Section III

        Madison Peyton Howell, my father, was born and reared at the old homestead

of J. S. A. Howell, his father, about two miles from St. George, then in Colleton

County and called George's Station.  He was a working farmer boy, accustomed to

all tasks incident thereto.  Grandfather's Mill Pond and Water Mill claimed his

idle hours, making of him an expert fisherman and swimmer.  He attended only

the country schools existent at that time and place, but devoted himself early to

self-education, being ambitious and proud.  After he had mastered the arts of

operating the water mill, the plantation blacksmith shop and farm duties, he, being

of an alert nervous disposition, sought employment outside.  His first work was in

furnishing wood for the Southern Railway engines, which work rendered for life

his arms and shoulders "strong as iron bands".  He then became Constable for his

father who was a Justice of the Peace.  Afterward he studied law, self taught,

but guided somewhat by Judge Islar, of Orangeburg.  Finally he was admitted to

the bar (not difficult in those days) and settled at Walterboro.  He didn't know

much law, but he was wonderfully proficient in "common sense" and had an

uncanny knowledge of men, and of human nature.

        He was born in 1851, too young to go to the Confederate War, where his

uncles, father and brother, John, fought, yet he felt the full impact of the war and

its aftermath.  He died in 1907, from a stroke of apoplexy, at 56 years of age.

        He first married Sallie R. McBride, of Hampton, at Brunson, on January 28,

1880.  Rev.  W. T. Wightman performed the ceremony.  Sallie McBride died of

"pernicious nausea" on August 23, 1880, at the residence of her sister, Mrs. Ida 

McB. Webb of Hampton.  No children were born of this marriage.

        On April 27, 1882. he married Harriet Frances (Mittie) Foreman, of Silverton,

Aiken County, daughter of Dr. Isaac Foreman.