In 1867, when the extension of his patent expired,
it is stated that he had earned a total of two millions of dollars by
it. It cost him large sums to defend his rights, however, and he was
very far from being as wealthy as was commonly supposed, although a very
rich man.
In the Paris Exposition of 1867, he exhibited his machines, and received
the gold medal of the Exposition, and the Cross of the Legion of Honor,
in addition, as a compliment to him as a manufacturer and inventor.
He contributed money liberally to the aid of the Union in the late war,
and enlisted as a private soldier in the Seventeenth Regiment of
Connecticut Volunteers, with which command he went to the field,
performing all the duties of his position until failing health compelled
him to leave the service. Upon one occasion the Government was so much
embarrassed that it could not pay the regiment of which he was a member.
Mr. Howe promptly advanced the money, and his comrades were saved from
the annoyances which would have attended the delay in paying them. He
died at Brooklyn, Long Island, on the 3d of October, 1867.
Mr. Howe will always rank among the most distinguished of American
inventors; not only because of the unusual degree of completeness shown
in his first conception of the sewing-machine, but because of the great
benefits which have sprung from it.
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