Howard Point Marker

Howard Point marker, located on East Bay Drive, near Glass Avenue. Photo courtesy of Olympia Public Works.

Olympia Arts & Heritage Alliance recently installed a marker to commemorate Alexander and Rebecca Howard. The marker honors the Howard Family and Howard Point, a geographical feature along East Bay Drive that is visible from the marker. The interpretative panel located on East Bay Drive near Glass Avenue, funded by a Thurston County Heritage Grant, is a project of the Olympia Arts + Heritage Alliance in partnership with the City of Olympia.

Olympia Arts & Heritage, in conjunction with the Olympia Historical Society & Bigelow House Museum, held an unveiling event for the Howard Point Marker.

Black pioneers Alexander and Rebecca (Groundage) Howard arrived in Olympia in the 1850s, just a few years after the town’s founding. Shortly after their arrival they took over management of the Pacific House Hotel (and later Restaurant), at what is now Capitol Way and State Avenue. Under Rebecca’s leadership, the Pacific House achieved acclaim as a fine, well-run establishment comparable with restaurants and hotels in San Francisco. In 1880 President Rutherford Hayes visited the Pacific House during a tour of the region.

Pacific House, WSHS C2015.0.88.

 Pacific Coast Business Directory, 1867.

Rebecca Howard’s reputation as a successful, no-nonsense businesswoman commanded respect and empowered her to challenge anyone, even legislators, who dared call her “Aunt Becky” without her permission. Rebecca Howard supported the construction of the first railroad to reach Olympia and during the Civil War contributed to the Sanitary Commission, a charity supporting Northern soldiers.

As their business blossomed, the Howards purchased the northern half of the Calvin and Waitstill Hale donation land claim on the east shore of Budd Inlet in the 1860s and established a home and farm. Afterwards this point of land became known as “Howard Point.” According to the 1880 U.S. Agricultural Census, the Howard’s farm included 1200 fruit trees. The Howards regularly exhibited produce from their farm at local fairs.

The Howards raised an adopted son they named Frank, the son of Native American Julia Kanim and settler Thomas Glasgow.

. . .they took in a child . . .named Isaac Ingalls Stevens Glasgow after the first Washington Territorial Governor Isaac Stevens. Thomas Glasgow, a Pennsylvania farmer with a bad criminal record, was believed to be abusing his part Native American son who was born on June 25, 1857, in Olympia. When Isaac was almost five years old, Rebecca Howard signed an indenture with his father, taking the son as her ward on these conditions: 1. Raise him for sixteen years or until Isaac turned twenty-one; 2. Provide food and clothing; 3. Give him “equal opportunity.” The Howards did all this, and by 1877 they had adopted the boy and renamed him Frank Alexander Howard. (Crooks, 2009, 39.)

In later years, Frank Howard became a businessman in his own right with interests in Olympia, Seattle and on the east coast. He married Lillian Howard (no relation) in the early 1880s.

Rebecca and Alexander Howard continued to invest in real estate and eventually retired to their farm at Howard Point. Rebecca passed away in 1881; Alexander in 1890. Afterwards the land was sold. W.E. Sebree of San Francisco purchased the western 80 acres and platted Sebrees Addition in early 1890s as a subdivision of Olympia.

Over time the place name “Howard Point” fell out of common use.  A  committee of historians researching Olympia’s early Black pioneers rediscovered the name and its connection to the Howard family and petitioned the United States Board on Geographic Names to formally recognize Howard Point as an official place name.  The Board approved the name in 2019.  Howard Point is one of very few places in Washington named in honor of early Black pioneers.

For more information: 
https://www.blackpast.org/africanamerican-history/howard-rebecca-groundage-1827-1881/
Jennifer Crooks, “Rebecca Howard: An African American Businesswoman in Early Olympia,” Thurston Talk:  
https://www.thurstontalk.com/2015/01/15/olympia-history/
Jennifer Crooks, “Rebecca Howard: A Determined 19th Century Businesswoman,” in Drew Crooks, ed. Olympia Washington: A People’s History, Olympia: City of Olympia, 2009.