lationship."
The name of Howe is frequently linked with that of Hoge in the Southwest Virginia branch and the genealogy of the two is so related as to result in the Southwest Virginia Hoges being really more Howe than Hoge.
, in writing of the wife of James Hoge, the progenitor of the Southwest Virginia Hoges, refers to her father, Joseph Howe, as first cousin of Lord Howe. That may be correct. There is, also, a tradition, which all writers have discredited, that Joseph Howe was a member of a family which had settled in Massachusetts and which there at an early time spelled its name "how" and which later added the "e," spelling it then as it appears at the time this history begins.
There is another version of the ancestry of Joseph Howe, and it seems to be the correct one – certainly as to the lineage if not as to the exact relationship. It serves to substantiate the connection of Joseph Howe with the Howes of the Anglo-Irish peerage and to declare the degree of kinship even if it does not establish it.
A note in the scrap book of Mary B. Luster
, a niece of Eleanor Howe Hoge
and a great-granddaughter of Joseph Howe, is one authority for this other version – that Joseph Howe was a brother of Lord Howe. The story from that note is that while quite a youth he ran away from England to join his brother, Lord George Augustus Howe, 3rd Viscount, who at that time was one of the English officers fighting in the French and Indian War. He arrived in America about the time that Lord Howe was killed at the Battle of Ticonderoga, and finding his brother dead, he drifted southward and finally settled at what came to be known as "Sunnyside," in Pulaski County, Virginia.
Lord Howe, who was killed at Ticonderoga, was a brother of William Howe, who succeeded to the title, and who at one time commanded the British armies in the War of the American Revolution, and of Admiral Richard Howe, 4th Viscount-Earl, who in the same war commanded the British naval forces. Concerning them, the following is from the Encyclopedia Brittannica:
"Howe, 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 t