Biography of the Rev. F. Newton Howden

(from the Order of Service for his Burial Office at Trinity Church, held September 13, 2007)

The Reverend F. Newton Howden was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, March 23, 1916, son of the late John George Howden and Sarah Harvey McFarlane, and died August 28, 2007 in Tunbridge Wells, England.  He spent most of his childhood in Sheffield, MA.

He graduated from the University of the South, Sewanee, Tennessee; the General Theological Seminary in New York City; and Central Connecticut State University; also with graduate work at the Divinity School of McGill, Montreal, Canada.

Fr. Howden was ordained a deacon at Christ Church, Sheffield, Massachusetts.  He served as Rector of St. Luke's Church, St. Albans, Vermont, 1951 - 1956; Trinity Church, Waterbury, Connecticut, 1956 - 1966; and Trinity Church, Lime Rock, from 1969 until his retirement in 1985. He was also an assistant professor of Humanities at Waterbury State Technical College from 1970 - 1982, and was the author of A Rule of Life Here and Hereafter.

In 1943, Father Howden married Cornelia Jane Fenton in Auburn, NY.  She was deceased in 1981.  In 1983 he married Mary Valerie Clark of England.  He is survived by four children, Robert Howden of South Amboy, New Jersey; William Howden of San Diego, California; Susan Blanchard and Sarah Vella, both of Naugatuck, CT; ten grandchildren and seven great grandchildren.  A son, David, died in 1963, and a daughter, Stephanie, died in 1968.

Fr. Howden was the 10th, and longest-serving, Rector of Trinity Lime Rock.

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