Project Scroll Research Note 2026-49: John B. Howe at the Indiana convention of 1850–51, the opening of Howe Grammar School in 1884, and the renaming of Lima in 1909

Three records correct the printed story of John B. Howe (1813–1883) and the town that bears his name. At Indiana's constitutional convention he argued on 18 November 1850 that free Black citizens of New York and Massachusetts, "under the Constitution of the United States, cannot be debarred of the privilege of entering into any other State of the Union," and on 23 January 1851 he was among the 36 who voted against engrossing the section that barred Black people from the state. The county history of 1882 put this correctly, saying he advocated measures "identical with those afterward adhered to by the minority of Justices in the Dred Scott decision"; the History of Northeast Indiana of 1920, reprinting the sketch, changed "minority" to "majority." Howe Grammar School, later Howe Military School, opened on 2 September 1884 "with two pupils proper, and with two young men who were to pursue theological study," as its rector reported in 1886; the bishop's report of 1885 counted "four pupils, two of whom were candidates for the ministry." And in 1909 the move to rename the Lima post office was argued for in honor of the school: a paper of January wrote of changing the name "to Howe in honor of the school of that name," and in March a "red hot contest" had gone on for months, "because the Howe Military institute is the chief asset of the town." In April Senator Beveridge declined to approve the change. Project Scroll Research Note 2026-49, version 1. The note sets out the record quoted, where it is held, what it changes, its limits, and what was searched before calling it new. Web version: projectscroll.com/discoveries/notes/2026-49/.