HOWARD, TILGHMAN ASHURST (1797-1844). Tilghman Ashurst Howard, United States chargé d'affaires to the Republic of Texas in 1844, was born near Pickensville, South Carolina, on November 14, 1797. He moved to Knoxsville, Tennessee, where he studied law, was admitted to the bar in 1818, and began practice. He was a member of the Tennessee Senate in 1824. He moved to Bloomington, Indiana, in 1830 and to Rockville in 1833 and continued to practice law until appointed United States district attorney for Indiana in 1833. He ran unsuccessfully for the United States Senate in 1839 but was elected to the House of Representatives to fill an unexpired term. He resigned to be a candidate for governor of Indiana in 1840. In June 1844 Howard was appointed charge d'affaires to the Republic of Texas. Upon his arrival in Galveston he was informed of the yellow fever epidemic and left for Washington-on-the-Brazos. He had already contracted the fever, however, and died in Washington on August 16, 1844. His body was later reinterred in Rockville Cemetery, Rockville, Indiana.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Ephraim Douglass Adams, "British Correspondence Concerning Texas, " Southwestern Historical Quarterly 19 (October 1915). Biographical Directory of the American Congress. Amelia W. Williams and Eugene C. Barker, eds., The Writings of Sam Houston, 1813-1863 (8 vols., Austin: University of Texas Press, 1938-43; rpt., Austin and New York: Pemberton Press, 1970).
