06/23/2026
This undated photo from the Sieffert Family collection has a written description on the bottom right-hand corner that says “Mr. & Mrs. Howard, Knik.”
If accurate, we’re looking at Reverend Thomas Paul Howard and his wife, Mary Jane Patterson-Howard, who moved their family to the Cook Inlet country in 1910.
Reverend Howard was born in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England, around March of 1860.
Mary Jane was born in Ballyshannon, County Donegal, Ireland, on August 4th, 1864.
They married in Kings, New York, on February 6th, 1885, and had five children.
From February to September 1914, Reverend Howard built a large multiplex on the east side of Main Street, Knik, one block off the coast.
Its front half housed a confectionery shop called The Pennant (managed by his daughter Catherine Margaret Howard and Nellie Agnes Shea), Theodore Needham’s Knik News plant, and a set of stairs leading up to Dr. Edward Martin Spaulding’s hospital.
The back half was a 40-by-70-foot space that served as a dance hall, theater, and Presbyterian church.
Reverend Howard’s Sunday night services were attended by exceptionally large audiences for such a small town.
Everything changed, however, when his failing health required at least one stateside operation, and an imminent railroad boom 14 miles north of Knik took people elsewhere.
Between late August and early September 1916, Reverend Howard dismantled his social center and rebuilt it in Anchorage as a residence.
He also switched affiliations to become an Episcopal missionary.
Much of his new work took him to Native settlements along the railroad as it was being constructed.
Sometime during that process, Reverend Howard sought further medical treatment by leaving Alaska for good.
He died in Riverton, King County, Washington, on July 17th, 1918, at age 58.
His interment took place at Rose Hills Memorial Park in Whittier, Los Angeles County, California.
Reverend Howard’s wife, Mary Jane, who died on May 12th, 1935, at age 70, and his daughter, Catherine Margaret, who died with the surname Dohrmann on June 6th, 1954, at age 58, were buried next to him.
