Background

Howard was born at "Belvedere, " near Baltimore, Md. His father, Col. John Eager Howard, was a distinguished Revolutionary officer; his mother, Peggy Oswald (Chew) Howard, was the daughter of Benjamin Chew, president of the high court of errors and appeals of Pennsylvania.

Education

Young Howard received his elementary education in the Baltimore schools and at the age of fourteen entered the College of New Jersey (Princeton), where he graduated with the degree of B. A. in 1809. Three years later he received the master's degree from the same institution.

Career

Toward the close of 1812 he studied law in a Baltimore law office and about 1816 was admitted to the Maryland bar and began to practise his profession. During the second war with Great Britain, he was captain of the "Mechanical Volunteers of Baltimore, " who played a prominent part in the defense of that city at the battle of North Point, fought September 12, 1814. He maintained his connection with the Maryland militia and was eventually commissioned brigadier-general.

Though he had a lucrative practice, he was not dependent upon it and gave much time to civic affairs. He was elected a member of the Baltimore City Council in 1820, and four years later a member of the Maryland House of Delegates. When a group of citizens met to consider a means of regaining for Baltimore "that portion of the Western trade which had lately been diverted from it by the introduction of steam navigation and other causes" (quoted in Maryland Historical Magazine, March 1920, p. 15), Howard was a member of the committee which recommended the construction of a railroad between Baltimore and the Ohio River.

In 1829 he was elected as a Democrat to the Twenty-first Congress, and was reëlected for the succeeding term, serving March 4, 1829-March 3, 1833. In 1835 President Jackson commissioned him one of the peace commissioners of the United States government in the boundary dispute between Ohio and Michigan. The same year he was again elected to Congress, was reelected, and served March 4, 1835-March 3, 1839, being for a time chairman of the committee on foreign relations.

In 1840-41 he was a senator from Baltimore in the Maryland General Assembly, and as chairman submitted the Report of the Select Committee to Whom were Referred Resolutions of the States of Maine, Indiana and Ohio, in Relation to the North-Eastern Boundary (1841). He resigned before the expiration of his term, and, on January 27, 1843, was appointed reporter of the United States Supreme Court. He wrote twenty-four volumes of Supreme Court Reports, covering the period 1843-62 (42-65 United States Reports). These volumes were models of clarity, diction, and thoroughness.

He resigned in 1861 to accept the Democratic nomination for governor of Maryland, but was defeated at the polls by Augustus W. Bradford, an unconditional Unionist. In February 1861 he was a Maryland delegate to the Peace Conference at Washington. He died in Baltimore after a lingering illness.

Achievements

• He is remembered as an American congressman and the fifth reporter of decisions of the United States Supreme Court, serving from 1843 to 1861.

Works

More photos

• book

  • A Memoir of the Late Col. John Eager Howard
  • Report of the Decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, and the Opinions of the Judges Thereof, in the Case of Dred Scott versus John F. A. Sandford December Term, 1856.

Connections

In 1818 he married Jane Grant Gilmor.

Father:

John Eager Howard

1752–1827

Mother:

Margaret Oswald Chew Howard

1760–1827

Spouse:

Jane Grant Gilmor Howard

1801–1890

References

• The Founders of Anne Arundel and Howard Counties, Maryland: A Genealogical and Biographical Review From Wills, Deeds and Church Records (Classic Reprint)