from Marfy Goodspeed

Children of Joseph and Sarah

From 1785 to about 1798, Joseph and Sarah Howell had five children. The first was Mary Howell, born August 1, 1795. She married Mathias Case on February 5, 1806, son of Peter Case and Sarah Buchanan.7 Their daughter Eliza Ann is said to have been born on January 6, 1806, although I have not found an exact source for that date. It may have come from her gravestone, but that is not entirely legible. If she was born on that date, then her mother was pregnant for quite a long time before the wedding took place, which seems unlikely. The actual date may have been January 1807. Eliza is very important to this story, so do not forget her.

Next came Agnes Howell, about 1790, who married Samuel Hunt. (I regret to say I have not been able to link Samuel Hunt up with the many Hunt families in Amwell and Hopewell Townships.) It does not appear that Samuel and Agnes had any children. But Agnes is also important to this story.

The third child, Benjamin Howell, was born on May 9, 1794. He may have had a first wife named Mary Kelly, but next to nothing is known of her. One reason for thinking this is that he did not marry his second wife, Elizabeth Mathews, until he was 33 years old, in 1827.

There were two more daughters, Delilah and Clarissa, born in the mid- to late-1790s. It appears that both of them died before 1807.

Based on the property that Benjamin Howell leased to his son Joseph, and on the tax record of 1790, we can conclude that Joseph Howell was active on the ferry & tavern tract (land that ran from the ferry at Stockton and up along Route 523) as early as 1785. Charles S. Boyer claims that he was running the tavern that year after taking it over from Joseph Robeson/Robinson.8 Boyer wrote that George Hoppock took over the ferry in 1791. That might explain why Joseph was not taxed on it in 1790.

After his father Benjamin’s death in 1795 Joseph Howell must have acquired the ferry rights. This is affirmed in a deed of 1799 in which John and Rachel Wolverton for £21 conveyed to Joseph Howell, “ferryman of Amwell,” a lot of 8.25 acres, adjacent to John Prall’s mill race, opposite Prall’s saw mill.9
Detail of survey by Nathaniel Saxton in 1801, for James Armstrong

It is important to make a distinction between the ferry itself and the tavern house. Running a ferry and a tavern are two separate things, and a bit much for one person. In 1800, John Barcroft applied for a tavern license at the public house at Howell’s Ferry. Hence the “J. Barcroft” shown on the survey map made by Nathaniel Saxton in 1801 for Joshua and John Anderson.10

Note the “Howell” house close to the river. That was the Ferry house. It still stands today on Ferry Road in Stockton. It was the home of the ferry operator, and at that time, 1801, the owner and likely resident was Joseph Howell.

Moving to Ohio

A significant event for southern Hunterdon County happened in 1812 when measures were taken to construct a bridge across the Delaware River that would replace the ferry run by the Howell family for 100 years. The bridge opened for traffic in 1814. After that the ferry was no longer needed, and Joseph Howell, then in his early 50s, was out of a job. Opportunity came along with the end of the War of 1812 in February 1815. That was when land in the Northwest Territory (i.e., the upper Midwest) became available and attractive to new settlers, including Joseph Howell and his family. They decided to settle in Pickaway County, which was established in 1810. But they probably did not leave Amwell Township until late in 1818.

In the meantime, Joseph Howell was investing in mortgages. On June 17, 1815, he loaned money to John Opdycke and Joseph Sergeant.11 Then on June 21, 1815, Joseph and Sarah Howell sold the tavern lot to Ezra Schamp, in trust for their heirs. By this time, those heirs would have been the three oldest children Mary, Agnes and Benjamin. On July 1st, Joseph and Sarah sold the 8.25-acre lot from the Wolvertons to their son-in-law Samuel Hunt.12

Lott Rittenhouse died intestate on August 23, 1813, age 76, and was buried in the family cemetery above Prallsville. His administrators were John L. Rittenhouse, Thomas Gordon and Achilles E. Large. His heirs found themselves in trouble when Joseph Howell, Lott’s son-in-law (and himself one of the heirs), sued them for nonpayment of a mortgage. In 1818, the court agreed with Howell and ordered a farm of 74 acres to be sold at public auction, at which Howell was the highest bidder. The farm was taken out of the original Rittenhouse tract. It bordered “Reading’s line,” Shoppons Run, the Wickecheoke, and other land of Lot Rittenhouse.13

Sometime after October 1818, Joseph Howell, his son Benjamin and daughter Mary Case and their families moved west to Pickaway County, Ohio. Daughter Agnes Hunt remained in Amwell, as well as Mary’s daughter Eliza, about age 11 or 12, who moved in with her great uncle Jacob Howell to work as his housekeeper.

The trip to Ohio and settlement in the wilderness may have been too much for middle-aged Joseph Howell. He died in Pickaway County in 1821 (exact date not known), age 59, without having written a will. Usually when someone dies in their 50s without writing a will, the death was caused by an accident rather than an illness, somewhat like Joseph’s father Benjamin, who died from a rattlesnake bite.

Joseph’s widow Sally survived until 1836, but it is not clear where she was living at the time of her death, in Ohio or in Hunterdon County.

Because Joseph Howell died intestate, it was left to his son Benjamin to sort out the estate. He was named administrator of the estate on September 18, 1821.14

This was a problem, because when Joseph Howell died he still owned property in New Jersey, which meant that his estate had to be probated there as well as in Ohio. It seems likely that Benjamin Howell settled his father’s Ohio estate before turning his attention to the property in Amwell, with one exception. That was the purchase of a part of the ferry/tavern lot at a sheriff’s sale in 1821, made by Edward Welsted, on behalf of Benjamin Howell, who was still in Ohio.15 But that is not part of this history. I will just observe that it was eventually sold to the Johnson family, who established the new tavern there, now known as the Stockton Inn, at the end of Bridge St.

The inventory of Joseph Howell’s Amwell property was taken by Charles Sergeant and Elisha Reading. It included 40 shares in the Centre Bridge Company.16 This was probably how the company paid for the rights to the old ferry.

Benjamin Howell must have realized that dealing with his father’s New Jersey estate from Ohio was an impractical arrangement, and eventually moved to back to Amwell Township.17 Exactly which house he occupied when he arrived is hard to say, since both tavern and ferry houses were probably leased out, and the old Benjamin Howell house was occupied by Jacob Howell.

While Joseph Howell’s estate was being settled, his daughter Mary became a widow. Mathias Case died in Ohio in 1825. This makes me think that Benjamin Howell was also still in Ohio at the time. We know he left soon afterwards, because a deed of January 31, 1826 states that he was “of Amwell Township.”18

One of the biggest challenges for Benjamin Howell and the other heirs of Joseph Howell was resolving ownership of the tavern & ferry lot, as that was apparently the most valuable part of Joseph Howell’s estate. I will not attempt to sort out those deeds here, as that would result in a very long article. (Some of this history is described in “A House Divided.”)

It took much of 1826 and 1827 for Benjamin Howell to settle his father’s estate with his surviving sisters, Mary Case, now a widow, and Agnes Hunt, still married to Samuel Hunt. There were 13 deeds recorded during that time period. In the deeds of 1826, Benjamin Howell was identified as a resident of Amwell Township, with no spouse. In 1827, his wife Elizabeth was named, and their residence was Solebury Township, Bucks County, PA.

Because none of these transactions are related to the old Benjamin Howell house, I will set them aside for another time.