Mr Gowing's love of the sea and sailing is very deeply embedded in his ancestry. He is a direct descendant of John Howland, who was the thirteen signer of the Mayflower Compact in Plymouth Harbor on December 21, 1620. John Howland boarded the Mayflower in England in September 1620, arrived in Provincetown Harbor, November 21, 1620. He narrowly escaped death by drowning when he fell overboard in a storm off Provincetown, saving himself by grabbing hold of a errant halyard and being rescued by his shipmates.

     John Howland passed away at the age of eighty-one in Plymouth, Massachusetts.

     After arriving on the Mayflower, the Howlands became the leading family of American whaling. Dozens of Captain Howlands sailed Howland whalers all over the world. Howland ships were roaming the Pacific Ocean at a time when many islands remained uncharted. Such islands could turn into critical sources of food and water, and low-lying coral reefs were deadly nighttime hazards. The Howlands charted such islands and reefs, and it was inevitable they would name an island for themselves. If the Howlands had been more patient, they might have found a more idyllic island than the one they eventually claimed. Located just off the equator, Howland Island was a coral reef no higher than twenty feet, well loaded with sand, and because of its isolation, it was loaded with tens of thousands of seabirds, and thus also with some thirty thousand tons of guano. Thinking of guano mining, the British would later claim Howland Island, but due to its isolation there was no immediate reason for Britain and the U.S. to squabble over it. Sometime in the 1830s a Scandinavian ship must have wrecked on Howland Island, for when a Howland ship came through in 1841, it found the island infested with Scandinavian rats. The grim warfare between the birds and the rats only added to what one Howland called the "lonely and forlorn" feel of Howland Island. It was the very loneliness of Howland Island that made it essential to Amelia Earhart. Within a thousand mile span, Howland Island was the most substantial piece of land. The usefulness of Howland Island was brought to Amelia's attention by her secret admirer, Gene Vidal, the federal Director of Air Commerce. Amelia had become good friends with the other feminist hero of the age, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, and Amelia now appealed to the Roosevelts to help her develop a runway on Howland Island. Officially, the runway on Howland Island would be developed as an emergency airstrip to encourage commercial aviation in the Pacific, but Earhart biographers have little doubt it was one of many personal favors that the Roosevelts did for Amelia. President Franklin Roosevelt was the first Howland descendant to become President. It is now generally thought that Howland Island is where Earhart crashed her plane. Howland Island was named after a lookout of that name who sighted it from the whaleship Isabella of New Bedford on September 9th. in 1842.

     Above is a photo of myself perched on the bowsprit of the whaler Charles W. Morgan in 1952 at the Mystic Seaport in Connecticut. The Morgan was the last whaling ship to voyage from the port of New Bedford, signifying the end of an era in U.S. history. The 4th. mate on this voyage was James S. Howland of Rochester, Massachusetts.