James Howe

Biography

About 1598–1702

James Howe’s long life connected an English upbringing with settlement in Massachusetts. A family entry copied from an old account book placed his earlier home at Hockerill in Bishop’s Stortford, in Hertfordshire in England. He married Elizabeth Dane, and their family became established at Ipswich, on the northeastern Massachusetts coast.

His most personal surviving testimony comes from the witchcraft prosecutions of 1692. On June 28, James, describing himself as about ninety-four, wrote in defense of his daughter-in-law Elizabeth Howe. He said he had lived near her for roughly thirty years and had observed her conduct within the family. His testimony emphasized the practical care she gave his son, who could no longer see: she led him by the hand and treated him with tenderness.

James appealed to the authorities to distinguish prejudice from conscience. He asked the court to consider the conduct of a woman he had known over many years. She was nevertheless executed on July 19, 1692.

James outlived both that crisis and his wife Elizabeth. He died at Ipswich in May 1702. The published family history gives an extraordinary age of 104; his own statement in 1692 supports the approximate chronology, though neither is a contemporary birth record. His written defense remains a direct record of what he chose to say when his family faced prosecution.