Joseph Howland (December 3, 1834, in New York City – March 31, 1886, in Menton, Alpes-Maritimes, France) was a Union Army officer during the American Civil War, politician and philanthropist.

His first American ancestor, John Howland, was one of the Pilgrim Fathers and a signer of the 1620 Mayflower Compact, the governing document of what became Plymouth Colony.

At the age of twenty-one, Howland married Eliza Newton Woolsey of New York, one of seven sisters well known as prominent reformers and anti-slavery activists.

That same year Howland bought the Freeland farm along Fishkill Creek in the village of Matteawan, naming his new estate Tioronda.

Howland's great-uncle, Philip Hone, was a partner with Peter A. Schenck in establishing the first factory, a cotton mill, in Matteawan in 1814.

The regiment's official report credits Howland with "…the most undaunted bravery and marked coolness…" as he stayed on his horse and rode up and down the line, giving orders and shouting encouragement to his men, "…unmindful of…the leaden hail…" through which he had to ride.

He also had an active role in drafting the trust deeds for Cornell University and in organizing the Hudson River State Hospital for the Insane, the humane treatment of the mentally ill being one of his and his wife's great concerns.

He and his wife had no children and after his death Eliza Howland never returned to Tioronda, saying that the memories of her husband made staying there too difficult.