Howells (William Dean) is born in Martins Ferry, Ohio.

The son of William and Mary (Dean) Howells, William Dean Howells first visits Boston in 1860, subsequently writing, “I came as a passionate pilgrim from the West approached his Holy Land in Boston.” After becoming a journalist, writing a campaign biography of Abraham Lincoln, and serving as U.S. consul to Venice, he marries Elinor Mead in 1862, returns to Boston in 1866, and subsequently lives at 16 Louisburg Square. Howells becomes editor of The Atlantic Monthly and a noted novelist. He moves to New York City in 1891,* dies there on May 11, 1920, and is buried in Cambridge Cemetery.