[3] At age fifteen, Howard began working in local newspaper offices;[4] first at the Genesee Democrat and later the Wolverine Citizen.
[4] His first big case was the acquittal by reason of insanity of Joshua Solomon Johnson, who was accused of killing a father and his two sons.
[4] Howard was scheduled to become captain of a 100-man company that he had raised shortly before the Battle of Gettysburg, but an illness prevented him from assuming command.
[6] On March 30, 1876, President Ulysses S. Grant nominated Howard to become United States Attorney for Utah Territory.
[7] In this role, Howard was the prosecutor of John Doyle Lee for his involvement in the Mountain Meadows massacre.
[9] President Chester A. Arthur nominated Howard to become Chief Justice of the Arizona Territorial Supreme Court on March 18, 1884.
In Tidball v. Williams, 2 Arizona 50 (1885), Howard found that United States Commissioners have jurisdiction outside their district of residence even if they rarely use it and that a Marshal may serve an arrest warrant which uses a fictitious name.
During the appeal, Howard found there were no grounds to overturn the original ruling as no evidence that any juror was too intoxicated to perform his function had been presented.
[9] With President Grover Cleveland having come into office, Howard sensed he was about to be removed and submitted his resignation in October 1885 to ease the appointment of John C. Shields to the Arizona bench.
[16] In June 1889, Howard sent a letter to U.S. Attorney General William H. H. Miller requesting reappointment to the Arizona bench.
There he developed an interest in agriculture, serving on the county fair board and operating a small farm in Burton.