The Coat of Arms
James, Jr., and Elizabeth
Of the arms “Gules (red) a chevron argent (silver) between three cros-cros-lets or (gold) three wolves’ heads of the same,” said to have “adorned the walls of the ‘Wayside Inn’ or Howe Tavern, in Sudbury, for over a hundred and fifty years,” “Ye wolfs are ye fams. Arms, ye cross, for gt accts don by ye 1st El.,” who lived around A.D. 1500, or the time of Henry VII or VIII.
The seat of the family bearing the above arms was in county Warwick; the seat of Robert Howe and the place of the original Howe arms: “Argent (silver) a chevron between three wolves’ heads couped sable (black)” was in county Essex.
If the query is now suggested, why did not our James Howe claim a coat of arms if he were entitled to one, this answer is persuasive if not conclusive; so early created and so long unused, it was forgotten; or maybe, in New England practical home life its value was considered zero, or negative.
It may be said, further, that the Howe coat armor, the Howe family, the Barrington family, and the King’s forest—each and all—belonged to Hatfield, county Essex, and it may be thought strange that the ancient Howe arms should not include our James, the immigrant, in its descent. On the whole, there is a preponderating impression that the wolf’s head on the Howe arms was captured in the Hatfield forest by a Howe.
James Howe, Sr., was of Roxbury, and made freeman May 17, 1637, and removed to Ipswich before 1648. He was granted June 11, 1650, on motion of Mr. Norton, one of the farms of a hundred acres formerly reserved for Mr. Norton’s friends. He bought, July 3, 1651, about twenty-one acres adjoining to Mr. Winthrop’s and Mr. Symonds’s farms. He was a commoner, 1641; a tithing man, 1671. His wife, Elizabeth Dane, only daughter of John Dane, of Roxbury, died Jan. 21, 1693-4. Both joined the church at Topsfield in 1684.
He was eminently an all round man. He was a weaver by trade, but he could butcher a swine or write a will or deed; he could practice in probate or dig a grave; he could make a coffin or build a house; he could cultivate a farm or survey it; he could shoe a horse or an ox or make his own or others’ shoes; he was a ready helper in every department of country life. He died May 17, 1701-2,[[4]] at the age of one hundred and four years, a man of three centuries.
James Howe, Jr., was born in Roxbury, in 1635 or 1636, since he was “about 30” in 1666 and “about 34,” Sept. 28, 1669. He married, April 13, 1658, Elizabeth Jackson, a neighbor, daughter of William and Joanna, of Rowley, and sister to Mary, who married Wm. Foster, of Boxford, and to Deborah, who married Lieut. John Trumble, of Newbury, official men in their respective towns.