• When the first call for volunteers reached Providence the 18-year-old barber was the first to enlist. John served 18 months as a private in the army which followed Washington from New York to Delaware; he suffered from lack of food and the biting cold of a terrible winter near Morristown, New Jersey. Perhaps he thought about the first winter at Plymouth when half the Pilgrims died.3632

• His gravestone tells of his descent from Pilgrim John Howland: John1, Jabez2, Joseph3, Joseph4.3632