Augustus Lowell

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Augustus Lowell

Birthdate:
Birthplace: Boston, Suffolk County, Massachusetts, United States
Death: June 22, 1900 (70)
Brookline, Norfolk County, Massachusetts, United States
Place of Burial: Mount Auburn Cemetery Cambridge, Middlesex County, Massachusetts, USA
Immediate Family:

Son of John Amory Lowell and Elizabeth Cabot Lowell
Husband of Katherine Bigelow Lowell
Father of Percival Lowell; Abbott Lawrence Lowell; Katharine Bowlker Roosevelt (Lowell); Elizabeth Lawrence Putnam; Roger Lowell and 3 others
Brother of Elizabeth Rebecca Sprague; Ellen Bancroft Lyman and Sara Putnam Blake
Half brother of Susan Cabot Sohier and Judge John Lowell, III

Managed by: Private User
Last Updated:

About Augustus Lowell

Augustus Lowell

Lowell was a businessman and philanthropist from Massachusetts. Born in Boston to John 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's George Washington and John Adams. Augustus' elder brother, Judge John Lowell, would be appointed, to hold the same seats held by their great-grandfather, by Presidents Abraham Lincoln and Rutherford Hayes.

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 the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona. Their second son, Abbott Lawrence Lowell, succeeded Augustus as Trustee at the Lowell 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).

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.

Lowell was also a member of the Corporation of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Vice President of the American 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), a position he would hold for the last 20 years of his life.

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Augustus Lowell's Timeline

1830
January 15, 1830
Boston, Suffolk County, Massachusetts, United States
1855
March 13, 1855
Boston, Suffolk County, Massachusetts, United States
1856
December 13, 1856
Boston, Suffolk County, Massachusetts, United States
1858
November 27, 1858
Boston, Suffolk County, Massachusetts, United States
1862
February 2, 1862
Boston, Suffolk County, Massachusetts, United States
February 2, 1862
Boston, Suffolk County, Massachusetts, USA
1870
May 1, 1870
Brookline, Norfolk County, Massachusetts, USA
1874
February 9, 1874
Brookline, Norfolk County, Massachusetts, United States