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.
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