Timothy Edward Howard: the historian who was also a justice

1837 – 1916

Timothy Edward Howard (1837–1916): the man whose two-volume History of St. Joseph County, IndianaThe judicial sweep found him where the Indiana Supreme Court keeps its own: in the court's official biographical sketches. Howard was born on 27 January 1837 in Northfield, Michigan, attended the University of Michigan in 1855–57, and came to Notre Dame, taking the A.B. in 1862 and the A.M. in 1864 (the honorary LL.D. followed in 1893). He interrupted school for the war: he enlisted in the 12th Michigan Infantry on 5 February 1862, was severely wounded at Shiloh, and was discharged for disability. He then spent the rest of his working life in South Bend and on Notre Dame's faculty, where he taught, with interruptions for public service, from 1862 to 1914.

The public record: admitted to the Indiana bar in 1883 — both the court's sketch and Monks's Courts and Lawyers of Indiana agree on the year — Howard had already served as clerk of the St. Joseph Circuit Court, 1879 to 1883, and sat on the South Bend City Council for several terms between 1878 and 1913, the standard biography fixing his first council service at 1878–83, from the fourth ward. He was South Bend's city attorney in 1888–1891 by the court's sketch. He sat in the Indiana Senate — 1887 to 1891 in the court's official sketch; the standard biography has him elected in 1886, twice returned, and resigning in the spring of 1892 — and on 2 January 1893 he took his seat as the forty-third justice of the Indiana Supreme Court, serving to 2 January 1899 and three times chosen chief justice. In retirement he presided over the Northern Indiana Historical Society and wrote the county's history: the 1907 volumes whose township histories, biographies, and institutional records this whole build cites as a first resort, and a 1900 sketch of the Indiana Supreme Court itself. He also led the effort for the riverbank park that bears his name — Howard Park, whose founding record stands in the Parks record. He died in South Bend on 9 July 1916 and is buried in Cedar Grove Cemetery. His entry closes the strangest gap in the rosters: the most-cited author in this history was, all along, one of its people.

Sources:

1. Indiana Supreme Court, biographical sketches of the justices (Browning, Humphrey & Kleinschmidt), at in.gov — the Michigan birth, the Notre Dame degrees, the Shiloh wound and discharge, the faculty span, the 1883 admission, the clerkship and council service, the city attorneyship, the Senate span, the forty-third justice's term and chief-justice service, the 1907 history, the 1916 death.
2. Leander J. Monks, Courts and Lawyers of Indiana, vol. III (1916) — the 1883 bar admission, corroborating the court's sketch.
3. Timothy E. Howard, A History of St. Joseph County, Indiana (Lewis Publishing Company, 1907) — the work itself, as cited throughout this history.
4. Parks record of this history (banked) — Howard Park and his part in the riverbank park effort.