Howard Henry Peckham

Howard Henry Peckham (July 13, 1910 – July 6, 1995) was an American academic and historian, an authority on colonial and early American history.

Peckham played a fundamental role in establishing professional academic standards for the management of historical manuscripts. He was a founding member of the Society of American Archivists and the Director of the William L. Clements Library at the University of Michigan. Peckham and his associate, Lloyd A. Brown, were the first historians to publish the American Revolutionary War journals of Henry Dearborn, in 1939. He is also noted for establishing more accurate, greater numbers for American Revolutionary War deaths.

Early life and education Howard Henry Peckham was a native of Lowell, Michigan. He grew up in a typical small American town—his family having emigrated from New England and New York. Herman Algernon Peckham, Peckham's father, on his way in establishing a successful business career, died when Howard was an infant.

In 1936 he married Dorothy Koth Peckham, with whom he had a son and daughter. His wife, also a lover of books, had considerable academic and literary abilities herself. When Peckham was diagnosed with diabetes in mid career, Dorothy's culinary ability and vigilant eye minimized the effects on his daily routine and allowed him to perform throughout the remainder of his life.

Manuscript findings In 1937 the Clements Library acquired a collection of manuscripts and papers belonging to British Generals Thomas Gage and Sir Henry Clinton, and to American General Nathanael Greene and other such revolutionary notables. Most of the documents were untouched, still in original packages and bundles. It was the most notable collection of Revolutionary War documents ever acquired by an American library at one time. Peckham was given the rare opportunity of being the first person to oversee, sort, and manage this abundance of historical material. Under Peckham, the library had established an international reputation as a leading institution for the study of the Revolutionary War and British Colonial America,

Peckham worked closely with Carl Van Doren on his Secret History of the American Revolution (1941), editing documents from the Clinton Papers that revealed Benedict Arnold's treason. In 1937 he was a founding member of the Society of American Archivists. and wrote two books on the history of that state. He was in charge of both the library's various educational programs and its publications. While at Indiana he contributed to its collection of manuscripts, rare books, and historical maps of the original Northwest Territory. Peckham returned to Ann Arbor in 1953, shortly after the death of former director Randolph Adams, and was formally appointed Director of Clements Library, where he began greatly expanding the library's colonial and revolutionary collections, personally contributing many important manuscripts for the early American and antebellum periods.

Later years By the middle of the 1970s, Peckham and his wife decided for health reasons to move to a warmer climate in Hendersonville, North Carolina, where they lived a more relaxed lifestyle. Peckham was given an honorary doctorate degree by Olivet College in 1976. He continued his writing, turning out occasional historical articles. He also taught and attended a few classes at the local community college, and took up playing the bassoon in the community orchestra. He also tried his hand at writing a novel.

In Peckham's 1974 work, The Toll of Independence, he painstakingly counted American military wartime casualties in the Revolutionary War and added them to the number of American soldiers who died while prisoners of war in British captivity. Peckham's investigation revealed that the number of deaths was much greater than previously assumed, which now totaled about 25,000 American deaths, a significant loss for a population that during the Revolutionary War numbered fewer than three million.

At his retirement, Peckham expressed his great enthusiasm for the Clements library, claiming and truly believing that it was the best place anywhere to acquire manuscripts and other primary sources on early American history.

The William Clements Library offers several research fellowships ever year. In honor of Howard Peckham, the library offers the Howard H. Peckham Fellowship on Revolutionary America, a $10,000 annual endowment for qualifying scholars.

It is said that Peckham is remembered by his colleagues and the many scholars who came to the Clements Library as graduate students, as a kind and giving man with a courteous manner. His works include:

Revolutionary War Journals of Henry Dearborn, 1775–1783, (1939, reprint, 2009) British secret writing in the revolution, 19?? The papers of General Josiah Harmar, 1937 A Brief History of Indiana, 1946 Pontiac and the Indian Uprising, 1947 Pontiac's Siege of Detroit, 1951 Captured by Indians: True Tales of Pioneer Survivors, 1954 The War for Independence: A Military History, 1958 Treason of the Blackest Dye, 1958 Memoirs of the life of John Adlum in the Revolutionary War, 1968 Narratives of Colonial America, 1704–1765, 1971 The Toll of Independence, 1974, Campaigns of the American Revolution: an atlas of manuscript maps, 1976 The Declaration of Independence: Two Essays, 1976 Indiana: A Bicentennial History, 1978 The Journals and Indian Paintings of George Winter, 1837–1839, (reprint, 2013) The Colonial Wars, 1965 William Henry Harrison: Young Tippecanoe, The War for Independence a Military History, 1975 Lexington to Fallen Timbers, 1775–1794; Episodes from the Earliest History of Our Military Forces – Primary Source Edition, (reprint, 2014) The Making of the University of Michigan, 1817–1992, 1994