- Augustus Lowell
Augustus Lowell (Jan 15, 1830–1900) was a businessman and philanthropist from
Massachusetts . Born inBoston toJohn Amory Lowell and his second wife Elizabeth Cabot Putnam. His great-grandfather,John Lowell , was among the first Judges for the newly created federal courts, appointed by President'sGeorge Washington andJohn Adams . Augustus' elder brother,Judge John Lowell , would be appointed, to hold the same seats held by their great-grandfather, by PresidentsAbraham Lincoln andRutherford Hayes .Family
Lowell was amongst the fifth generation in his family to graduate from
Harvard College , class of 1850. And on June 1, 1854 he married Katherine Bigelow Lawrence, the daughter of the Hon.Abbott Lawrence . Both, Augustus and Katherine, were able to trace their ancestry back through the earliest colonial settlers and founders of New England, in the mid 17th century, to notable English families in the 12th and 13th centuries.Augustus and Katherine had seven children and thus named their 10 acre,
Brookline, Massachusetts estate, "Sevenels". The Lowell's lost two of their children during infancy but their surviving children went on to do great things.Percival Lowell , wrote several books on the Far East and Mars and founded theLowell Observatory inFlagstaff, Arizona . Their second son,Abbott Lawrence Lowell , succeeded Augustus as Trustee at theLowell Institute in 1900, and became President of Harvard College in 1909. And their youngest daughter,Amy Lowell , 20 years younger than her brothers, would become the second celebrated poet in the Lowell family (Greenslet 1946) [Greenslet, Ferris. (1946) "The Lowells and Their Seven Worlds," Boston: Houghton Mifflin. ISBN 0897602633.] .Career
Augustus was Treasurer of the Merrimack Manufacturing Company, a textile mill in
Lowell, Massachusetts , for much of his early career. In 1875, he became Treasurer of The Boott Cotton Mill, also in Lowell. And in 1883, he was Director of The Winnipiseogee Lake Cotton and Woolen Manufacturing Company. All positions his father, John Amory, had once held within the same companies [ [http://www.gutenberg.org/files/15925/15925-h/15925-h.htm#h2H_4_0006 "Bay State Monthly, Vol. I, No. 3, March, 1884"] ] .Lowell was also a member of the Corporation of the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Vice President of theAmerican Academy of Arts and Sciences . In 1881, Augustus was appointed as the sole Trustee of the Lowell Institute, upon his fathers death (Lowell 1899, pp 118-119) [Lowell, Delmar. (1899) "The Historic Genealogy of the Lowells of America from 1639 to 1899," Rutland VT: The Tuttle Company. ISBN 9780788415678.] , a position he would hold for the last 20 years of his life.See also
*
Lowell family
*First Families of Boston
*Lowell Institute
*Lowell, Massachusetts References
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