ALONZO LYMAN HOWARD

BIOGRAPHY

AS RECORDED IN:

COMMEMORATIVE BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD OF
TOLLAND AND WINDHAM COUNTIES CONNECTICUT.

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES OF PROMINENT AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS AND OF MANY OF THE EARLY SETTLED FAMILIES
PUBLISHER: J.H.BEERS & CO., CHICAGO; 1903 P. 383

ALONZO LYMAN HOWARD, a merchant at Stafford Springs, with a varied and creditable history behind him, was born in Stafford, Tolland Co., Conn., April 9, 1841, and is a son of Alonzo Azariah Howard, who was a farmer, and who married Angeline Colton. The father died June 20, 1840, at the age of thirty years, leaving to those who followed him the memory of an honest and hard-working man, who thought it enough to attend to his own business, and while he took Democratic ground, was not seeking office or anxious for political emoluments. Of medium size, and quite healthy, his death came as the result of a fall from a building he was assisting in moving.

Alonzo A. Howard was married Nov. 18, 1834, to Angeline Colton, who was born July 22, 1818, a daughter of Chauncey and Loruhamah (Hancock) Colton, of Monson, Mass. Mr. Colton was a tanner and for many years was in business for himself. To this union were born two children: (1) Harriet Alvira, born Jan. 24, 1837, in Stafford, married John Fay Hyde, of Sturbridge, Mass., April 26, 1870. Until he reached the age of forty, he was a farmer, but then became a banker, and with his wife removed to Buda, Ill., where he died Sept. 3, 1889. (2) Alonzo L.

Mrs. Howard did not remain a widow long, but was married Oct. 3, 1844, at Monson, Mass., to Joseph Dorsett, a man of quiet and unassuming character, but of genuine worth. He was a carpenter and farmer, and died Oct. 31, 1870. To this second marriage was born Olive Malvina, April 27, 1846, who married G.W. Chamberlain, a shipping clerk in the Jewell Belting Company of Hartford, by whom she had one child, Palmer Harrison, married to May Lucinda Case, and the bookkeeper for a firm in West Hartford. On his mother’s side, Mr. Howard descended from Moses Hancock, his great-grandfather, who served seven years in the Continental army.

Abijah Howard, the grandfather of Alonzo L., lived on the old Howard homestead in West Stafford many years, where he died about 1838, having been a lifelong farmer. The farm on which he lived was a large one and he is remembered as a hard-working man. Phoebe Butler, who became his wife, was born in Monson, Mass., and died in 1848. To them were born: Caroline, who married Marvin Church, and died in Great Barrington; Lyman E., who married Adaline Colton, and lived and died on the old homestead; Alonzo A., the father of Alonzo L.; Joseph Butler, who married Lucilla Lull, and died on the old homestead; Arasmus A., who married a Miss Bartlett, died May 11, 1902, in New Hampshire; Angeline, who died on the old homestead when she was sixteen years old.

Alonzo L. Howard was born in Stafford, but had his schooling in Monson, Mass., where his parents removed when he was but three years old. When he was nineteen years old he finished his school days, though from the age of sixteen years he had worked quite a little in the Converseville Woolen Mill, attending cards, doing this from April, 1857, to October, 1860, when the mill was destroyed by fire. Young Howard went to Wales, but soon resumed his place in the rebuilt mills at Converseville, where he remained until his enlistment in the Union army. This occurred at Stafford, Conn., Aug. 23, 1862, when he became a member of Co. D, 25^th C.V.I., being mustered into service as a corporal at Hartford. In the battle at Irish Bend, La., April 14, 1863, he received wounds in his head and in his breast, which have given him some trouble. In the expedition of Gen. Banks to Port Hudson, and elsewhere, he saw active service, and made a good record as a gallant and intelligent soldier. At Hartford, Aug. 26, 1863, he was mustered out of service.

After the return of Mr. Howard from the war he resumed his position as a spinner in the Converseville Woolen Mill, but remained there a brief time only, leaving to take a position as a loom tender in the loom department of the Mineral Springs Manufacturing Company. There he was employed some three or four years, when he was put in charge of the weaving at Orcuttville mill, owned and operated by Josiah Converse. On the closing of this enterprise, Mr. Howard went to Monson, Mass., to take charge of the looms and weave room of the Lyon Mill, a place he held for about a year, after which he was in charge of the weaving at the Orcuttville mill for a number of months. In 1873 he left the mills and opened a fish and oyster market in Stafford Springs, Conn., a business in which he was quite successful, but which he sold out after some three years, and was quite steadily engaged in the ice business for some seven or eight years. Then he sold his to Horace Town, and for some three years was engaged with Dimock Brothers in the meat business, and then for eight years with Bidwell and Company in the same line. His health became poor, obliging him to give up hard manual labor, and in September, 1895, he went into the dry goods business on an extended scale, almost immediately meeting with a marked success.

Mr. Howard is Officer of the Day of Winter Post, No. 44, G.A.R., and is financial recorder of the Temple of Honor, of which he was a charter member. In the Golden Cross, of which he was a charter member, Mr. Howard is the Keeper of Records. In his religious associations, Mr. Howard is a devoted Methodist, and has been one of the stewards of the Church for several years. In his politics he is a Prohibitionist.

Alonzo L. Howard and Hannah E. Winter were married April 9, 1862. Mrs. Howard is a daughter of David and Sallie (Dean) Winter, of Stafford, Conn., and is the mother of the following family: Fred William, connected with the Stafford Press; Mary Alvira, in the store with her father; Gertrude Amelia, who died at the age of six years and two months.

Reproduced by:

Linda D. Pingel

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