It’s the 40th week of 2023’s 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Challenge, and the topic is “Longevity.”
Silas Howell, my 6th great-grandfather, lived for more than 100 years and died in Portland, Maine on May 7, 1846. Living to the ripe old age of 100 isn’t that common now, but in 1846, it was an exceptionally unusual feat. News of his death was published in papers throughout the Northeast.
While his tiny obituary boasts about his age, it’s devoid of many important details. Who was Silas Howell, aside from a guy who lived a long, long life?
Silas was born in Long Island, New York, and arrived in Maine sometime before the Revolutionary War. He married Loruhamah Mariner (that monstrosity of a name was passed on through several generations of the family) and the couple had at least five children who were baptized in the First Church in Falmouth, Maine: Sally (1774), Polly (1775), Silas (1779), Joanna (1783), and Benjamin (1786).
Though many online collaborative trees list his parents as Zebulon and Joanna Howell from New York, the relationship seems unlikely. The Silas on their trees is simultaneously married to Loruhamah in Maine and another woman in New York and has children overlapping in both places. Unless he was a bigamist with a super speedy horse, this is incorrect. The earliest record in Maine for Silas was a 1766 tax record when Silas would have been about 20 or 21 years old. The tax record lists 4 Howells: Arthur, Elias, Silas, and Silas Jr. All these Howells besides Arthur were only issued a poll tax, so they weren’t landowners. It’s likely that our Silas is Silas Jr. and his father is the other Silas.
Most information gleaned about Silas’s life is found in his Revolutionary War pension paperwork, which he filed in 1831 when he was quite old. He stated that he was born in Long Island, New York and came to Falmouth before the war. Though he was approved for and received a pension for a few years, he was later dropped from the roll as the agency was unable to find a record of his service. He claimed in his application that he served under Capt. Joseph Noyes. He was part of Capt. Noyes’s militia which erected and fortified a fort in Falmouth, Massachusetts (present day Portland, Maine) in 1775, but there was no official roll for this unit. His family and friends remember him saying he served at Cape Ann Harbor with other Falmouth men and some Penobscot Indians but he was foggy on the details due to his age.
In 1847, his only surviving child, Joanna Farrington, attempted to claim her deceased father’s pension benefits. A gentleman assisting her with the claims process wrote on her behalf, “Silas Howell was a native of Long Island and before the war of the Revolution came to Falmouth, now Portland, where he resided to the time of his death. He often spoke of making efforts to be restored to the pension list but was deterred from doing so in the latter part of his life in consequence of his infirmity and poverty. He was an inmate of the Almshouse Portland for several years before his death, having no property of his own and no relation to support him.” It’s unfortunate no one helped him get his benefits reinstated before his death. His quality of life may have been improved during his final ten years of life.
Several letters supported the claim that Silas Howell served in the Revolutionary War, even though no one who served with him was still living. He was considered an honest man, and everyone who knew him remembered hearing him speak of his service. Some of these letters contain other nuggets of information about his life. In 1849, 80-year-old James Dearing of Westbrook wrote, “This Silas Howell was a tailor by trade and has often talked and informed me of his Revolutionary services.” Elias Thomas of Portland, age 75, stated, “I have known Silas Howell late of Portland who was a tailor by trade since my boyhood.” Without these letters, we wouldn’t know Silas was a tailor. A testimonial from Joseph M. Gerrish stated that, “The wife of Silas Howell was the sister of my mother who died many years before her husband.” While that’s an odd way of saying, “I’m his nephew,” it helped prove that Loruhamah Mariner was indeed his wife. All three men added that they knew of only one Silas Howell of Falmouth, that he died in 1846 at the age of 100, and that they attended his funeral.
It was eventually proven that Silas did serve in the American Revolution under Capt. John Lane. His name appeared on his rolecall in 1775 as “Silas Howell of Falmouth,” along with the names of several other men from Falmouth and people of the Penobscot tribe, just as he’d always maintained. He was stationed in Cape Ann Harbor as a Sergeant and served under Capt. Lane from July 6, 1775-January 1, 1776.
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