Charles Prentice Howland family papers

HENRY ELIAS HOWLAND, son of Aaron Prentice Howland, an architect, and Huldah (Burke) Howland, was born June 30, 1835, at Walpole, N. H. He was prepared for college there, and at the Kimball Union Academy in Meriden, N. H. After graduation he studied law a year in Walpole with Judge Frederick Vose (B.A. Harvard 1822), and two years in the Harvard Law School, receiving the degree of Bachelor of Laws from Harvard in 1857. He was admitted to the New York bar in October of that year, and was associated with John Sherwood (B.A. Yale 1839) in the practice of his profession until 1878, when, with Henry H. Anderson (B.A. Williams 1848), the firm of Anderson, Howland, & Murray was formed. Soon after the death of Mr. Anderson in 1896, Mr. Howland's firm became Howland, Murray & Prentice, consisting of himself, George Welwood Murray and E. Parmalee Prentice (B.A. Amherst 1885) Later his son (B.A. Yale 1891) was admitted to the firm. He was a director of the Lawyers Title Insurance Co., the Lawyers Mortgage Co., and the Mortgage Bond Co.

During 1862 he was in the United States service for three months as sergeant of Company G, 22d Regiment, New York National Guard, at Baltimore and Harper's Ferry and the following year served as captain of the same regiment during the Confederate invasion of Pennsylvania.

In 1873 he was appointed judge of the Marine (now City) Court of New York to fill a vacancy, and held the office for a year. For three years (1875-1877) he was annually elected a member of the Board of Aldermen. In 1880 he was appointed by Mayor Cooper president of the department of taxes for four years, but resigned after a few months on account of his private business.

Judge Howland received the honorary degree of Master of Arts from Yale University in 1893. He was first elected an Alumni Fellow of the Yale Corporation in 1892 and continued in the office for three terms, withdrawing in 1910. At the special meeting of alumni in 1909 he was appointed chairman of the Yale Civil War Memorial Committee. From 1893 to 1895 he was president of the Yale Alumni association of New York (later the Yale Club) He Was in frequent request as an after-dinner speaker, and presided at the Cambridge, England, Yale dinner in October, 1895, and also on many other notable Yale occasions. From 1901 to 1904 he was president of the New York University Club, and since its foundation in 1879 had been a member of its council.

He was active in many philanthropic civic, and social organizations, serving as president of the Society for the Relief of the Destitute Blind in the City of New York since 1898, president of the managers of the Manhattan State Hospital from 1895 to 1905, and trustee of the Marion Street Maternity Hospital, and was for many years connected with the State Charities Aid Association. He was a trustee of the New York Free Circulating Library (now included in the New York Free Library) He was president of the Society for the Preservation of the Adirondacks, in 1901 taking active part in preventing the destruction of the forests by contractors. He was a vestryman and warden of the Church of the Ascension.

Judge Howland died after an illness of two years from paralyses at his home in New York City, November 7, 1913, at the age of 78 years. The interment was in Walpole, N.H.

He married in New York City, October 5, 1865, Louisa, daughter of Jonathan Miller. She died February 6, 1884, and February 1, 1894, he married Mrs. Anna J. W. Curtis, widow of Dr. Thomas B. Curtis and daughter of Joseph S. Lovering of Boston Mass, who survives him. Two sons and a daughter by his first marriage are also living, three daughters having died. The sons graduated from the College in 1891 and 1894, respectively.

(Yale University Obituary Record, 1910-1915)

CHARLES PRENTICE HOWLAND

Born September 15, 1869, in New York City

Died November 12, 1932, in New Haven, Conn.

Father, Henry Elias Howland (B.A. 1854; LL.B. Harvard 1857; honorary M.A. 1893); fellow of Yale Corporation 1892-1910; son of Aaron Prentice and Huldah (Burke) Howland, of Walpole, N.H. Mother, Sarah Louise (Miller) Howland; daughter of Jonathan and Sarah Ross (Blunt) Miller, of New York City. Yale relatives include: John Howland (B.A. 1894; M.D. New York University 1897 and Cornell 1899; honorary M.A. 1914) (brother); and John Howland, Jr., '30, and Elihu S. Howland, '35 (nephews).

Cutler School, New York City. High oration appointment Junior and Senior years; one-year honors in political science, history, and law; president of Freshman Football Association; secretary and treasurer of University Tennis Club; treasurer of University Club; member Delta Kappa Epsilon, Wolf's Head, and Phi Beta Kappa.

LL.B. and M.A. Harvard 1894; M.A. Yale 1894; admitted to New York Bar 1894 and practiced law in New York City until 1925; clerk with firm of Seward, Guthrie, Morawetz & Steele 1894-1896; member of firm of Anderson & Howland 1896-1900, of his father's firm, Howland & Murray, and its successors, Howland, Murray & Prentice and Murray, Prentice & Howland 1900-1921, and of firm of Rushmore, Bisbee & Stern (in which Henry Root Stern, '03, is also a member) 1921-1925; chairman of Greek Refugee Settlement Commission of League of Nations 1925-1926; research associate in government at Yale, with rank of professor, since 1927; civil service examiner in New York 1896-1900; member of Board of Aldermen of New York City 1902-1904; director of Mortgage Bond Company of New York 1908-1932, Lawyers' Mortgage Company 1913-1932, Continental Guaranty Corporation, New York Railways Company, 1915-1919, Albany & Susquehanna Railroad Company, and Robins Conveying Belt Company 1927-1928; in 1917 one of four attorneys for Emergency Fleet Corporation and went to England and France on special mission for the Department of State and American Red Cross in connection with relief service for American prisoners of war and feeding of Serbian prisoners in Austria and Germany; member of Priorities Committee of War Industries Board, representing United States Shipping Board, 1918-1919 and general counsel to United States Housing Corporation; director of research for Council on Foreign Relations 1927-1931 and edited and wrote in part the four volumes of Survey of American Foreign Relations published for the Council by Yale University Press in 1931; chairman of research committee of Institute of Pacific Relations 1929-1932; trustee of Johns Hopkins University 1926-1932 and of Institute of International Education (executive committee) 1927-1932; president of board of American trustees of Athens College, Greece, 1927-1932 and trustee of Salonica Farm School; member of administrative board of Lincoln School of Teachers College, Columbia, 1917-1924, of General Education Board (executive committee) since 1919, and of the Rockefeller Foundation (executive committee) since 1928; president of Public Education Association of New York City 1909-1925, a trustee 1909-1931, and member of its advisory committee 1931-1932; a director of Foreign Policy Association 1920-1932 and chairman of its executive committee 1923-1930; an incorporator of English-Speaking Union of the United States in 1918 and member of its board of directors 1920-1925; member of advisory committee of Geneva School of International Studies, Foreign Affairs, New Republic, Atlantic Monthly, Christian Century, Asia, Yale Review; at time of death engaged in writing a book on Manchuria; chairman of international law committee of Association of the Bar of the City of New York; honorary member of advisory board of Model Assembly of the League of Nations 1929-1930; in 1915 one of donors to Yale of the Howland Prize and in 1925, with his brother and sister, presented to the University a valuable collection of daguerreotypes.

Married September 6, 1905, in New York City, Virginia Cunningham, daughter of Frank and Alice (Furman) Lazarus. Children: Esther (B.A. Vassar 1926; M.A. Columbia 1927; Ph.D. Yale 1932), the wife of Hugh Montgomery (B.A. Haverford 1925; M.D. Harvard 1930); Henry Elias, David, '33; and Prentice (died in infancy).

Death due to injuries when struck by an automobile a few hours previously. Cremation took place in Springfield, Mass, and ashes were buried in Walpole, N.H.

Survived by wife, daughter, two sons, and a sister, Miss Frances L. Howland, of New York City. At a meeting of the Yale Corporation in December 1932, it was voted to approve the proposal that the Yale University Press send to each embassy and legation of the United States and to the Departments of Political Science and Government in one hundred leading American and British universities copies of Yale's important publications during the last three years in the fields of Government and International Relations, as a gift in each case in memory of Professor Howland. In his memory, also, Athens College has received the funded endowment of an annual prize from Stephen Deltas, Greek treasurer of the Greco-American Preparatory School near Athens.

(Yale College Class of 1891, Sixty Years After, pp. 86-89)