Charles Tisdale Howard

Charles Tisdale Howard (born February 16, 1856) was an attorney and Republican party politician, the first United States Attorney for the state of South Dakota, and served as the fourth Speaker of the South Dakota House of Representatives.

Howard was born in Eckford, Michigan on February 16, 1856, and was the fourth of five children and only son born to Russell and Emeline Howard (née Morse). His father Russell Marshall Howard was a farmer and one of the first settlers of Eckford, and was one of the original old line whigs and a founding member of Michigan’s Republican party.

He graduated from Albion College in Albion, Michigan in 1880 with a Bachelor of Philosophy degree, and then joined a law firm in Marshall where he served a legal apprenticeship. He passed the Bar exam in 1882 and then moved with his family to Redfield, in the Dakota territory where he was active in Republican party politics.

When South Dakota was formally granted statehood in 1889, President Benjamin Harrison appointed him U.S. District Attorney for the state of South Dakota , a post he held until 1892. When the twenty-third president lost his 1892 bid for re-election, Howard ran for a seat in the state legislature in 1894 representing Spink County, and was elected Speaker of the House by his Republican colleagues.

Howard was installed as Grand Chancellor for the Knights of Pythias order in Aberdeen, South Dakota in 1894.

He was elected a Minnesota District Court Judge in 1928.

Charles T. Howard married Eugenia Jerome Beecher on October 19, 1892 in Redwood Falls, Minnesota. They had four children Albert Russell, Charles Beecher, Paul Eugene and Harriet Pauline (named after Eugenia Beecher's sister Harriet and distant cousin Harriet Beecher Stowe).

His son-in-law was the highly decorated Vice Admiral Roy Alexander Gano, a native of Pipestone, Minnesota who married his daughter Harriet.

Howard died on June 23, 1936 at the age of 80 years old in Pipestone, Minnesota where he is buried.