Joseph Howell was a farmer and miller, operating a mill on Otter Creek (the south fork).  His farm and home were near Morning Star.  He was killed by guerrillas in 1862 who raided his home,

It was Sunday and his wife Catherine and the children were going to church in a buggy.  Guerrillas were rumored to be in the area so Joseph stayed home to protect it and livestock in case they showed up.  Catherine and the children returned home after church to find Joseph tied upside down on the front porch with multiple gunshot wounds, dead, Catherine sent the two oldest, Mason (Mace) and Jacob, armed, on foot in opposite directions on the road.  Mace heard a horse coming and hid behind a rail fence alongside the road.  The rider was a guerilla.  Mace shot him dead out of the saddle, propped him up against the rail fence to make it appear he was napping, and tied the man’s horse to a sapling growing in the fence.  Mason again hid himself nearby and waited for other guerillas.  None showed up.  The next morning, they laid the dead guerrilla across his horse and took him to the sheriff.    

After Joseph’s death, Catherine married Hatton Price, who died 1931, age 102, Catherine died 1922, age 89.

Information from John Young Howard.