Edited by
Wally Howerton
Contributing Editor
Bryan R. Howerton
Volume Eleven, Issue 1 Winter 2007
Elliana Grace Howerton-Lynch
FROM THE EDITOR
Greetings Cousins:
I hope everyone had a most joyous holiday season!
I had to include pictures of two of my grand daughters. Elliana Grace Howerton-Lynch is the daughter of Christine Howerton and Polly Lynch who reside in Bridgeport, WV. When Christy first sent the picture to me I thought it was a Hallmark Christmas Card. The second picture, featured below, is two-year old, Anna Caroline Howerton, who hails from Kernersville, NC. Anna is the daughter of Missi and Scott Howerton. She truly depicts "The Joy of Christmas."
Anna Caroline Howerton
After several invitations, I was finally able to attend The Howerton Reunion in Claiborne County, Tennessee this past fall. The annual event was held Saturday, October 21, 2006 from 11:00 a.m. – 3:00 p.m. The trip was a high speed, low altitude run, from my home in Richwood, WV but I'm so happy that I was a part of the festivities. I learned that I really needed to get there a day in advance so I could spend quality time with Jay & Roetta Howerton who co-host the annual event. They have so much information pertaining to their circle of Howertons that it would take several days to digest it all. I'm hoping that Roetta will contribute some articles to Howerton Heritage in the near future.
Please, if your Howerton Family held a reunion this past year, no matter how large or small, consider submitting some words and pictures to us.
Bryan has supplied us with another "Good Old Days" story that's well worth reading. I wonder how many other Howertons could supply the Newsletter with similar stories?
I'd like to welcome Mike Howerton as a contributing writer. Mike has done quite a bit of research on his line of Howertons and will submit stories at his convenience.
I've included a small section of "Shorts" which are just snippetts from the database that somone may find interesting.
Enjoy the New Year!
Wally
IN THIS ISSUE
Good Old Days - 4 by Bryan Howerton
Howerton Wine by Mike Howerton
Claiborne County, Tennessee Annual Reunion
Jo Ann L. Howerton Obituary Jan 23, 1922 - November 15, 2006
GOOD??? OLD DAYS - 4
By Bryan R
Howerton
Wally Howerton, who is our webmaster, also edits and assembles articles submitted for use in the newsletter. He has had little help this year, with my excuse being the several health problems I have encountered over the past several months. I am now recovering from the most recent of three episodes with my heart and it appears that the doctors have finally determined the medicine mix needed to stabilize my heart function and I am feeling much better. Wally asked for some material to include in the newsletter and while I do not feel up to the detailed research necessary for a historically-oriented article about Howertons, have decided to write another article about my childhood days from memory. Readers are probably becoming bored with this type of material; but, that is the best I can do for now.
The period of time I spent residing with the family of a great-uncle was one of the happiest times of my life. Their home was in the Ozark foothills; an ideal area for a boy who loved the outdoors. There were streams of various sizes between most of the hills; there were numerous springs bubbling from the ground with good, pure water that was always cold. The woods provided a large variety of game, particularly small game and fish were plentiful. This was all a sharp contrast to the lowland-area with which I was familiar and I spent much of my free time "exploring" the area. I cannot recall any serious behavior problems; parents maintained strict discipline within their families; but all the families that I knew were loving families and there was no excessive punishment for childhood infraction of rules. There were no drug or dope problems; in fact, I knew nothing of such things during that period of time.
The homes of most people were widely separated from their neighbors in that heavily wooded, rural area; so individual families provided much of their own entertainment. Families took turns hosting Friday-night gatherings of neighborhood teenage children in their homes. Generally, the children provided their own entertainment through party games, dancing, etc. Music, when available, was provided by fiddle, guitar and banjo; however, I do not recall there ever being more than two of those instruments at any party. One host had a large free-standing hand-wound record player (commonly called "Victrola.") and a few well-worn records. The spring driving the record player must have been weak as one person was required to stand by and frequently turn the winding-crank to maintain the tempo of the music.
Families were almost universally short of cash; however, I am not sure that they realized how poor they were. They owned their own homes and farms and through their own efforts provided the majority of their needs, never expecting charitable help and support from anyone, including the various levels of government. In fact, they really were independent, much in the sense of their forefathers.
I was impressed by the high moral standards maintained by the people living in that area. It seemed to me that about the worst thing that could happen to an individual was damage to the reputation of their family and family members. All were well aware of the fact that individual misconduct would impact unfavorably on their family. Family members held each other in high regard and thoroughly enjoyed their life together. This was apparent by the numerous jokes they so often played on each other.
Occasionally a joke resulted in unintended consequences. The family of one of my best boyhood friends, the one with the butting goat mentioned in a previous newsletter, seemed to almost consider the planning and execution of a joke to be an art form. One joke that I well remember failed to be as entertaining as planned. The father was regularly bothered with digestion problems, of which the boys were well aware. The ailment was normally treated with a potent laxative; however, he had used laxatives for so long that he had recently switched to a well advertised, powerful purgative - may have been black draught.
The father went to bed early and the boys, knowing he would soon be making a trip to the outhouse, planned a surprise. It was very dark outside, so they placed a wheelbarrow directly across the path from the back door of the house, through the garden, to the family privy, located a good distance down from the house.
The boys hid behind the house and giggled, anxiously waiting for the purgative to work. Sure enough, the father soon hastily emerged from the house, pulling on his trousers as he ran. As planned, he collided with the wheelbarrow, yelling in surprise. The boys could not clearly see the wheelbarrow with which the father was entangled, so ran to site of the "accident". Their father was not seriously injured, but judging from the odor at the scene, the boys realized their prank had unforeseen consequences. Rather than proceeding to the outhouse, the father went down to the river for a quick bath.
I spent many pleasant weekends visiting in the home of my friend. I always looked forward to breakfast on Saturday morning. His mother baked the best biscuits I had ever eaten and I was always complimenting her expertise. On Saturdays, in addition to the normal breakfast of bacon or ham and eggs, fried potatoes and various jellies, she would serve molasses along with butter, probably churned the day before, and kept in the spring house overnight. I would have been well satisfied to eat nothing but molasses mixed with butter and spread on a hot biscuit; however, protocol required you to eat some of the other food, also.
The following incident occurred between 65 and 70 years ago and I have probably forgotten some of the details. After school one Friday my friend and I were joined by two other friends and rode the truck that served as a school bus out to my friend's home. His home was built of logs with, as I recall, two large rooms on each side of a breezeway through the house. There was a front porch across the front of the house and a smaller porch on the back. My friend and his older brother each had a bed in a room on one side of the house and the adjoining room appeared to be used for storage of various items. The rooms across the breezeway served as the parent's bedroom/living room and the kitchen/dining room.
Now, four boys in one bed are not going to sleep very soon. Each boy would tell a ghost story, always trying to out do each other. After a while one of the boys said he was hungry and my friend said there was a barrel of molasses in the adjoining storeroom that had gone to sugar. The entire house was dark and we dared not light a lamp, so we stumbled to the storeroom, where we found two large wooden barrels sitting on their end and covered securely with a fitted wooden lid. The barrels would each hold about 40 or 50 gallons. Our friend emphasized which barrel held the molasses that had hardened and that the other barrel contained the molasses still in use by the family. The barrel of hardened molasses was between half and two thirds full and we almost had to stand on our head to cut a chunk of the "candy" loose.
We all made several trips to the store room to get another piece of the hardened molasses, but finally went to sleep. The next thing I knew it was just breaking day and we were being awakened by one of the boys. He said someone had taken the lid off the good molasses and failed to failed to replace it. He kept telling us to go and see what he was talking about. It did not seem that important, but he persisted and the four of us finally went into the storage room. Sure enough, the lid was off the barrel of good molasses and one of the boys picked up the lid to cover the barrel. He leaned over the barrel and immediately jumped back with his had over his mouth to stifle his outcry. We carefully approached the open barrel and looked in. There, partially submerged, lay the family cat. Apparently it had been roaming around during the night, jumped for the top of the uncovered barrel and fell into the molasses. It had obviously either drowned or suffocated, as it was definitely dead. I never did learn who uncovered that barrel and left the top uncovered. Two of the boys were designated to carry the cat down to the river and throw it as far out into the water as they could. All were then sworn to silence.
Four subdued boys joined the family at breakfast. The mother proudly brought a platter of steaming biscuits to the table, telling me that she knew how much I liked biscuits and molasses and that the biscuits were hot, the butter fresh, and she had just filled the pitcher with fresh molasses from the barrel.
I have wondered about the expression on my face. There was no way that I was going to eat any molasses that morning, yet I knew I was expected to enjoy the biscuits and molasses and compliment the host. All I could say was that I just did not feel like eating molasses. None of the boys would take any molasses. However, the father took a big serving of butter, then poured molasses from the pitcher over the butter and began mixing it together. He spread some of the mixture on a biscuit and took a bite. He looked somewhat surprised, put his biscuit down and began twisting his mouth a bit, finally running his finger across his lips. (Napkins were used when the preacher came for dinner.) He took another bite, got up from the table and went out to the water bucket on the porch, took a drink from the dipper and rinsed his mouth several times.
The father came back to the table and sit down. His wife asked what happened and he said he thought he had a hair in his mouth. Now there were four boys at that table who were too scared to eat or talk and about to burst with laughter. We all sat there watching the father take another biscuit, spread it with molasses and take a bite. He began to chew, then stopped, threw the biscuit on his plate, stood up and exclaimed that there was hair in the molasses. The boys simultaneously began to sputter, trying not to laugh; but, soon were roaring with laughter as two of them fell off their chairs.
The father went out again to rinse his mouth and did not return. After several minutes he called by name, for each boy to come outside. We gathered in front of him and he said we were to follow him to the barn. I guess each of us had made a trip like that before and had no doubt about what was coming. However, when we were in the barn, he just looked at each of us for what seemed like several minutes, then asked what we know about the hair in the molasses. No one answered and he asked again emphasizing that we had to know how the incident came about or we would not have been so amused that two of the boys had fallen off their chairs.
Finally, one boy said that a cat had fallen into the molasses barrel. The whole story came out in the discussion that followed, although no one ever admitted who had removed the lid from the barrel and failed to return it. The father then told us there would be no recreation for the rest of the day. The visiting boys then said they would just return home, to which the father said that we were not going to do that. He said he had been cutting firewood for the fireplace and kitchen as winter was coming. He said we would harness a team to a wagon and take a couple of axes with us; split the blocks intended for kitchen use into the size needed for that stove and haul both fireplace wood and that for the kitchen back to the area behind the house where it was stacked and stored for use. That kept us busy for the entire day, except for a short break for lunch.
I never heard the father mention the incident after that day; but, I noticed him grimace when on Saturday morning during following visits, after we were all seated at the table the mother would enter with a platter of biscuits and always smile and say, "Bryan, we have fresh molasses and there is no hair in it"; after which she smiled.
HOWERTON WINE
By Mike Howerton
My great grandfather, James Alexander Howerton, also known as "Ellic" or "Alex," was born February 11, 1856 in Vienna, Johnson County, Illinois. Back in those days folk stayed pretty close to home, once they found a good area in which to settle. Grandfather Ellic farmed about 80 acres of land in the far southeastern corner of Williamson County, Illinois.
Grandpa and his wife, Susan Elizabeth Meredith Howerton lived in two old log cabins that had been joined by a breezeway between them to make one house. The original single log cabin was purchased in 1868 by my great, great grandfather, William T. Howerton, who later, with the help of Ellic, moved the cabin to it's present location. Sometime over the years, a second cabin and breezeway were added. It was customary to build the kitchen away from the main house and join the two with a covered porch.
They raised a lot of corn in those days and that wore down the productivity of the thinner soil of rocky southern Illinois. The results of this were that Grandpa and most of his neighbor's, kin, and friends were subsistence farmers and lived very frugally. Grandpa Ellic picked up the traditional skill of making homemade wine. He would brew enough grape wine every year to last a year with perhaps a little surplus for safety's sake. Grandpa had a tiny little room in the house where he kept his wine under lock and key. At the end of his daily labors, he was accustomed to having a little wine at the table with his supper. All the clan and neighbors knew about Grandpa's storeroom and that Grandpa also liked to visit it occasionally during the day. I guess not much fuss was made about it.
Orla Henshaw, was the son of Freeman Henshaw and Nancy Jane (Howerton) and Grandson of Ellic. Orla got to drive a car to Grandpa Ellic's house, to show off his driving ability and his becoming a man. This was a big event in the life of young Orla who was probably 13-14 years old. Grandpa Ellic decided it was the proper time to introduce Orla to the wine room. Grandpa went and got the both of them a nice glass of wine to partake during their supper. This evidently made a big impression on young Orla as he could recount the incident decades later.
James Alexander "Ellic" Howerton, passed away 3 December 1936 in Marion, Williamson County, Illinois about 26 miles and one county north from where he was born. He is buried at the County Line Cemetery on the boundary of Williamson and Johnson County Illinois.
The information in the above article was obtained through a telephone conversation with Orla Henshaw August 7, 2000.
SHORTS
from the database
12 Dec 1705 Essex County Court pays William Howerton £1.0.0 for killing 5 wolves
Jun 1748 - Thomas Howerton voted in election for House of Burgesses.
24 Sep 1838 -- To All Whom It May Concern:- Greeting: Be it known that Jeremiah Howerton having been elected by Arkansas annual conference of ministers and delegates was ordained for the office of deacon in the Methodist Protestant Church and he is hereby authorized by said Conference to baptize to assist the Elder in the administration of the Lords Supper and to celebrate matrimony and to preach and expound the Holy Scriptures so long as his life and Doctrine accord with the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. Signed by order and in behalf of the Arkansas Conference. /s/ Jacob Sexton - President
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