Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1900, volume 4).djvu/62

42 is a Lowell number, containing estimates of Mr. Lowell's literary and personal qualities, with testimonies from prominent writers, and a bibliography. Francis H. Underwood published in 1882 a biographical sketch; and Stedman's &ldquo;American Poets,&rdquo; a volume called &ldquo;Homes and Haunts of our Elder Poets,&rdquo; and Haweis's &ldquo;American Humorists,&rdquo; contain essays upon Mr. Lowell. &mdash; James Russell's wife, Maria White, poet, b. in Watertown, Mass., 8 July, 1821; d. in Cambridge, Mass., 27 Oct., 1853, married Mr. Lowell in 1844. She possessed great beauty of person and character, and was an accomplished linguist. Her death, which took place the same night that one of Mr. Longfellow's children was born, called forth from Longfellow his poem beginning,

A volume of her poems, which are characterized by tenderness and delicacy of feeling, was printed privately after her death (Cambridge, 1855). The best known of them are &ldquo;The Alpine Shepherd&rdquo; and &ldquo;The Morning-Glory.&rdquo;





LOWELL, John, statesman, b. in Newburyport, Mass., 17 June, 1743; d. in Roxbury, Mass., 6 May, 1802. His ancestor, Percival, a merchant, came from Bristol, England, to Newbury, Mass., in 1639, and his father, John, was the first minister of Newburyport, where he officiated in 1726-'67. The son was graduated at Harvard in 1760, and in 1762 admitted to the bar, where he soon gained a high reputation. He represented Newburyport in the provincial assembly in 1776, and was an officer of militia; but he removed to Boston in 1777, and served in the legislature from that city in 1778. He was a delegate in 1780 to the convention that framed the constitution of Massachusetts, took an active part in its proceedings, and served on the committee that was appointed to draft the constitution. He secured the insertion of the clause that declares that &ldquo;all men are born free and equal,&rdquo; avowing his belief that slavery would thus be abolished in the state. Mr. Lowell's position was decided to be legal by the state supreme court in 1783, and slavery was thus abolished in Massachusetts through his agency. He was a member of the Continental congress in 1782-'3, and in the former year was appointed by that body one of three judges for the trial of appeals from courts of admiralty. He was appointed in 1784 on the commission to decide boundary disputes between Massachusetts and New York. In 1789 he became U. S. judge for the district of Massachusetts, and in 1801 he was appointed chief justice of the 1st circuit, including Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island. Judge Lowell was president of the Massachusetts agricultural society for years, and contributed toward the establishment of the botanic garden at Cambridge. Harvard gave him the degree of LL. D. in 1792. He was for eighteen years a member of its corporation and one of the founders of the American academy of arts and sciences, before which he delivered, on 26 Jan., 1795, an oration on the death

of the elder James Bowdoin. This is prefixed to vol. ii. of the academy's &ldquo;Memoirs.&rdquo; He was also the author, shortly after his graduation at Harvard, of an English poem in the &ldquo;Pietas et Gratulatio&rdquo; (1761). &mdash; His son, John, political writer, b. in Newburyport, 6 Oct., 1769; d. in Boston, 12 March, 1840, was graduated at Harvard in 1786, studied law, and, after his admission to the bar in 1789, practised with success till 1803, when he visited Europe. After his return in 1806 he devoted himself to literature, writing on politics, agriculture, theology, and other topics, under various signatures, such as &ldquo;Citizen of Massachusetts,&rdquo; &ldquo;Massachusetts Lawyer,&rdquo; &ldquo;Layman,&rdquo; and &ldquo;Yankee Farmer.&rdquo; He attacked the supporters of the war of 1812 with great severity in his writings, in which he showed both skill and vigor, and was of eminent service to the Federal party. From 1810 till 1828 he was a member of the corporation of Harvard, which gave him the degree of LL. D. in 1814. He was for many years president of the State agricultural society, inherited his father's love for horticulture, and has been called the &ldquo;Columella of the New England States.&rdquo; He died suddenly of apoplexy. Edward Everett said of him: &ldquo;He possessed colloquial powers of the highest order and a flow of unstudied eloquence never surpassed, and rarely, as with him, united with the command of an accurate, elegant, and logical pen.&rdquo; Among his political pamphlets, of which he published about twenty-five, are &ldquo;Peace without Dishonor &mdash; War without Hope, an Inquiry into the Subject of the &lsquo;Chesapeake&rsquo; &rdquo; (Boston, 1807); &ldquo;Candid Comparison of the Washington and Jefferson Administrations&rdquo; (1810); &ldquo;Diplomatick Policy of Mr. Madison Unveiled&rdquo; (1810); and &ldquo;Mr. Madison's War; a Dispassionate Inquiry into the Reasons alleged by Madison for declaring an Offensive and Ruinous War against Great Britain&rdquo; (1812). His theological writings include &ldquo;Are you a Christian or a Calvinist?&rdquo; (1815). His funeral sermon was delivered by the Rev. Francis W. P. Greenwood (1840). &mdash; Another son, Francis Cabot, merchant, b. in Newburyport, 7 April, 1775; d. in Boston, 10 Aug., 1817, was graduated at Harvard in 1793. He visited England in 1810, and on his return in 1813 became convinced that it was practicable to introduce cotton-manufacture into the United States. He proposed to his brother-in-law, Patrick T. Jackson (q. v.), to make the experiment, and the result was the establishment of factories at Waltham, Mass., and finally, after his death, the foundation of the city of Lowell, which was named in his honor. Mr. Lowell visited Washington in 1816, and, by his personal influence with John C. Calhoun and other members of congress, did much to introduce into the tariff act of that year the clause that imposed a duty on cotton fabrics. &mdash; Another son, Charles, clergyman, b. in Boston, 15 Aug., 1782; d. in Cambridge, Mass., 20 Jan., 1861, was graduated at Harvard in 1800, and began to study law, but abandoned it for theology. He spent the years 1802-'5 abroad, studying two years in Edinburgh and afterward travelling on the continent, and after his return he was settled, on 1 Jan., 1806, as pastor of the West Unitarian church in Boston, where he remained until his death. In 1837, on account of his feeble health, Dr. Cyrus A. Bartol was ordained as his colleague, and from that year till 1840 he travelled extensively in Europe and the east. During the latter part of his life Dr. Lowell officiated only occasionally in his church. He was much beloved by his congregation, a graceful and forcible orator, and a zealous opponent of slavery. Harvard gave him