Archibald Alexander Howell, M.D.

Archie was named after his grandfather who was also a physician. That man’s wife was the granddaughter of Colonel John Beatty who was taken prisoner during the Revolutionary War. He later served in the Continental Congress, the U.S. House of Representatives, and as Secretary of State in New Jersey for 20 years. Like the subject of this story, he was also a physician and the son of a Presbyterian missionary.

Archie and his three siblings were born in Sao Paulo, Brazil while his parents were missionaries there. They must have returned home sometime in the 1890s. Just like his grandfather, Archie felt the call to heal bodies instead of souls. Where his father went to Princeton Theological Seminary, Archie enrolled in Princeton University’s School of Science. He graduated cum laude in 1903 and went on to the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.

A year after graduating there in 1908 he married Harriet “Hattie” Chapman. More than one source confirms the wedding day was June 24, 1909, but the records of Third Presbyterian Church also show they were married there on January 19, 1910. She gave birth to four boys in the even-numbered years, starting with Archie Jr. that October. He died of diphtheria in 1915 but the other three lived long, active lives. 

Dr. Howell didn’t go into private practice, choosing instead to be an instructor of Medicine at UPenn. He also wrote a number of articles for medical journals and had hospital privileges. Unfortunately, picking up a contagious disease was an occupational hazard that proved fatal. He died of tuberculosis less than nine years after his wedding.

Hattie lived another 50 years, moving from Atlantic City to California. She saw two of her three sons graduate from West Point and retire after long careers with the Army. Also listed on the gravestone shown above are Hattie’s parents, Joseph and Helen Chapman. Next to this is a small horizontal stone for Archie’s parents, John Beatty Howell and his wife Elizabeth.