John Wesley Howard
Dec. 27, 1908; Oregonian, p 7  (photo)
"Pioneer of '44 is Dead"

   John Henry Howard, who died at his home at Westfall, Malheur County, Oregon, December 17, aged 76 years, was born in Hardinsburg, Breckenridge county, Kentucky, October 28, 1832, and when a small boy removed with his parents to Oregon in 1844 and wintered at what was then known as Whitman Station.  Howard's father, James Howard, was a gunsmith and a great friend of the Indians, who looked on him as a wonderful man.
   John and his sister, Mrs. Sarah Ann Ross, now of Mitchell, Wheeler County, Oregon, went to school that winter to Dr. Marcus Whitman.
   John and Ann were with the Indians so much they learned to talk the Indian language, and a few days before the Whitman massacre Ann overheard the Indians plotting the massacre and told her folks what she had heard.
   "Uncle Jimmie," as he was known in after years, thinking it was best to leave that part of the country, packed up to leave, and the Indians offered him a band of horses and two squaws if he would stay, but this offer was no temptation and after telling Dr. Whitman what the Indians had planned and the doctor refusing to go, the Howard family took their departure only a few days before that memorable massacre.
   The Howard family then settled where the City of Portland now stands.
   Later they moved to Eugene and Dallas and in 1848, when gold was discovered in California, they rushed to the mines, in the early '50s coming back to Oregon.  They spent several years in Jacksonville and other points in Southern Oregon.
   John Howard familiarly known as "Uncle John," often told of early days in Oregon.  He told of the famine of '51 and '52, when money could not buy flour or other necessaries of life and the early settlers subsisted on meat alone without salt using deer's liver fried brown and hard for bread.  This was only one of the many hardships the old pioneers endured.
   In 1870 the Howard family moved to Prineville, Crook County, where they engaged in farming and stockraising.  Howard's mother died in the year 1877 and was buried at Harrisburg, Or., his father dying six years later.
   In 1886 Uncle John moved to Harney County with his family and made a success as a stockraiser and farmer.
   In 1836 he moved to Westfall, Malheur County, where he resided the remainder of his life.  He was married three times, his first wife being Nancy Eddins, by whom he reared several children, those living being Mrs. Frankie Martin and Mrs. Elizabeth Corcoran, both of San Francisco.  His second wife was Jane Clover, daughter of Paul Clover, who at one time lived near Albany, Or.  The children by this marriage are: James P. and John M. Howard, of Westfall, and Mrs. Julia C. Gilham, of Vale, OR.
   His third wife was Elizabeth Tucker, once a resident of Aumsville, Or.  Mr. Howard leaves three brothers and four sisters, James H. Howard, of Elmira, Or.; Marcus F. Howard, of Dallas, Or., and Lytle Howard, of Portland; Mrs. S. A. Ross and Mrs. Emma Grisham, of Mitchell, OR.; Mrs. Lizzie Blakeley, of Wallowa County, Or., and Mrs. Mary Jackson, of Bellingham, Wash.
   In early days Howard was a warm friend of the late Ben Haden, ex-Senator Nesmith, Joe Meek and other noted men of Oregon.