terwards became his son-in-law, but soon moved to land adjoining and built his residence "Sunnyside" where he spent the remainder of his days. At the time of his settlement at "Sunnyside" there were but few white people living in that part of the country, and as late as 1755 only three or four families are reported as living south of New River, until the settlements on the Holstien were reached.
The old homestead is now in the possession of Mrs. Agnes Howe De Jarnette
, great granddaughter of its first owner, and wife of Captain Eugene De Jarnette
. The old house still retains its main features of construction, but some additions have been made by its present occupants. The door and window sills are of poplar, and so carefully joined together and fastened with wooded pins, and so well preserved, that great difficulty was experienced in making recent alterations for the purpose of putting in windows of modern construction. The woodwork is held together by wooden pins and wrought iron nails in use at the time the house was built, and then sold in that part of the country by number. The place which Joseph How first purchased of John Daye, is now in possession of, and owned by J. Hoge Tyler, a great grandson, late Lieut. Governor of the State.
Nothing is now known of the general appearance of Joseph How, save that he was a man of robust physique, and well suited for a pioneer life on the frontiers. The family traditions are sufficiently definite to warrant the statement that his English home was one of wealth and refinement, after the type of that of the English gentlemen of that period, and that he left home at an early period, and under circumstances which would be apt to prevent frequent communication with his relatives at home, while the prominence of his relatives on the British side in the Revolution would tend still further to this result. He lived to be quite and old man, and was buried with his wife, in the cemetery on the old homestead.
Daniel Wait Howe – 1929
"...as to the lineage if not as to the exact relationship."
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:
"H