leader of men.  He operated his farm with efficiency and precision, doing his own

blacksmith work (not for the public), and specialized in fruit culture.  He had the

best fruit orchard I ever saw, plums, peaches, grapes, and all sorts of native and

exotic fruits.  He kept a "cooler" of grape wine on his back porch for the use of

the family and visitors at will.  He raised chickens and let them run at large.  I

remember he went into the back yard when he wanted chicken for dinner, and

shot one with his muzzle loading musket.  While I visited him, my father would

pass on the Southern Railway going to Columbia (he was then Senator from Colleton

County), and would throw bags of bananas, and so forth, out of the train window

for us.  This was a great delight to us.

        Grandfather operated a water mill about a mile in front of his home.  The

mill pond is still there, known as Howell's Old Mill.  All his boys learned to fish

and to swim there, and they were great experts in both arts.  Uncle David was

famed as a swimmer and as a fisherman, as was my father.  Uncle Dave was the

only man extant who could swim straight across the swift current of the Edisto

River.  And when he could not catch a mess of fish they couldn't be caught.  He

was the fighter of the family.  Few men were willing or able to stand up against

his fistic skill.

        Grandfather was a very positive, vehement and often argumentative man.

He was of deeply religious tendency, though not much of a church man.  He held

family prayer at daylight every morning, and woe unto the boy who slept too late

or was figety at prayers.  He studied his Bible and knew it well.  But he had

little patience with superficial rules of church, or with men who could quote

scripture, but who always acted to the contrary.  He was rather intolerant.  He 

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Madison Peyton Howell, Jr. Electronic Book
Colleton County SCGenWeb