owe, George Augustus, 3rd Viscount. Killed at the battle of Ticonderoga, 1758."
"Howe, Richard (1726-1779) 4th Viscount, Earl, British Admiral, son of Emmanuel Scroope Howe and Mary Sophia Charlotte, a daughter of the Baroness Kilmansegge, afterward Countess of Darlington, a mistress of George I. By death of his elder brother, George Augustus, he became 4th Viscount Howe – an Irish Peerage."
"How, Sir William, 5th Viscount, was the younger brother to George Augustus and Richard."
"The friendliness of the brothers, Admiral Richard Howe and General William Howe, to the colonies led to their selection for the command of the British forces in the Revolutionary War. It was thought that they could negotiate a settlement with the American forces."
A manuscript by S. S. Howe
, East Radford, Va., dated December 10 1906, accords with Mrs. Luster's version. This manuscript definitely designates Joseph Howe as a brother of George Lord Viscount Howe, Admiral Richard Howe and General William Howe and recites, as tradition, Joseph Howe's having left home to join his brother. As substantiating the time of his emigration it quotes the following from a Westminster Abbey guide: "Monument northwest of Belfry Tower bears inscription: George Lord Viscount Howe, died 1758. He was brother of the great admiral. He was killed on the first disastrous expedition to Ticonderoga in North America. Wolfe called him the noblest Englishman of his time and the best soldier in the British army. The monument was put up by the Province of Massachusetts before its separation from the mother country."
The manuscript states that Joseph Howe had made one trip to this country before the one which resulted in his settlement here. That trip was in the year 1737. On his second trip over he is said to have met Ellen Dunbar, a Scotch lady, whom he married. This incident agrees with the account by Governor Tyler, but differs slightly from the account by Mary B. Luster, who writes that "he returned to England and married a Scotch lady, Ellen Dunbar." But, with that, the two accounts agree on his having crossed the Atlantic on two trips.
Whether brother or first cousin to George, Richard and William Howe, all accounts agree that Joseph moved southward from Boston and settled in Virginia on Back Creek in what was then Augusta County, later Montgomery and now Pulaski. The date of this settlement was 1758, the year of the death of George Lord Viscount Howe.
He secured a grant of land for services rendered the Crown and on it built his residence which he called "Sunnyside" and where he spent the remainder of his life. He purchased from John Daye, who afterwards became his son-in-law, and additional tract of land adjoining his grant. The part consisting of the grant was in late years in the possession of Mrs. Agnes Howe De Jarnette
, his great-granddaughter, and the part purchased was in the possession of J. Hoge Tyler
, his great-great-grandson.
Joseph Howe constructed a line of forts from Duquesne southward for the protection of the Virginia frontier. There was preserved in the family for a long time a curious metal tag which he had taken from the nose of an hostile Indian whom he had killed from one of those forts, the tag being one of those commonly furnished by the the French to distinguish the Indians friendly to the French cause.
Joseph Howe is reputed to have been of robust physique. His English home was one of refinement and wealth from which he was separated by reason of his sympathy for the Colonists – a thing the more intolerable because of the prominence of his relations on the British side.
It is not known that any of the English estate reverted to him although it was considerable and although two of his three brothers (or his cousins) died without issue. All of the property may have gone to an only sister, whom the Encyclopedia Brittannica mentions as a friend of Benjamin Franklin. One of Richard Howe's two daughters, Sophia Charlote, married a Curzon and became ancestress to Lord Curzon, in later years Viceroy of India. Of his wife there is nothing known excep