OBITUARIES, AMERICAN. (HOWGATE UUHHAKI.., 



437 



1859 till 1873; on the editorial staff of the New 

 York Times in 1870; and from 1874 to 1876 cor- 

 respondent from Japan and Formosa of the New 

 York Herald. After 1870 he resided chiefly in 

 Japan, where he devoted his energies especially 

 to the defense of Japan's international rights. 

 He was Professor of English in the University of 

 Tokio from 1871 to 1873. He established and 

 conducted, from 1877 till 1880, the Tokio Times, 

 a weekly periodical. In 1900 he was appointed 

 director of the Imperial Court Orchestra, and in 

 that year prepared and conducted the first or- 

 chestral concerts given in Japan. Besides many 

 magazine articles, he published The Simonoseki 

 Affair (1874); The Kagosima Affair (1874); The 

 Japanese Expedition to Formosa (1875); Japan- 

 ese Episodes (1882); Yone Santo; and The Mid- 

 night Warning. 



Howgate, Henry W., soldier, born in Eng- 

 land; died in Washington, D. C., June 1, 1901. 

 During the civil war he entered the National army 

 as 2d lieutenant, 22d Michigan Volunteers, Aug. 

 14, 1862; was promoted 1st lieutenant, Jan. 17, 

 1863; and was assigned to the signal corps as 1st 

 lieutenant, March 3, 1863. He was brevetted cap- 

 tain of volunteers, March 13, 1865, for gallant and 

 meritorious service in the battle of Chickamauga, 

 and major of volunteers for the Atlanta cam- 

 paign; he was mustered out June 20, 1866. He 

 then entered the regular army as 2d lieutenant, 

 20th Infantry, Oct. 22, 1867; brevetted 1st lieu- 

 tenant and captain, Oct. 22, 1867; unassigned, 

 July 28, 1869; reassigned to 20th Infantry, Aug. 

 3, 1870; promoted 1st lieutenant, Aug. 4, 1875; 

 and resigned, Dec. 18, 1880. For some years pre- 

 vious to his resignation he had been disbursing 

 officer of the United States Signal Service Bureau 

 in Washington. When Gen. Hazen assumed 

 charge of the bureau in 1881 he made an investi- 

 gation of certain shortages in the accounts of 

 Howgate, which resulted in his arrest, Aug. 16, 

 1881, on the charge of embezzling $90,000. April 

 13, 1882, he escaped from the charge of a deputy 

 marshal, and for thirteen years was not caught. 

 He was discovered in New York, Sept. 26, 1894, 

 taken to Washington, acquitted on one trial, and 

 finally convicted and sentenced, Nov. 14, 1895, to 

 eight years' imprisonment. The amount of his 

 shortage was more than $350,000. 



Howland, Western, oil-refiner, born in New 

 Bedford, Mass., in 1816; died in Fairhaven, Mass., 

 June 16, 1901. Beginning as a cabin-boy on a 

 merchant ship, he followed the sea during his 

 early life, rising through successive grades to the 

 command of a vessel. After quitting the sea he 

 became a ship-chandler and commission merchant, 

 continuing in this business till he began the manu- 

 facture of kerosene oil. In 1860 he was secretary 

 of the New Bedford Coal-Oil Company, a concern 

 that by a crude process supplied a marketable 

 form of petroleum. At this time a chemist of 

 Schieffelin Brothers, of New York, suggested to 

 Mr. Howland that he should experiment with a 

 view to placing on the market a more salable 

 illuminator than the coal-oil of the day. Petro- 

 leum, though it had been known for years, never 

 had been refined. At that time there were a few 

 wells in Pennsylvania, and Schieffelin Brothers 

 had about 2,000 barrels of the oil on hand. Mr. 

 Howland decided to make an attempt at refining 

 the oil, and a barrel was shipped to him. His 

 first attempt at distillation, with a large kettle 

 from his kitchen as a condenser, was successful, 

 but the product was thick, muddy, vile-smelling, 

 and unrefined. A milk-pan was the next piece 

 of improvised apparatus, and he went on experi- 

 menting with alkalies and water. The result was 



a f ggy mixture. Discourse,] ! MM- nun 



with the oil and alkalies in h , ,, j t> 



and when he went back IK- , 

 solved. The barn door h;i<l ,. 

 the beams of the afternoon sun i 

 had completed the process. Th;ii > .. 

 three lamps one with the roal-oi: 

 by the New Bedford Company. 

 Downer's oil, and a third with his n-Ji 

 leum. He lighted them and called in In 

 who at once selected the petroleum-filial 

 giving the largest and brightest flame. <'on- 

 vinced that tins was the illuminating oil ol 1 1n- 

 future, Mr. Howland at once purchased the oil 

 works on Fish island and began to manufacture 

 for the market. He purchased 1,500 barrels of 

 oil, at 25 cents a gallon, and sold the refined oil 

 at 75 cents a gallon as fast as he could manu- 

 facture it. The Downers attempted to block him 

 by purchasing all the petroleum on the market, 

 but Mr. Howland sent an agent to the oil-field* 

 in November, 1860, and contracted for the entire 

 product. Two months later his factory was de- 

 stroyed by fire as the result of an explosion, in 

 which two men were killed. Mr. Howland cov- 

 ered the machinery with old -sails, that his rivals 

 might not copy it, and began rebuilding the fol- 

 lowing day. Soon other refineries were built, and 

 at length the nucleus of the present Standard Oil 

 Company began to make it difficult for com- 

 petitors to do business, and Mr. Howland, though 

 one of the last to feel its effects, was finally 

 forced out of the manufacture. He was a mem- 

 ber of the New Bedford Board of Aldermen in 

 1866, and from 1886 to 1890 was collector of the 

 port of New Bedford. 



Hoyt, Benjamin Carleton, banker, founder 

 of St. Joseph, Mich., born in Sandown, N. H., 

 Jan. 26, 1807; died in St. Joseph, Mich., March 

 27, 1901. He went west when he was twenty-one 

 years old, and in 1829 erected a log store-building 

 at the present foot of State Street in St. Joseph. 

 At that time the country had not been surveyed 

 by the Government, it was heavily timbered, and 

 the only road leading to the lake was an Indian 

 trail along the river. In 1831 he built the first 

 frame house, and in 1832 he incorporated the 

 settlement as Newburyport, afterward changing 

 the name to St. Joseph. At the breaking out of 

 the Black Hawk War, in 1832, Mr. Hoyt raised 

 a company of 40 men, who were stationed at 

 the mouth of the St. Joe river to hold in check 

 the Ottawas, Chippewas, and Pottawatomies till 

 Black Hawk should be subdued. Besides a lib- 

 eral bounty, each member of this company (the 

 first raised in the country) received a pension of 

 $96 a year and 160 acres of land. Mr. Hoyt was. 

 the only surviving pensioner of the Black Hawk 

 War. For many years he was engaged in bank- 

 ing in St. Joseph. 



Hubbard, Richard B., ex-Governor of Texas, 

 born in Walton County, Georgia, Nov. 1, 1832; 

 died in Tyler, Texas, July 12, 1901. He was 

 graduated at Mercer University, Georgia, in 1851. 

 After completing his law studies at the University 

 of Virginia and at Harvard, he returned to 

 Georgia, whence he emigrated with his father 

 to Texas in 1853. He practised in Tyler, and in 



1856 was a delegate to the Democratic National 

 Convention. He was United States District At- 

 torney for the western district of Texas from 



1857 to 1859, when he resigned to become a mem- 

 ber of the Legislature. He resigned in 1862 and 

 raised the 22d Texas Infantry, and continued it? 

 colonel throughout the war. He was disfran- 

 chised for some years after the war, and wjien 

 the civil disabilities were removed he reentered 



