Eber Dudley Howe, son of Samuel William Howe and Mabel Dudley, was born on June 9, 1798 in Clifton Park, Saratoga County, New York near the old battleground where General John Burgoyne surrendered a large British force to General Gates in 1777. Eber was the fifth of six children—three boys and three girls.[1] He wrote of his parents—
My parents were of the genuine Yankee stock—my father being a native of Long Meadow and my mother of Middletown, in Connecticut. My father, having received a common school education, entered the College of Dartmouth at the age of 19, where he [studied medicine]. . . . [He] followed the profession for over forty years, and died in 1838, at the age of 78 years. My mother died in 1862, aged 87.[2]
In 1804, Eber moved with his family to Ovid, New York, a distance of 44 miles from Palmyra. Eber lived near the waters of Seneca Lake, which he described as “the most beautiful sheet of water, I think, in America.” Eber wrote that the “beach of this lake was a favorite resort for the boys, and girls, too, for the purpose of fishing, bathing, and boating in the summer season. Here I learned to paddle my own canoe.”[3]
Of wanting to be in the print business, Eber said,
I remember well the first newspaper I ever saw . . . It was called the Geneva Expositor. In those days they were carried through the country on horse-back, and the man was called a “post rider.” He came along once a week and blew a horn at every house where they “took the papers.” When that horn was sounded some or all the children were seen upon the run to get the paper first. This was in the time when Napoleon was fighting his great battles and rending the nations asunder all over Europe. Being only seven or eight years old at this time I well recollect with what avidity the family circle would gather round to hear my father read the wonderful doings of that great human butcher.[4]
In 1811 at age thirteen, Eber moved with his father to Canada, eight miles west of Niagara. “The first sound of that mighty waterfall, heard at the distance of nearly twenty miles in a still, frosty morning, is most vivid in my recollection,” Eber recalled. “The spray and mist ascending several hundred feet, congealing and forming such a beautiful cloud in the atmosphere above, all conspired to strike the beholder, at the first view, with awe and amazement not easily defined.”[5]
Remembering his days in Canada, Eber said, “Occasionally some of the old relics of monarchy would exhibit themselves; for instance, it was a high crime to damn the king and the royal family, which was usually punished by banishment to the United States, with the promise of being hung if they returned.”[6]
When the War of 1812 broke out between the British and the Americans, rather than fight for the British, Eber joined the New York Volunteer’s Militia Regiment at Batavia, New York. He served as a cook for regiment officers. He also assisted his father, who was the surgeon at a British prisoner’s hospital at Buffalo.[7]
At the close of the war, with only two shillings in his pocket, Eber accepted an apprenticeship with the Buffalo Gazette. He learned in his apprenticeship what was needed to print a newspaper. From 1817 to 1818, Eber assisted in printing the Chautauqua Gazette at Fredonia, New York. The editor of the publication was James Hull, the brother of his future wife. It was while in Fredonia that Eber developed a keen interest in spiritualism, a belief he professed all his days. After leaving this employ and returning briefly to Buffalo, Eber set out for Erie, Pennsylvania, where he learned to set type by working at the Erie Gazette.[8]
By August 1818, Eber possessed only a horse, a valise, and $25 in cash.[9] With prospects dim for future prosperity, Eber moved to Cleveland, Ohio on April 4, 1819, at age twenty. At that time, Cleveland had three to four hundred residents, three hotels, and a few stores. Eber got a job working at the Cleveland Herald, where he worked from June 1819 to 1821. At first, he delivered the paper once a week to subscribers on horseback. Eventually, he was named head of the Cleveland Herald. Under his leadership, the first issue of that newspaper was published on October 19, 1819. Eber asked that $2 be paid each year for a subscription. When the first issue appeared, there were no subscribers. Within a few weeks, the Herald had 300 subscribers.[10]
In 1822, Eber moved to the village of Painesville, 30 miles east of Cleveland along the shore of Lake Erie. Painesville was on the main stage road between Buffalo and Detroit. While living in the pastoral town, Eber became successful in business and agriculture. He began publishing the Painesville Telegraph on July 16, 1822 which he published for fourteen years. As the printer lifted the first sheet off the type in the dingy shop on Main Street, he turned to Eber and said, “Well, Eber, I guess we’ve started.” At the time, the paper had five paid subscribers and two advertisements. Immediately, 150 subscribers signed up at $2.50 for a one-year subscription.
In printing the Painesville Telegraph, Eber oversaw the day-to-day operation of the presses. He saw that news of the day was reported as well as his personal concerns on a variety of subjects—anti-Masonry, anti-Andrew Jackson, anti-slavery, and anti-Mormonism.
In June 1823, after a six year courtship, Eber married Sophia Hull (1800–1866) of Clarence, Ohio. The young couple resided at 215 Mentor Avenue in Painesville.[11] To their union were born six children, two living to adulthood.
On January 30, 1835, Eber turned over the printing of the Painesville Telegraph to his younger brother Asahel Howe for $600. Eber wrote, “In January, 1835, my connection with the TELEGRAPH ceased, and the paper went into the hands of a younger brother, Asahel Howe, and was for the next year very ably edited by Doctor M. G. Lewis.”[12]
Appearing in the Buffalo Patriot and Commercial Advertiser [Buffalo, NY] on February 3, 1835 was Eber’s valedictory comments about being the editor of the Telegraph:
It is now nearly fourteen years since we commenced the publication of the Telegraph. Since then, our village and country has increased in wealth and population, more than 159 per cent, and the whole country bordering upon the shores of our beautiful Lake, from comparatively a wilderness, has progressed in improvement of every kind, in an unparalleled degree, and promises, at no very remote period, to become the garden of the world.
Eber retained some financial interest in the Telegraph until 1839, when the paper was sold to Lewis L. Rice and Philander Winchester.[13] Rice eventually sold his interest in the Telegraph and moved to Honolulu. In 1884, Rice discovered that he had in his possession the Spalding Manuscript (175 pages). Rice made a copy of the Spalding manuscript with grammar erasing marks, etc. The manuscript is now housed in the Oberlin College library.
As for the Painesville Telegraph, it continued to be published in the same location until 1986.
Interest in all things Mormon
Eber’s interest in Mormonism began in September 1829, when he re-printed the article “Golden Bible,” from the Palmyra Freeman (Jonathan Hadley, editor). Eber then corresponded with Abner Cole of the Palmyra Reflector. On January 11, 1831, Eber wrote to William W. Phelps, a newspaper publisher in Canandaigua, New York, requesting information about Mormonism.[14] Phelps replied by penning, “We have nothing by which we can positively detect it as an imposition, [but] if it is false, it will fail, and if of God, God will sustain it.”
When Doctor Hurlbut returned to Ohio in December 1834 from the east, Eber wrote, “Hurlbut returned to Ohio and lectured on the Origin of Mormonism and the Book of Mormon. I heard him lecture in Painesille.”[15] Meanwhile Eber’s wife, mother-in-law, and sister-in-law—Sophia Hull Howe, Polly Gillett, and Harriett Hull—converted to Mormonism.
In January 1834, Doctor Hurlbut left affidavits collected in Palmyra/Manchester, New York with Eber as well as the Spalding Manuscript “with the understanding that when he had examined [the manuscript], he should return it to the widow” of Solomon Spalding. Eber claimed the manuscript was destroyed by fire, but it was not. The claim of burning the manuscript sounds all too familiar. Did Hurlbut leave other manuscripts with Eber?
Eber spent the next ten months preparing the publication Mormonism Unvailed, which is a smorgasbord of published and unpublished works on Mormonism. During those months, he wrote to Isaac Hale and Charles Anthon and included their letters in his work. What is most damning to the character of Eber is that he again and again referred to the Book of Mormon as a copy of Solomon Spalding’s work in Mormonism Unvailed, yet he had the Spalding Manuscript in his possession. If we are looking for fake news, Eber showed his true colors in Mormonism Unvailed.
Why did Eber keep the Solomon Spalding Manuscript and claim that it was burned? There is no question that if found, the manuscript would disprove Eber’s claims in Mormonism Unvailed. Judging at the size of the Spalding manuscript (175 pages) and the Book of Lehi (116 pages) in comparison with Mormonism Unvailed (290 pages), did Howe have plans for an additional publication? Did he have more than one manuscript to hide?
After Mormonism Unvailed
In 1838, Eber and his family moved six miles south of Painesville to Concord, Ohio. In that small rural community, Eber joined in partnership with his son-in-law, Franklin Rogers, in a woolen manufacturing business. The three story “Howe and Rogers Mill” in Concord was successful, as was their Woolen Manufactures and Merchandizing Company. However, the work was not to Eber’s liking. By 1860, he had moved his family back to Painesville, where he worked as a farmer and accumulated in real wealth $1,000 and in personal wealth $200. At the time, Painesville had become a primary thoroughfare of the “Underground Railroad,” the famous route through Northeast Ohio to Canada for escaping slaves. Eber and Sophia Howe contributed to the successful flight of escaped slaves.
Eber’s wife Sophia died of stomach cancer in 1866 and was buried in the Evergreen Cemetery in Painesville. After the death of his wife, Eber became an ever more outspoken and avid believer in spiritualism. He explained,
Up to the age of 40 years, like a large share of the human family, I was governed in my opinions on that subject by education, and all the surrounding influences under which it was my fortune to be placed. I found it much easier to concur in the opinions of others, and slide along in the wake of those who were educated, employed, and paid to officiate in that identical capacity. At that time, in view of many occurrences which I will not stop to relate, I resolved to investigate the whole question of the hereafter, if any. The result was, in the fewest words possible, I became a skeptic. Thus, up to the advent of modern Spiritualism, which came in its own time and its own way. In this I believed, and still believe, and why? Simply because I could not help it, without ignoring and casting far from me every vestige of common sense and my reasoning faculties, which I verily believe many are doing at the present day.[16]
Eber was frequently asked, “What good has Spiritualism done?” He enjoyed answering, “It has robbed death of its terrors; furnished positive evidence of immortality; put out the fires of hell; and made every man and woman their own saviour.” As to his beliefs about Spiritualism, Eber wrote his creed:
1. I believe in one absolutely perfect God—both father and mother. 2. I believe that man, physically, was evolved from the animal kingdom. 3. I believe that man, spiritually, is a part of the spirit of God. 4. I believe that every person is rewarded for goodness and punished for evilness, both in this world and in the next. 5. I believe in the universal triumph of truth, justice and love. 6. I believe in the immortality of every human mind, in a sensible communion between the peoples of earth and their relatives in the summer land. 7. I believe in the principles of eternal progression and development. 8. I do not believe in the orthodox scheme of salvation or damnation—that is, I do not believe in “original sin,” “atonement,” “faith,” and “regeneration.” 9. I do not believe in the identity of modern Spiritualism and primitive Christianity. 10. 1 do not believe in the identity of modern Spiritualism and ancient Magic. 11. I do not believe in free love. 12. I do not believe in reincarnation, or that any foreign spirit can displace the mind of any living man. 13. I do not promise to believe to-morrow exactly what I believe to-day, and I do not believe to-day exactly what I believed yesterday; for I expect to make, as I have made, some honest progress within twenty four hours.
In 1870 at age seventy-two, Eber was living with his son, Orville Howe in Warren, Illinois as a “retired editor.” He had a personal wealth of $500 and a real estate valued at $2,000. A decade later, in 1880 Eber was living with his daughter and son-in-law Franklin and Minerva Rogers in Painesville as a “retired printer.[17]
As he neared the end of his life, at age eighty-five Eber penned, Autobiography and Recollections of a Pioneer Printer together with the War Sketches of 1812 on the Niagara Frontier. Eber died at nine p.m. on November 13, 1885 in the home of his daughter, Minerva Rogers, at age eighty-five. He was buried next to his wife Sophia Howe in the Evergreen Cemetery in Painesville.
In 1984, Eber was inducted into the Press Club of the Cleveland Hall of Fame because of his historical documentation and journalism.[18]
[1] Cynthia Turk, “History Hall of Lake County, Ohio Fairgrounds, a Biographical Anthology” (Lake County Genealogical Society, 2014).
[2] E. B. Howe, Autobiography and Recollections of a Pioneer Printer together with the War Sketches of 1812 on the Niagara Frontier.
[3] Howe, Autobiography and Recollections of a Pioneer Printer.
[4] Howe, Autobiography and Recollections of a Pioneer Printer.
[5] Howe, Autobiography and Recollections of a Pioneer Printer.
[6] Howe, Autobiography and Recollections of a Pioneer Printer.
[7] Turk, “History Hall of Lake County, Ohio Fairgrounds, a Biographical Anthology.”
[8] Turk, “History Hall of Lake County, Ohio Fairgrounds, a Biographical Anthology.”
[9] “Death of Eber D. Howe,” Plain Dealer Special, 1885.
[10] S. J. Kelly, “The Founding of the Cleveland Herald,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, May 17, 1839.
[11] Kelly, “The Founding of the Cleveland Herald,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, May 17, 1839.
[12] Howe, Autobiography and Recollections of a Pioneer Printer.
[13] Howe, Autobiography and Recollections of a Pioneer Printer.
[14] Vogel, Early Mormon Documents, 3:7.
[15] Howe Affidavit, April 8, 1885.
[16] Howe Affidavit, April 8, 1885.
[17] US Federal Census, 1860–1880.
[18] Turk, “History Hall of Lake County, Ohio Fairgrounds, A Biographical Anthology.”