The vessel then went to San Pedro; and Howard became clerk trading hides and tallow for Abel Stearns, who was then a merchant at Los Angeles.

In San Francisco in 1845 Howard formed a partnership with Henry Mellus, and in 1846 they bought the Hudson's Bay Company property on Montgomery street.

The Hudson's Bay Company Yerba Buena (San Francisco) post had not been very profitable and William G. Rae, its local representative, recommended abandonment.

In 1848 Mellus & Howard built on the southwest corner of Clay and Montgomery Street the first brick building in San Francisco, and transferred their business to this store.

On the 16th of July, 1850, he presided over the meeting which resulted in the organization of a police force two hundred and thirty strong, to suppress The Hounds, who were terrorizing the city.

Although he traveled for a year, leaving his business to the care of his younger brother, George H. Howard, he returned home without having recovered his health.

In 1854 he established his residence in a house he named "el Cerrito" on Rancho San Mateo, which he had previously purchased from the grantee Cayetano Arenas.

[8] During his return to California in 1842, Howard married Mary Warren at the house of Captain Grimes in Honolulu.