Family
John Amory, the second child of John Lowell, Jr (1769–1840) and Rebecca Amory (1771–1842), was among the first generation of Lowells to be born in Boston, and the fifth generation to be born in America. His father maintained a well-established law firm in the city, and three years after John Amory's birth, retired for reasons of his failing health. After retiring in 1801, the elder Lowell spent much of his time and wealth patronizing the burgeoning horticultural society in Boston, so much so that he became known to his friends and family as "The Norfolk Farmer." John Amory Lowell's paternal grandfather, also named John Lowell (1743–1802) but referred to as "The Old Judge," was a Federal Judge appointed by President George Washington and is considered to be the founding father of the Boston Lowells. (Greenslet 1946)
Like his father and grandfathers before him, Lowell would be the fourth member in his family line to graduate from Harvard College in 1815, at the age of 17.
After spending an extended time traveling through Europe and then establishing himself as a successful merchant in Boston, Lowell married his first wife, Susan Cabot Lowell (1801–1827), a daughter of his uncle, Francis Cabot Lowell. Together, they would have two children, Susan Cabot and John. Lowell's wife died during childbirth in 1827. Their son, John, would be appointed to the U.S. District Court in 1865 by President Abraham Lincoln, and in 1878, appointed to the U.S. Circuit Court by President Rutherford B. Hayes. John Amory's grandson, James Arnold Lowell, would also go on to become a Federal Judge. Lowell's wife, Susan Cabot, who was a great-granddaughter of Edward and Dorthy (Quincy) Jackson, would connect their children and their descendants to those of the Holmeses of Boston, a family that includes poet Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., and U.S. Supreme Court justice and Civil War hero, Hon. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
John Amory's second wife, Elizabeth Cabot Putnam (1807–1881), gave him a son and three daughters. Augustus, Elizabeth Rebecca, Ellen Bancroft, and Sara Putnam. Augustus Lowell would become a very successful business man and eventually succeed Lowell as the second trustee of the Lowell Institute. John Amory's grandchildren, through Elizabeth Cabot, included author and astronomer Percival Lowell, Harvard President Abbott Lawrence Lowell, and poet Amy Lowell.
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Famous quotes containing the word family:
“It is as when a migrating army of mice girdles a forest of pines. The chopper fells trees from the same motive that the mouse gnaws them,—to get his living. You tell me that he has a more interesting family than the mouse. That is as it happens.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Family lore can be a bore, but only when you are hearing it, never when you are relating it to the ones who will be carrying it on for you. A family without a storyteller or two has no way to make sense out of their past and no way to get a sense of themselves.”
—Frank Pittman (20th century)
“A poem is like a person. Though it has a family tree, it is important not because of its ancestors but because of its individuality. The poem, like any human being, is something more than its most complete analysis. Like any human being, it gives a sense of unified individuality which no summary of its qualities can reproduce; and at the same time a sense of variety which is beyond satisfactory final analysis.”
—Donald Stauffer (b. 1930)