WEBSTER COUNTY WEST VIRGINIA 
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Submitted to the West Virginia Biographies Project by:
Valerie & Tommy Crook 
vfcrook@trellis.net
March 18, 2000
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The History of West Virginia, Old and New
Published 1923, The American Historical Society, Inc.,
Chicago and New York, Volume III,
pg. 344

CLARENCE D. HOWARD, of Cowen, Webster County, has
been identified with the lumber business since his early
youth, he and his brother, C. T. Howard, being owners of
the Smoot Lumber Company, with main office at Cowen.
The mills are located at Arcola, this county. He is also a
director of the First National Bank of Cowen, and is one
of the progressive and substantial business men and repre-
sentative citizens of the county.

Mr. Howard was born in Preston County, West Virginia,
September 12, 1865, and is a son of Thomas D. and Mary
S. (Holt) Howard, both likewise natives of Preston County,
where the respective families were founded iu the pioneer
days. Thomas D. Howard was educated in the common
schools at Independence, Preston County, and at the time
of the Civil war he showed his loyalty to the Union cause
by enlisting in Company I, Sixth West Virginia Volunteer
Infantry, with which he served until the close of the war.
After the war he engaged in lumbering operations near
Newburg, Preston County, and with this important line of
industrial enterprise he continued his association until his
death, when his two sons succeeded him, both being still
actively identified with the lumber business at the present
time. Mr. Howard's lumbering operations included de-
velopment work in the vicinity of Grafton, Taylor County,
and while a resident of that city he served as its mayor.
He was an ardent advocate and supporter of the principles
of the republican party and wag affiliated with the Grand
Army of the Republic. Of the three children Clarence D.,
of this review, is the eldest; Charles T. likewise is engaged
in the lumber business; and Nellie is the wife of J. B.
Hess, of Cowen.

Clarence D. Howard gained his earlier education in the
schools of Taylor County, and for one year was a student in
Simpson College at Indianola, Iowa. He became actively
associated with the lumber business when he was nineteen
years of age, and his career in this line of enterprise has
been one of continuous success to the present time.

He and his wife are zealous members of the Methodist
Episcopal Church, at Cowen, and he is serving on its official
board. He is affiliated with Glade Lodge No. 205, Knights
of Pythias, at Cowen, and is one of the leaders in the coun-
cils and campaign activities of the republican party in
Webster County. He was an alternate delegate to the Re-
publican National Convention at Chicago when Hon. Charles
E. Hughes, the present national secretary of state, was
nominated for the presidency.

August 12, 1896, recorded the marriage of Mr. Howard
and Miss Audree Ford, of Taylor County, she being a gradu-
ate of the West Virginia Wesleyan College at Buckhannon,
of which school Mr. Howard has been a trustee for a
number of years. Mr. and Mrs. Howard became the parents
of five children: Edna, who since her graduation at the
West Virginia Wesleyan College, her mother's alma mater,
has been a teacher in the Cowen High School; Agnes died
at the age of seventeen years; Helen is, in 1922, a student
in Wesleyan College; Harry F. is attending the Staunton
Military Academy at Staunton, Virginia, and Elsie is at-
tending the public schools of Cowen.