Frederick William Howe (1813 - 1860)

Refresh this page to see various historical events that occurred during Frederick's lifetime.

In 1813, in the year that Frederick William Howe was born, on January 28th, Pride and Prejudice, written by Jane Austen, was published anonymously in London. None of her books carried her name - her first novel, Sense and Sensibility, named the author as "By a Lady". Pride and Prejudice named the author as "By the Author of Sense and Sensibility."

In 1822, he was just 9 years old when on July 3rd, Charles Babbage published a proposal for a forerunner of the modern computer. Called a "difference engine", it calculated logarithms and trigonometric functions. Babbage wanted to eliminate the errors that occurred through the use of human "calculators" by creating a machine to do the same work. While a prototype was begun, it was never completed.

In 1849, by the time he was 36 years old, on April 22nd, Patrick Kennedy - great-grandfather of President John Kennedy - arrived in the United States. He was the 3rd born son of an Irish farmer and he knew that he wouldn't be given the chance to run the family farm. So he emigrated to Massachusetts and became a cooper. After only 10 years in the US, he died of cholera at age 35.

In 1857, at the age of 44 years old, Frederick was alive when on March 4th, James Buchanan became the 15th President of the United States. Called a "doughface" by many - a Northerner with Southern sympathies - he said that he would only serve one term and he did what he said.

In 1860, in the year of Frederick William Howe's passing, on February 26th, near Eureka California, white settlers attacked a tribe of Wiyot Indians on Indian Island. Over 60 women, children and older people died. Bret Harte - a writer and friend of Mark Twain - reported the news about the massacre to the papers in San Francisco.