as surveyor of highways (1672), member of the grand inquest (1682) and deputy (1689-91), and Weston as Middleborough’s representative to the Massachusetts General Court in 1692.

A Middleborough story, printed by Weston in 1906, says that in June 1675 an Indian taunted the garrison from a rock across the river, and the council chose Isaac Howland “for his skill as a marksman.” Resting Lt. John Tomson’s long gun on a comrade’s shoulder, he hit the man at a distance Weston gives as 155 rods, nearly half a mile. This is tradition; no record of the time mentions the shot.

In the summer of 1676 he served with Benjamin Church. Church’s narrative (1716) tells of a raid when Philip’s people fled into a swamp, leaving “their kettles boiling, and meat roasting upon their wooden spits.” Church “sent Mr. Isaac Howland with a party on one side of the swamp” while he ran the other, and at the far end many of the enemy “stood still and let the English come and take the guns out of their hands, when they were both charged and cocked” (1825 ed. p. 91). The 1937 Howland Quarterly says he was Church’s lieutenant in the raids of August 1676, but Church’s narrative calls him “Mr. Isaac Howland”; the Howland it names as his lieutenant is Jabez (“Mr. Jabez Howland, who was now, and often, his Lieutenant”).

Middleborough held town meetings at his house in the early 1680s. In July 1683 the town hired him, John Allyn and David Wood “to build a substantial Ware for the taking of their fish” at the bridge, at 2s 6d a day each, and on 30 Aug 1686 it “made choyce & approved of Isaac Howland to keep ye ordinary” (town records, printed in Weston pp. 554-558). In 1686 he sued Thomas Joslen of Little Compton for £7 owed for “a yoak of oxen,” and Joslen acknowledged the debt; in 1690 he brought in Middleborough’s 10 shillings toward fitting out “the souldiers for Albany” (PCR 6).

His mother’s will (1686) left him “my Booke called Willson on ye Romanes,” Thomas Wilson’s commentary on Paul’s letter to the Romans. His own will (1717/8) names his wife Elizabeth, his sons Seth, Isaac and Nathan, and his daughters Priscilla Bennett, Jael Southworth, Susannah Wood and Hannah Tinkham. It was proved on 1 June 1724, and the inventory is dated 17 Sept 1724 (the Howland genealogies, via Sibert). He died at Middleborough on 9 Mar 1723/4, aged 74, and is buried in the Cemetery at the Green.

Open questions

• His ID (fl1681, from his daughter’s birth) predates the birth date now on the page; the research had no dates for him.
• His will and inventory are known only from compiled accounts; the probate has not been seen.