Richard W. Howell
Richard Washington Howell was elected Mayor of the City of Camden in early 1845. He declined to serve, and Charles Kaighn was named Mayor in his stead.
Death of R. W. Howell, Esq.
Philadelphia Inquirer —
We have already recorded the death at Camden, of Richard W. Howell, Esq. He was one of the most distinguished lawyers and citizens of that place, and possessed many noble qualities. All who knew, respected and loved him. A true Christian, a polished gentleman, an unwavering patriot, his memory will be deeply cherished by all who can appreciate worth and virtue.
At Camden, N. J., on the 13th instant, RICHARD W. HOWELL, Esq., in the 60th year of his age. His relatives and friends are respectfully invited to attend the funeral from his late residence, in Market street, Camden, this day, at 12 o’clock, noon, without further notice, to proceed to St. Paul’s Church, Camden.
Richard W. Howell
The History of Camden County New Jersey, George Reeser Prowell — 1886
Richard W. Howell was born on a plantation called “Fancy Hill,” in Gloucester County. His father and mother were both prominent during the Revolution of 1776, and many are the pleasing tales of generous hospitality to the officers of the patriot army, who were wont to pause at the home of Colonel Howell, and, amidst the joys of an old-time welcome, forget for a day the great struggle for liberty.
Mr. Howell married a sister of Hon. Thomas P. Carpenter, and she still survives her husband and her brother. Richard W. Howell’s mother, like his father, was a remarkable person, and when she found herself a widow, with a large family and an encumbered property, she managed the Howell estate, much of it lying along the Delaware River and including the Howell fishery, so that in a few years it was clear of debt, and at her death there was a handsome estate to divide among the heirs without incumbrance of any kind.
Mr. Howell was early bred to the law, and made a careful, conscientious and successful member of the profession. He was admitted to the New Jersey bar in September, 1827. His office, which he occupied till his death, was a small, one-story room in Plum Street (now Arch), in Camden, built by William N. Jeffers and now owned by Judge Woodhull’s estate.
Richard W. Howell was, like the rest of the Howell family, a gentleman of distinguished appearance. He was possessed of rarely courteous manners and was a laborious lawyer. The ordinances of Camden City Council bear the impress of his legal mind, and he was frequently elected to the Council chamber, and was once mayor of the city. No man in the profession was more beloved by his fellow-members of the bar.
He left a large family, one of his sons being a well-known physician in Philadelphia, another a successful lawyer, and still another died in battle at the head of his company in the War of the Rebellion.
First Free School Opened to Public
Camden Post-Telegram —
Contents of Corner Stone Settles Question of Date Building Was Erected.
SOME OF THE PAPERS DESTROYED
By the finding of the corner stone in the foundation of the Kaighn school, at the intersection of Sycamore street, Fourth street and Newton avenue, Saturday, all doubts were dispelled as to when the building was erected.
Owing to the fact that all of the records appertaining to the school have either been lost or destroyed considerable discussion has been had throughout the city as to the date and the contractors were given especial instructions to be careful in locating the stone and to see that its contents were preserved as far as possible.
The workmen had about given up hope of discovering the stone when about 11 o’clock one of them, in digging out the lower course of stone of the foundation walls, came across an odd shaped block. He struck it with a pick and the top came off disclosing two glass jars within.
The corner stone was taken to the workshop of the contractors and examined. It was found to be of white marble 16 inches long, 9 inches wide, 3 inches deep. The jars were in a niche 10 inches long, 6 inches wide and 5 inches deep.
The first jar opened contained a number of coins bearing the date 1853 and a quantity of paper reduced to pulp by the action of the elements. When this mass was taken out and dried it resembled powder.
The other jar contained a copy of the city charter; a copy of the ordinances of City Council, while R. W. Howell was the presiding officer; the specifications of the building, of which Lewis E. Foy was the architect. These were all water soaked.
In a good state of preservation after being dried were found two copies of the The Reformer and New Jersey Temperance Advocate, respectively, dated December 14 and 21, 1853; The Camden Democrat, December 24, 1853, Isaac Mickle, editor; The West Jerseyman, December 14 and 21, 1853, Philip J. Gray, editor; The American Banner, December 17 and 24, 1853, John H. Jones, editor; address of the Native American National Convention to the citizens of the United States with a copy of the resolutions adopted July 5 and 7, 1845.
The documents will be turned over to J. W. F. Bleakly, secretary of the Board of Education and it is more than likely that some of them will be placed in the corner stone of the new building, to be erected on the site of Camden’s first public school.
A City of the Dead
Camden Courier-Post —
A City of the Dead
Burial Place Where Thousands Lie Started More Than 80 Years Ago Along Blackwoodtown Pike; Tragic Death of First President of Evergreen
BY BEN COURTER
About this time of year fair Spring puts over all that expanse extending from just below Vanhook street along Blackwoodtown pike, now Black Horse, down to Ferry avenue and up to near Chase street, new raiment.
Sere spots become emerald, trees lose their bareness, shrubbery fills out and there is a rejuvenation as if to prove, after all, that thousands sleeping there, some since the middle of last century, are part of the immortal plan everywhere manifest.
In June comes the great display. Nowhere does there seem a spot where there are more roses. There is one great splash of red, from tiny, delicate tea roses, to glorious American beauties. Vagrant daisies vie with coreopsis; humble violets snuggle in hidden places; ubiquitous dandelions spangle what greensward is left. Few remaining pines or cedars put on a greener livery, oaks shake off the sered leaves of yesteryear and catkins of poplars already have given place to permanent foliage. Amidst it all are the white stones marking the places where lie many of the men and women who took part in the affairs of Camden and its suburbs. There are the humble markers of a myriad of citizens, the monuments of the more exalted, the graves of those who fell in the Civil War, the Spanish War, the World War. Evergreen Cemetery may not be a Stokes Poges, yet a Thomas Gray could write an “elegy” none the less.
A Rooty Sidewalk
Boys of another generation will tell you, beside the tombs and the quiet bordered walks, they recall that torturous path alongside the fence where the roots of the great maples used to find their way. They crept through the year through the sand and stone and successive rains left them exposed until many a bared toe of an urchin on his way to Tice’s Pond or Daubman’s Pond at Northmont was stubbed until it looked like a bit of mincemeat. And many a wayfarer stumbled over those roots, considered an abomination along the sandy road where the young bloods of another day tried out their nags. The concrete Belgian block paving now seems a straitjacket for that old road to the side of the cemetery, a fitting marker to the passing of old days.
Centreville had just about been launched when Evergreen Cemetery was incorporated, on Feb. 20, 1850, the 32 acres of ground being bought of the Isaac Cooper estate. Those early incorporators were William J. Hatch, Benjamin A. Hammell, Richard W. Howell, Joseph J. Hatch and Benjamin Browning, all men of substance back there when the Civil War was brewing. William Hatch was the first president, holding that position until his tragic death, on March 22, 1856, when he was killed by a trespasser on his land, as was a kinsman many years after. He was succeeded by Charles Sloan, then by Cooper Browning and again by Thomas A. Wilson, long one of Camden’s leading men and whose grandchildren now reside within shadow of the old burial place in Woodlynne.
In April of 1850 J. C. Sidney was instructed to build the chapel and vault, while Henry Gamble’s design for laying out the cemetery was accepted.
The first application for a grave was made by Benjamin A. Hammell, one of the incorporators and twice mayor of Camden, in 1848-49 and 1857-58. That was in May of 1850 and was for the reinterment of his daughter, who had died in 1835 at 2 years of age. Years afterward he was buried in the same plot, just northeast of the chapel. A marble slab marked the resting place of Richard Fetters, one of early Camden’s leading men, and his wife, Hope, who died Oct. 18, 1839. There, too, is the grave of John Hanna, once postmaster of Camden, who died April 7, 1862, while the great Civil War was raging.
Other Family Plots
There one may find the family plot of C. A. Bergen, once Congressman from this district, and Mayor John H. Jones, who died suddenly while in office, on Oct. 27, 1876, is buried there, as is Dr. Thomas F. Cullen, who died Nov. 21, 1877, one of the best-known surgeons in this section 60 years ago.
It was in Evergreen that Comrades of the G. A. R. used to make their most spectacular showing on Memorial Day, when the Posts hereabouts were in the heyday of their strength, when the veterans were still about like those of the World War in point of years. They went out there early in the morning, held their exercises, sounded taps and planted flags over every grave. Those ranks have become thin with the passing years and but a handful survive, all over the fourscore-year mark, but still with spirit undimmed. Spanish-American War vets used to aid as now do those of the more recent conflict, but it is certain that those who fought at Fredericksburg or Chancellorsville or Gettysburg will not be forgotten when Memorial Day dawns this year—or in years stretching into the future. That little spot about Post 37 monument ever seems more than ordinarily sacred to one who knew those vets back there, 20 or 30 years ago.
Most of the old oaks or maples or pines have disappeared. Frank Garrison, who has been superintendent for several years, is replacing those monarchs. Still, it is unlikely the cemetery will quite have that suggestion of a bit of wilderness plucked out of the primordial forest it did when the roots of the giants, like vagrant things of steel, pushed their way through the sandstone back there ever so many years ago. Old Evergreen is a city of the dead to be sure, and yet to countless families hereabouts there is something of a link permanent as eternity itself. There are locked up memories that will abide always; there, as many speed by in modern gas buggies, are dropped thoughts for those who once trod the earth, who once walked with us, who once aided the community in its uncharted destiny.
Richard W. Howell's Family
From “Some colonial mansions and those who lived in them”
Richard Washington Howell, b. Dec. 14, 1799; d. May 12, 1859, son of Colonel Joshua L. Howell and Anna Blackwood, of “Fancy Hill,” Gloucester County, N. J. Richard W. Howell resided in the city of Camden, N. J., from the time of his marriage until his death. “He was a distinguished lawyer, a polished gentleman, and an unwavering patriot.”
Richard W. Howell married Mary Tonkin, daughter of Edward and Sarah (Stratton) Carpenter, b. Sept. 14, 1803; d. 1893; m. March 24, 1830.
Issue:
1. John Paschall, b. April 12, 1831; d. June 2, 1832.
2. Edward Carpenter, b. July 24, 1833; d. March 1834.
3. Samuel Bedell, b. Sept. 20, 1834; m. April 13, 1859, Maria E. Neiil. Issue:
4. Charles Stratton, b. Dec. 31, 1837; d. unmarried.
5. Richard Holmes Offley, b. April 2, 1840; d. Jan. 5, 1850.
6. Joshua Ladd, b. June 16, 1842; d. at Newport, R.I. Aug. 19, 1803; studied law with Judge Thomas P. Carpenter, admitted to the Bar of N. J., but afterward resided in Philadelphia; Secretary of the International Steamship Co.; m. April 15, 1875, Mary E. Savage, daughter of Wm. Lyttleton Savage.
7. Thomas James, b. Oct. 10, 1844; killed in action at the Battle of Gaines’s Mill, Va., June 27, 1862. He was 2d Lieutenant, in the 3d Regiment N. J. Volunteers, acted with great bravery, and was struck by a cannon ball at the close of the battle.
8. Anna, b. Sept. 12, 1846; m., June 10, 1869, Malcolm Lloyd, b. July 18, 1838, son of John Lloyd and Esther Malcolm, now [1898] Vice-President of the Atlantic Refining Company.
9. Francis Lee, b. May 20, 1849; d. Aug. 1, 1872, unmarried.
10. Sarah Carpenter, b. Oct. 3, 1850; d. Dec. 4, 1851.