armer and miller, and, as was the custom at that
time in the country towns of New England, carried on in his family some
of those minor branches of industry suited to the capacity of children,
with which New England abounds. When Elias was six years old, he was
set, with his brothers and sisters, to sticking wire teeth through the
leather straps used for making cotton cards. When he became old enough
he assisted his father in his saw-mill and grist-mill, and during the
winter months picked up a meager education at the district school. He
has said that it was the rude and imperfect mills of his father that
first turned his attention to machinery. He was not fitted for hard
work, however, as he was frail in constitution and incapable of bearing
much fatigue. Moreover, he inherited a species of lameness which proved
a great obstacle to any undertaking on his part, and gave him no little
trouble all through life. At the age of eleven he went to live out on
the farm of a neighbor, but the labor proving too severe for him, he
returned home and resumed his place in his father's mills, where he
remained until he was sixteen years old.

When at this age, he conceived an ardent desire to go to Lowell to seek
his fortune. One of his friends had just returned from that place, and
had given him such a wonderful description of the city and its huge
mills, that he was eager to go there and see the marvel for himself.
Obtaining his father's consent, he went to Lowell, and found employment
as a learner in one of the large cotton-mills of the city. He remained
there two years, when the great financial disaster of 1837 threw him out
of employment and compelled him to look for work elsewhere. He obtained
a place at Cambridge, in a machine-shop, and was put to work upon the
new hemp-carding machinery of Professor Treadwell. His cousin, Nathaniel
P. Banks, afterward governor of Massachusetts, member of Congress, and
major-general, worked in the same shop with him, and boarded at the same
house. Howe remained in Cambridge only a few months, however, and was
then given a place in the machine-shop of Ari Davis, of Boston.

At the age of twenty-one he married. This was a rash step for him, as
his health was very delicate, and his earnings were but nine dollars per
week. Three children were born to him in quick succession, and he found
it no easy task to provide food, shelter, and clothing for his little
family. The light-heartedness for which he