DUNCAN HOWLETT:
MINISTER, AUTHOR, and FORESTER 1906
-
by Clifton Davis
Librarian Emeritus, Bangor Theological Seminary, Maine
Duncan
Howlett was born May 15, 1906, in Newton, Massachusetts.
He received the SB. degree from Harvard in 1928, the LLB.
Degree in 1931, and in the same year he was admitted to
the Massachusetts Bar. Following the practice of law for
two years, in 1933 he yielded to a lifelong interest in
religion and returned to Harvard where he was awarded
the STB degree with honors in 1936, while serving as Minister
of the Second Church, Unitarian, in Salem, Massachusetts.
Dr. Howlett was ordained to the Unitarian ministry in
Salem, Massachusetts, November 17,1935. Howlett was at
that church from 1933 to 1938. From there he went to the
First Unitarian Church, New Bedford, Massachusetts (1938-1946).
In September of 1946 he became Minister of the First Church
in Boston, Unitarian, a position he held for the next
twelve years. In 1958, he was called to All Souls Church,
Unitarian, in Washington, D.C., the position from which
he retired in 1968. In May of that year he was appointed
to Hubert Humphrey's presidential campaign staff.
Participants
in the November 1946 installation of Rev. Duncan Howlett
as minister of the First Church in Boston included,
l-r, Rev. Frederick May Eliot, president of the American
Unitarian Association; Rev Charles E. Park, minister
emeritus of the church; Rev. Howlett, and Charles
Rugg; chairman of the standing committee. Courtesy
Boston Public Library, Print Department
In
addition to his concern with public affairs during the
entire range of his ministry, Howlett played an active
role in Unitarian denominational affairs. Among the various
committees and boards on which he served were those of
the Beacon Press, the Historical Library, and the Christian
Register. He was President of the Unitarian Historical
Society, Chairman of Commission I, "The Church and
Its Leadership"; Chairman of the Washington Advisory
Committee of the Unitarian Universalist Association Department
of Social Responsibility; member of Harvard University
Overseer's Committee to visit the Divinity School (1940-62);
Chairman, D.C. Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission
on Civil Rights; and member of the D.C. Commissioners'
Crime Council; Executive Committee of the Washington Home
Rule Commission; and the Washington Urban Institute.
Duncan
Howlett has written the following titles: Man Against
the Church; The Struggle Between Religion and Ecclesiasticism
(1954); The Essenes and Christianity; An Interpretation
of the Dead Sea Scrolls (1957); The Fourth American
Faith (1964); No Greater Love: The James Reeb Story
(1966); The Critical Way in Religion (1980); and
The Fatal Flaw at the Heart of Religious Liberalism
(1995).
On retiring from the active parish ministry in 1968, Howlett
became deeply involved in the environmental movement,
particularly in the area of forestry. In Maine he organized
and was the first President of the Small Woodland Owners
Association, popularly known as SWOAM. The conservation
of natural resources emphasizing the responsible management
of woodland on the part of citizen forest owners became
for him a "second career." The continuing search
for "truth" has motivated Dr. Howlett throughout
his life, truth that is lived out in human experience.
Moulton Library is indeed fortunate to receive his gift
of books and papers.
Abridged from The Open Door, Bangor Theological
Seminary, Summer 2001
Harvard
College Class of 1928 Reports
25th Anniversary Report
Howlett,
during his 25th reunion, listening to a recording
of Robert Frost poems at Harvard's Lamont Library
with his wife, a Harvard freshman, and a fellow member
of the class of '28.Courtesy Boston Public Library,
Print Department
Occupation:
Minister Business Address: First Church in Boston, Berkeley
& Marlborough Sts., Boston, Mass. Married: Carolyn Abbot Chance, Apr. 26, 1943, Summit,
N. J. Children: Margaret Lawrence, May. 28, 1932; Albert
D., Dec. 21, 1944; Richard C., June 9, 1946
During
the last decade, virtually all my activities have been
connected with my work as a minister. In New Bedford,
I served on seemingly endless committees and boards, and
held various offices, among them the presidency of the
local Harvard Club. The same thing has been true in the
Unitarian denomination, where my most conspicuous post
is hairman of the Commission on Planning and Review, a
unit intended to shape long-range policies. In 1946, I
became minister of the First Church in Boston.
My chief connection with Harvard during these years, apart
from recurrent chapel services, and some lectures, has
been service on the Overseers Committee to Visit the Divinity
School. We were able to persuade the Corporation to appoint
a commission to make a survey of theological education
in America, with especial reference to Harvard. Their
report is now in, and we hope for great things from it.
50th
Anniversary Report
The
ministers of the churches of Boston's Back Bay neighborhood.
L-R, Rev. Howlett; Rev. William H Denney, minister
of the Church of the Covenenant; and Rev. Robert B.
Day, director fo the Benevolent Fraternity of Unitarian
Churches. Courtesy Boston Public Library, Print
Department
The
Unitarian Universalist Yearbook lists me as officially
retired. Happily, the designation is accurate in the technical
sense only. I resigned as Minister of All Souls Church
in Washington, D.C. in 1968 and soon after we moved to
Maine. But it was not retirement that awaited us there.
Carolyn, as President of the International Association
of Liberal Religious Women, was soon making frequent trips
to Europe and I found myself in a new and demanding enterprise,
trying to manage the forest land adjacent to our former
summer place now our permanent home.
It
proved to be no small undertaking. Extensive reading and
the assistance of a first-rate consulting forester proved
insufficient; and in September 1971 I enrolled as a special
student at the School of Forest Resources at the University
of Maine in Orono. Taking the courses for credit, right
along with the regular students as I insisted on doing,
was a harrowing experience, especially before the midterm
exams. With those hurdles cleared, however, forestry school
became an enjoyable as well as a very profitable experience.
The academic approach provided the basics in an unfamiliar
discipline; and the school, faculty and students alike,
introduced me to a new circle of friends and acquaintances
in my new avocation.
At
about this time, the small woodland owner was becoming
a concern of industry, education and government alike.
There are a great many of us, nationwide, and we own forest
land which in the aggregate is an immense potential source
of logs and wood fiber. Out of my own interests and needs
I was inevitably drawn into this area of specialization.
Two
and a half years ago we organized the Small Woodland Owners
Association of Maine. As a nonprofit organization, it
has grown steadily without promotion because it fills
a need. By the members' own decision, we are primarily
a teaching organization. Our meetings are designed to
help the owner learn how to manage his woodlot; and because
many of us do our own work, to give the owner the information
he needs about machinery and its proper use.
The
325th Anniversary of the founding of the First Church
in Boston was observed in 1955. Examining a picture
of the original church, a mud and thatched-roof building,
are, l-r, the Rev. Duncan Howlett, minister; Prof.
Perry Miller of Harvard, and the Rev. Charles E. Park,
minister emeritus.Courtesy Boston Public Library,
Print Department
How
does all of this relate to my former very intensive life
as a minister? At first I would have said: Not at all.
But now it is clear that my professional life has been
helpful in at least two ways: first in speaking and writing
on forestry, of which I do quite a little; and second,
in participating in forestry and conservation organizations
of which I do even more. A lifetime of experience with
that peculiarly American institution, the voluntary organization,
has been of great help. As the minister of congregationally
organized churches, as a participant in denominational
activities at nearly all levels, and as a participant
in many and varied non-ecclesiastical voluntary organizations,
I seem to have learned something about how such things
are organized and run. I have learned, for example, how
Roberts Rules of Order can be used to implement the will
of the majority. I have also learned how to prevent the
subversion of those rules to the purposes of a willful
minority.
To
sum up, after a deeply satisfying and often exciting professional
life as a minister, I have been surprised to find similar
subjective qualities in my retirement avocation. Organizational
activities and physical work out of doors in my own woodland
have provided true re-creation from a continuous program
of study and writing which I follow for several hours
almost every morning. The result is a book of some proportions
titled The Critical Way in Religion which should
see publication by next spring.
All in all life has brought me great joy and satisfaction.
I have known anxiety, frustration and tragedy, but I have
also known gladness and exultation. Nothing has meant
more to me than the genuinely happy marriage Carolyn and
I have enjoyed, the equally happy marriages of our four
children, the promise our grandchildren show in the area
of the values we cherish, and the genuinely warm set of
relationships that flow in so many directions within the
family circle. C. S. Lewis once wrote a book entitled
Surprised by Joy. So also could I. But I would
add the dimension of gratitude for it all.
All
Souls Church in Washington, D,C.
The
dedication of the Duncan Howlett Forest, created
from land owned by Maine Tree Farmers. Photo
by Lars Howlett
Duncan
Howlett, Maine and New England's 1976 Outstanding
Tree Farmer
