Howland Family Papers
The Howland family of East Greenwich, R.I., figured prominently in New England Quakerism during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries and contributed to the state’s public affairs. Brothers Daniel (1754-1834), an approved minister, and Thomas Howland (1764-1845), an educator, were active members of the Society during the tumultuous years between the 1780s and 1840s, caught up in the moral demands for a response to slavery and other social issues and in the divisions wrought by evangelical influences.
Centered largely on the lives of Thomas Howland, his brother Daniel, and Daniel’s son Daniel, the Howland collection is an important record of Quaker life in Rhode Island during trying times. As meeting elders, the Howlands monitored and contributed to the era’s major controversies, and the collection is particularly rich in discussions of the impact of slavery and the passionate struggle between Friends influenced by the evangelically-inclined Joseph John Gurney and the orthodox John Wilbur. Thomas’ complex response to his commitment to the antislavery cause and his fear of disrupting meeting unity is particularly revealing. Also of note is a series of responses from monthly meetings to queries on compliance with Quaker doctrine, obtained during the decade after the American Revolution.
The Howlands were among New England’s earliest emigrants from England, with John Howland arriving in Plymouth aboard the Mayflower and his brother Henry recorded there in 1624. Although they came as fervent Separatists, however, some members of the family wasted little time in changing religious course. Even as harsh proscriptions on non-conformists were being enforced in Massachusetts Bay and Plymouth, Henry’s son Zoeth joined the Society of Friends by 1662, attending as a member of the Apponegansett Meeting in Dartmouth, Mass.
Around the edges of Narragansett Bay, the Howlands found a congenial home, achieving a degree of social prominence and financial success. Zoeth’s son Daniel (the first of many to carry that name) established a tavern in Tiverton, R.I., and a ferry service that crossed to Portsmouth, and his son Daniel was well enough respected in the colony to be selected as a representative for Portsmouth in the general assembly. Although not as wealthy as the grandees of Newport or Providence, Daniel secured his status as a landed gentleman by purchasing a 104 acre farm in East Greenwich, R.I., from the family of Clement Weaver, one of the town’s founders and a long-time member of the colonial elite. The property included a house originally built in 1679 that was often referred to as the Howland homestead thereafter, although it is now generally known as the Clement Weaver-Daniel Howland house. It is considered the second oldest residence in Rhode Island.
Daniel’s son, the third to be named Daniel (1724-1802), inherited the homestead upon his father’s death in 1752. He and his wife Philadelphia Brownell (1726-1810) raised a large family of ten there, several of whom distinguished themselves among Friends. Most notably, Daniel (1754-1834) became an approved minister, visiting throughout New England, New York, and Pennsylvania, while his younger brother Thomas (1764-1845) filled a variety of roles for the Monthly Meeting at East Greenwich, and the Quarterly and Yearly Meetings. The second youngest of his siblings, born on September 5, 1764, Thomas spent much of adult life engaged in Friends’ affairs. In addition to serving as clerk of the meeting at Greenwich from 1815 to 1818, and on the Yearly Meeting for Sufferings, Thomas was closely allied to the educational efforts of New England Friends led by his friend Moses Brown, serving as a teacher and Superintendent at the Friends Boarding School (later the Moses Brown School) in Providence. Daniel Howland Greene, the author of the History of the Town of East Greenwich, recalled his distinctive relative:
Perhaps no person in New England Yearly Meeting had greater influence, and none whose counsel was more frequently sought than Thomas Howland’s. His suavity of manners and equanimity of mind secured the love of his friends, while his keen wit and sound judgment, expressed in choice language, made him formidable in controversy. Without being strained, is politeness and affability seemed born of courts, and included all in its range; rich and poor, young and old, were greeted alike, and always with an air of interest and condescension. In the business meetings of the Society his remarks were always pertinent, and if he spoke amidst the tumult and confusion of town-meeting, the people at once became tranquil and listened with respectful attention. [p.96]
Thomas’ steady nature served him through a tumultuous period in the New England Yearly Meeting, buffeted by war, agitation over slavery, and the impact of both the Hicksite schism and the Gurneyite and Wilburite controversies. His sympathy for social reform and passionate regard for the necessity of living up to Friends’ moral precepts was at times pitted against his deep concern for the unity of the Meeting. A natural opponent of slavery, he found himself in the position of fending off more radical calls from fellow Quakers that questioned the Yearly Meeting’s commitment to the cause, and as a member of the Meeting for Sufferings, he was on the front lines in disputes between supporters of John Joseph Gurney and John Wilbur. Thomas never married and died in East Greenwich on May 19, 1845.
From Daniel (3) and Philadelphia Howland, the homestead descended to Daniel (4), to his son Daniel (a merchant in the firm of Franklin & Howland), and then to Daniel’s daughter Mary and he husband Arthur Knight. The house remained in possession of the family until the 1930s.
Centered largely on the lives of Thomas Howland, his brother Daniel, and Daniel’s son Daniel, the Howland collection is an important record of Quaker life in Rhode Island during trying times. As meeting elders, the Howlands monitored and contributed to the era’s major controversies, and the collection is particularly rich in discussions of the impact of slavery and the passionate struggle between Friends influenced by the evangelically-inclined Joseph John Gurney and the orthodox John Wilbur. Thomas’ complex response to his commitment to the antislavery cause and his fear of disrupting meeting unity is particularly revealing. Also of note is a series of answers from monthly meetings to queries on compliance with Quaker doctrine. Obtained during the decade after the American Revolution, these queries seldom elicit lengthy responses, but the questions include the impact of war taxes and slaveholding.
In addition to the important content on antislavery (see especially letters of and about William Bassett, A. Pierce, Mary Murray, and several essays by Thomas Howland) and the beginnings of the Wilburite schism, the collection offers insight into other aspects of Quaker life, including the intense networks of family and friends that sustained the Society. The collection includes scattered information on the early years of the Moses Brown School, and efforts by meeting officials to deflect criticism of the Society and disputes within.
Financial matters.
Interest in the institution (the Boarding School) has not waned.
Part of the Records of the New England Yearly Meeting of the Society of Friends, acquired April 2016.
Processed by I. Eliot Wentworth, Aug. 2016.
Greene, Daniel Howland, History of the Town of East Greenwich and Adjacent Territory: From 1677 to 1877. Providence, R.I.: J.A. and R.A. Reid, 1877.
Representative Men and Old Families of Rhode Island, vol. 1. Chicago: J.H. Beers, 1908.
Bold italics= appears in collection
- Daniel (3) Howland (1724-1802) and Philadelphia Brownell (1726-1810)
- Mercy Howland (1745-1824) m. Gideon Greene
- Lucianna Howland (1747-1817)
- Ruth Howland (1749-1824)
- Benjamin Howland (1752-1834) m. Elizabeth Spencer
- Daniel (4) Howland (1754-1834) m. Sarah Greene
- Deborah G. Howland (1795-1876)
- Daniel (5) Howland (1797-1871) m. Abigail Susan Greene
- Sarah Greene Howland (1836-1878)
- Daniel Howland (1838-1863)
- Mary Howland (1843-1912) m. Arthur Knight(1855-1921)
- Abby Susan Howland (1854-1881) m. Arthur Knight (1855-1921)
- Richard Greene Howland (1799-1874) m. Isabella J. Allen (1843-1884) and Alice Marie Sisson (1856-1935)
- Anna Howland (1801-1865)
- Philadelphia Howland (1757-1826) m. Job Chaloner
- Judith Howland (1759-1826)
- Joseph Howland (b.1761) m. Hannah Fry
- Thomas Howland (1764-1845)
- George Howland (1773-1779)
)Cite as: Howland Family Papers (MS 923). Special Collections and University Archives, University of Massachusetts Amherst Libraries.