A native of Warsaw, Georgia (located in what is now northern Fulton County) born to Atlanta pioneer Clark Howell, Sr., he became a runner and pupil of Atlanta's first telegraph operator, D.U. Sloan, at the age of twelve. In 1855 he attended Georgia Military Institute in Marietta. He read law in Sandersville, and briefly practiced law in Atlanta before the outbreak of war. While editor of the Constitution in 1895, he sent out transcripts of Booker T. Washington's separate as the fingers speech across the country.