J. Q. Howard

James Quay Howard (1836-1912) was an American writer known chiefly for two campaign biographies written sixteen years apart. In the spring of 1860 he traveled to Illinois to gather material for a life of Abraham Lincoln, issued that year by the Columbus house of Follett, Foster & Co.; the notes he took that May survive among the Lincoln Papers and are still quoted by historians. From 1861 to 1866 he served as United States consul at Saint John, New Brunswick. He later published a history of the Louisiana Purchase, but the 1876 Hayes volume is the book most often attached to his name.