He was an officer in the United States Army, and was appointed by fourth President James Madison as the first Governor of the newly reorganized Missouri Territory (1812-1821), with its new capital city in nearby St. Louis, bustling driver port city on the Mississippi River and near the confluence with the Ohio River flowing from the northeast and the closer Missouri River streaming rom the northwest.

Governor Howard oversaw the new federal territory when it was separated from the previous larger Louisiana Territory of 1804-1812, which encompassed the huge uncharted recent Louisiana Purchase of 1803, west of the Mississippi towards the distant Rocky Mountains, when sold to the United States by the Emperor Napoleon I / Napoleon Bonaparte of France (the First French Empire) for a paltry $15 million dollars.

The subsequent Missouri Territory was formed nine years later since the land bargain, and the previous short-lived Louisiana Territory's southern portion along the lower Mississippi River and with the former territorial capital at the major prosperous river port city of New Orleans near the Gulf of Mexico coast, was approved by the United States Congress and President Madison to be separated and formed to be admitted to the federal Union as the new 18th State of Louisiana in 1812.

This was just prior to the outbreak of the War of 1812 (1812-1815), renewed conflict with the British (and former English) again of the united Kingdom.

Territorial Governor Howard was instrumental and involved in this history, although he died in the midst of the war's last year, and before the British Army and Royal Navy attack in the famous crucial Battle of New Orleans in January 1815, the last battle of the warm a month after a peace treaty was signed in December 1814, in far-off Europe.

[3] Settled originally by migrants from the Upper South, it is part of the region historically known as Little Dixie.

Located on the north bank of the Missouri River, Howard County was settled primarily from the Upper Southern states of Kentucky, Tennessee and Virginia.

The migrants brought slaves and slaveholding traditions with them, and cultivated hemp and tobacco, crops of Middle Tennessee.

[5] Given their backgrounds and cultural affiliations, many Howard County residents supported the Confederacy during the Civil War.

In the most violent period, at the turn of the 20th century, five African Americans were lynched in Howard County from 1891 to 1914: Olli Truxton, Frank Embree, Thomas Hayden, Arthur McNeal, and Dallas Shields.

The mechanization of farming reduced the demand for labor, and many workers left for jobs in the cities and less oppressive societies.

The 2020 United States census counted 10,151 people, 3,873 households, and 2,539 families in Howard County, Missouri.

[17] The 2016-2020 5-year American Community Survey estimates show that the median household income was $55,000 (with a margin of error of +/- $3,456).

Senator Hillary Clinton (D-New York) received more votes, a total of 685, than any candidate from either party in Howard County during the 2008 presidential primary.