Dear all,
Thank you very much. However, I do have the information that Nadine and Kimbrey kindly supplied. However, there are no documented source for a link between Joseph and James listed on Ancestry. The Binsted burials are documented apparently at Binsted's Church of the Holy Cross.
There seems to be an oral history that Joseph was born in 1727 in England (do not know where) to James Howe. Joseph Howe, in search of adventure in the New World, immigrated to Massachusetts in 1749 or there about to be with his 2nd-cousin General George Augustus Howe, 3rd Viscount Howe, who was subsequently killed at the Battle of Ticonderoga in 1758. Supposedly Joseph then migrated south to Virginia, and made the acquaintance of George Washington during an early survey of western Virginia (this is documented in the US Library of Congress records). I wonder if there might be any British Army records showing Joseph Howe as under General Howe's command?
James Howe's sister (Joseph's aunt), Sophia Arabella Howe, died early from a broken heart that was documented in the Letters to and from Henrietta, the Countess of Suffolk. I suspect that Joseph was in need of some fresh air from society scandals (his grandmother mother Ruperta was also the illegitimate daugther of Prince Rupert of the Rhine). Supposedly he made two voyages to Massachusetts before staying permanently and marrying one Eleanor Dunbar, whom he met on board and who originated from Scotland. In fact, one Howe family is descended from Henry Carey, illegitimate son of Henry VIII and Mary Boleyn.
Thomas