Howard

Joseph Counties, 2nd. (1893) ; Hut. of St. Joseph Coun-
ty, 2nd. (1880) ; The Notre Dame Scholastic, XXVI,
167-69; L, 86-87; LIV, 233-36; Gen. Cat. Univ. of
Mich. (1912); Who's Who in America, 1916-17; C.
W. Taylor, Biog. Sketches and Review of the Bench
and Bar of 2nd. (1895); Indianapolis Star, July n,
1916.] W.W.S.

HOWARD, VOLNEY ERSKINE (Oct. 22,
i8o9~May 14, 1889), lawyer, congressman, was
born in Oxford County, Me, He attended Bloom-
field Academy and Waterville (now Colby) Col-
lege. In 1832 he moved to Mississippi, studied
law, and began practice at Brandon. Four years
later he was elected to the state legislature on the
Democratic ticket On Mar. 6, 1837, he married
Catherine Elizabeth Gooch (Daily National In-
telligencer, Washington, D. C., Mar. 8, 1837).
Appointed reporter of the Mississippi high court
of errors and appeals, he published Howard's Re-
ports in seven volumes, covering the first nine
years of the court's existence (1834-43). In
1840 he compiled, with Anderson Hutchinson,
The Statutes of the State of Mississippi. He was
for a time co-editor (1836) of The Mississippian
(Jackson), an important Democratic organ. He
moved to New Orleans in 1843 and in December
1844 to San Antonio, where he was elected to
the Texas constitutional convention of 1845. I*1
February 1846 he was appointed attorney-gen-
eral of Texas, but he preferred his newly acquired
seat in the state Senate. Three years later he
was elected to Congress (1849-53), where he op-
posed the admission of California as a free state
and "the Dismemberment of Texas" (Congres-
sional Globe, 31 Cong., i Sess., App., pp. 772-
78). He later supported the compromise mea-
sures of 1850, including a settlement of the north-
ern and western boundaries of Texas whereby
the state received ten million dollars and re-
nounced her claim to the Santa Fe country. In
1853-54 Howard was legal agent of the United
States land commission in California, and then
began practising in San Francisco. Lawless
conditions there led to the reestablishment of the
Vigilance Committee in May 1856, and Howard,
who was opposed to the maintenance of law and
order by extra-legal methods, was commissioned
major-general of militia with instructions from
Gov. J. N. Johnson to put down the Vigilantes.
Both Major-General Wool, the federal military
commander, and President Pierce refused to fur-
nish arms for the militia. Howard was not dis-
couraged: "Ponderosity," as the pompous and
portly general was sometimes called, marched
alone upon "Fort Vigilance/' headquarters of the
Vigilance, Committee. He summoned them to
surrender. They gave him short shrift, more be-
cause of the bluster with which he had assumed

Howard

his high office than because he lacked an army,
and his demands were peremptorily refused. The
Vigilantes later disbanded voluntarily after sev-
eral months of activity. In order to escape the
unpleasantness and enmity that he had aroused
as commander of the popularly execrated "law
and murder" forces, Howard moved to Sacra-
mento (1858) and later to Los Angeles (1861),
where he became district attorney (1861-70)
and judge of the superior court (1880-84). In
the constitutional convention of 1878-79 he spoke
at length in favor of Chinese exclusion by law
and state regulation of railroads and other cor-
porations. He died at Santa Monica at the age
of eighty.

[Z. T. Fulmore, in Tex. State Hist. Asso. Quart.,
Oct. 1910; fours, of the Convention Assembled . . !
for the Purpose of Framing a Constitution for the State
of Tex. (1845) ; Debates and Proc. of the Constitutional
Convention of the State of Cal. (3 vols., 1880-81); H.
S. Foote, The Bench and Bar of the South and South-
west (1876) ; J. D. Lynch, The Bench and Bar of Miss
(1881); T. H. Hittell, Hist, of Cal., vols. Ill and IV
(1897) J H. H. Bancroft, Popular Tribunals (1887),
vol. II; Daily Evening Bulletin (San Francisco), June
9, 24, 25, 1856; San Francisco Chronicle, May 15,
1889.] F.E.R.

HOWARD, WILLIAM ALANSON (Apr.
8, i8i3-Apr. 10, 1880), Michigan politician, was
born at Hinesburg, Vt, a son of Dan and Esther
(Spencer) Howard. He was descended from
John Howard who settled in Duxbury, Mass.,
before 1643 and later was one of the proprietors
of Bridgewater. At the age of fourteen, William
went to Albion, N. Y., to learn cabinet making*
From 1832 to 1835 he prepared for college in
Wyoming Academy at Wyoming, N. Y. He
graduated from Middlebury College in Vermont
in 1839. After teaching school in Genesee Coun-
ty, N. Y., during the winter of 1839-40, he re-
moved to Detroit. Here, while teaching mathe-
matics in the branch of the University of Michi-
gan, he studied law. He was admitted to the bar
in 1842. As was the case with many of his con-
temporaries, his political interests took prece-
dence over his legal ones. By 1852 he had risen
to the rank of chairman of the Whig State Cen-
tral Committee (Harris, post, p. 14). In 1854 he
joined the Republican party, organized in Jack-
son on July 6. In the same year he was elected
to the United States House of Representatives,
defeating David Stuart, one of the most popular
Democrats of Detroit.

His congressional career, which came to a
close in 1861, was filled with important events.
He was a member of the Committee on Ways and
Means for six years. The House appointed him
on the committee to investigate the state of af-
fairs in Kansas; he was a member of the Le-
compton Committee of Conference and of the

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