Dr. Herbert Marshall Howe (1844-1916)

M.D., of Philadelphia & Bristol, Rhode Island; President of the Aldrich Pump Co., etc.

He was a son of the 1st Episcopal Bishop of Central Pennsylvania and a half-brother of the Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Mark Antony DeWolfe Howe. They were descended from one of the most notorious slave traders in America, Mark Anthony DeWolf, of Bristol, Rhode Island. Herbert graduated in medicine from the University of Pennsylvania but practiced as a physician for just five years. Turning to business, he worked for Harrison, Havemeyer & Co., Sugar Refiners, and then through his father-in-law, J. Gillingham Fell, he became a member of Pardee & Co., coal miners and shippers. In his later years he was best known as President of the Aldrich Pump Company and principal owner of the Allentown Rolling Mills. He lived between 1622 Locust St., Philadelphia, and Ferry Cliffe Farm at Bristol, R.I., where he raised Jersey cattle.

He was a patron of grand opera and a trustee of both the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and the Drexel Institute. He was a Member of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania; the Society of Colonial Wars; Union League; Rittenhouse; Philadelphia Country; and, the New York Yacht Club. He was also an artist and his self-portrait hangs in the Penn University Library. He and his wife, Mary, had six children of whom four survived them.
Contributed by Mark Meredith on 27/12/2023 and last updated on 28/12/2023.