Jordan¹ married Sarah¹, date and place unknown, but most likely around 1807, and they had six children in Wayne Co., North Carolina, from 1808 to about 1818. They first show up in the 1810 NC census in Wayne County. (Cumberland and Montgonery Counties also have Jordan/Jourdan Howells, but these are not ours). They are not found in the 1820 census, even though there are plenty of Howells in Wayne Co.

Their next two children were born in Alabama, in about 1824 and 1829, possibly in Lauderdale Co. The 1820 census index shows "Jourden Howell" in Limestone County (just upstream from Lauderdale), and from the age structure this is probably our Jordan. This was an overland trek, and it wasn't easy. The roads, once they left the turnpikes in the settled areas, were uniproved, and turned to mud in the rain. They also had to cross the Appalachians, which was never easy.

Then in 1830, Jordan and Sarah are found in the 1830 census in Hardin Co., Tennessee.  You can hardly call this a migration; it is a short move, just downstream on the Tennessee River across the state line.  They probably went by water, which even for this short distance was still the easiest way.  They likely used flatboats.  Though steamboats were on the river, the flatboats would have been cheaper, and would have allowed them to haul most of their farm equipment and even some livestock.

So why did they come all this way?  The journey was not easy, so the reasons must have been compelling, but we can only guess at them.  Something out there was attractive, and it was probably land, the rich soil of the Tennessee River bottomlands.  Eastern North Carolina was well settled, and we can imagine that good land was hard to come by.  The Howells didn't go blindly, on pure hope, but likely knew what was awaiting them.  Land was a common bounty given to soldiers during the Revolution, and North Carolina gave its soldiers land out in what later became Tennessee.  (North Carolina continued to grant land out there, even after Tennessee became a separate state.  Tennessee had its own ideas on what to do with its land, and the conflict took a while to settle.)  The veterans and their families who moved out there sent back word that the land was good.  Jordan and Sarah knew where they were going.

Tennessee wasn't good enough, for some reason.  The Howells were still in Hardin County for the 1840 census, but by early 1842 they show up in Stoddard County, Missouri.  Jordan³, son of Levi² and Elexy², was born that March.  Their first child, whose birthdate we don't know, was also born there, so they may have been there by late 1841. The family apparently moved to Missouri with Elexy's family.  Their route was most likely by river:  down the Tennessee to the Ohio, then to the Mississippi.  The area had few east-west roads, and river travel was much easier in any case.  They probably crossed the Mississippi at Cairo, then went inland a ways to Stoddard County.  Why they moved is a mystery, but they didn't settle for second best.  This is good farmland, deposited in the lowlands of the Mississippi River, and remains fertile to this day.

How many made the trip?  Most of the evidence is only for Levi and Elexy, but most don't show up on any Hardin County records, either.  We do know that Benjamin² and Mary¹ stayed in Tennessee; some of their land was the site of the Battle of Shiloh, and has been incorporated into the National Battlefield.  Jonathan² and Mary¹ took a different route to Missouri.  They married in Tennessee, and moved to Tippah County in Mississippi between 1840 and 1843, and didn't come to Stoddard County until about 1852.

Jordan¹ and Sarah¹ were still in Tennessee for the 1850 census, but made it to Missouri for the 1860 census there. We have no intermediate records for them, but can guess that they came over in the next couple years. Son Eppinetus² married Dicey² Riddle in Stoddard Co. about 1852. Unfortunately, we have no solid information about him at all. He shows up on none of the censuses before this, an as he died in 1859 he doesn't show up in the 1860 census. We can only speculate about his whereabouts.

Stoddard County was good to the Howells.  Something there satisfied the wanderlust, and they stayed for a hundred years.  They began as country folk, in a land that had little larger than a farmstead, and over the years became townspeople.  William³ Howell was raised on a farm, and died in Dexter, a town that was founded (1873) twenty years after he was born.  Like many towns in this country, this one sprung up along a railroad, the Cairo, Arkansas, and Texas, running southeast from the Mississippi.  William's sons George⁴, Fred⁴, and James³ started a grocery store there in 1906, and the town was large enough to make their delivery service practical.

Then came WWII, and it all changed.  The change was there all the time, but it took the pressures of war to bring them into focus.  During the century, Dexter went from dirt roads to paved ones, and added electricity and indoor plumbing.  James⁴ became a plumber, and installed the first lines in town into his own home.  Radio and the telephone arrived, and Stoddard County was no longer isolated.

At the start of the war Jay (J.R.⁵), son of James⁴, joined the Army Air Forces, and after training the Army sent him to England.  The military life suited him, and he made it a career, going with the Air Force when it was made a separate service.  The war brought other changes.  While waiting to go overseas, Jay met Jayne (Clara⁶ Jane) Epley, and they were married after the war.

Modern military life is nomadic, and the new family moved more often than generations of their ancestors.  The first years were spent in Kansas and Texas, and afterwards several years in Falls Church, Virginia., where Jay was stationed at the Pentagon.  Two years in Morocco followed, then a short time in Alabama, followed by full tours in southern California, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Utah.  In 1972 they retired to Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.

Their children have their own travels.  Son Jim (James⁶, the author), after his own hitch in the Army, spent several years in Utah getting educated, and after a short time in Oklahoma, settled down in Colorado.  Oldest daughter Jill (Judith⁷) spent twenty years in Utah, and recently moved to Ohio.  Daughter Jinger (Jennifer⁷) lived in Michigan and Florida, before moving up to Maine, where she and her family have put down roots and put up a house.  Youngest child Jackie (Jacqueline⁷) has stayed put in Utah.

Timelines for the Howell migrations