His father Russell Marshall Howard was a farmer and one of the first settlers of Eckford, and was one of the original old line whigs and a founding member of Michigan's Republican party.

He passed the Bar exam in 1882 and then moved with his family to Redfield, in the Dakota territory where he was active in Republican party politics.

When the twenty-third president lost his 1892 bid for re-election, Howard ran for a seat in the state legislature in 1894 representing Spink County, and was elected Speaker of the House by his Republican colleagues.

[2] Howard was installed as Grand Chancellor for the Knights of Pythias order in Aberdeen, South Dakota, in 1894.

[4] His son-in-law was the highly decorated Naval officer Vice Admiral Roy Alexander Gano, a native of Pipestone, Minnesota, who married his daughter Harriet.