Martin Howard ( – November 1781) was a colonial official who served as the 14th and last British chief justice of North Carolina from 1767 to 1776, and in exile until his death in 1781.
Early life Howard was born about 1725 to Martin Howard Sr. Although raised a Anabaptist, he became a regular attendant at the Anglican Trinity Church at Newport, Rhode Island.
Career A lawyer, politician, physiocrat and skeptical philosopher, Howard served as a delegate from Rhode Island to the Albany Congress. Elected to the Assembly in 1756, he served on the committee that revised the colony's laws in 1760. In 1765, Howard was appointed by the Crown, jointly with Dr. Moffatt and Augustus Johnson, stamp masters for Rhode Island. He was the only prominent American to publicly support the Stamp Act of 1765, in his pamphlet "A Letter from a Gentleman at Halifax to His Friend in Rhode Island," (1765) in which he asserted that Parliament had the power to impose taxes on the colonies. They came under attack and their houses were burned. Tax protesters carried his effigy through the streets, hoisting it 15 feet high with a noose around the neck.Gary B. Nash, The Unknown American Revolution (2006) p 50, 107 Howard fled to England and was rewarded by the Crown with an appointment as Chief Justice of North Carolina at a salary of £600. A Loyalist, Howard returned to England when the American Revolution broke out.
References
Further reading
Bailyn, Bernard, ed., Pamphlets of the American Revolution, 1750-1776, vol. 1 (1965) for the text of Howard's pamphlet Jensen, Merrill, ed. Tracts of the American Revolution, 1763-1776 (2003) p 63, for another copy Higginbotham, Don, and William S. Price Jr., eds., "Was It Murder for a White Man to Kill a Slave? Chief Justice Martin Howard Condemns the Peculiar Institution in North Carolina," William and Mary Quarterly 36 (Oct. 1979). Yancey, Noel. "Howard, Martin" in American National Biography Online 2000. Access Date: Wed Sep 14 2018