CAPT. HORACE ZERAH HOWARD
Capt. Horace Zerah Howard, president of the
Board of Pilot Commissioners at San Francisco, is a veteran mariner, and has
been sailing a ship on the Pacific Ocean and prominently identified with
maritime affairs on the Pacific Coast for more than half a century.
Captain Howard was born April 1, 1835, at
New London, Connecticut. His great grandfather, Daniel Howard, was a soldier in
the Revolutionary war, of English descent. His mother, Adeline (Tinker) Howard,
was of English descent. He acquired a public school education there, and as a
youth took to the sea and served as an ensign in the United States Navy from
1864 to 1867, being under the command of Admiral Farragut. In 1867 he came to
San Francisco as a junior officer of the Great Republic, one of the three
steamships of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company engaged in the trade between
San Francisco and China, and for three years he commanded this vessel on its
voyages to China, Japan and Alaska, and altogether remained in the service of
the Pacific Mail for twelve years. In 1881 he transferred his services to the
Oceanic Company and in 1882, for this company, brought out from Philadelphia
the Maraposa, which was put on the run between San Francisco and the Hawaiian Islands.
In 1884 Captain Howard began commanding a vessel on the bay for the California
Sugar Refinery. In 1890 he was made superintendent of the Oceanic Company and
in 1898, during the Spanish-American war, was superintendent of all the army
transports from San Francisco. On resigning from the Oceanic Company, Captain
Howard was appointed pilot commissioner by Governor Pardee, and since 1900 has
been president of the Board of Pilot Commissioners. Captain Howard is known to
and has known all the prominent men in the shipping industry of the Pacific
Coast since the time of the Civil war. Captain Howard is a Royal Arch and
Knight Templar Mason, a member of the Loyal Legion of the United States, the
Grand Army of the Republic and in politics is a republican.
On March 17, 1864, he married Miss Emma
Leonora Pember, a native of New London, Connecticut. They celebrated their
golden wedding anniversary over four years before her death on October 25,
1918. Captain Howard became the father of four children: Horace Pember, with
the Western Sugar Refining Company, who married Katherine M. Taylor; Emma
Grimes, who is a graduate of the San Jose State Normal School, is now principal
of the Madison School in San Francisco and is a member of the Daughters of the
American Revolution; Zerah Yates, buyer for Hawaiian plantations, a resident of
San Francisco, who married Florence Carthew, and Miss Mabel Consuelo, a music
teacher of San Francisco.
Louise E. Shoemaker, Transcriber April 7, 2004