Lowell family
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The Lowell family settled on the North Shore at Cape Ann after they arrived in Boston on June 23, 1639. The patriarch, Percival Lowle (1571–1664), described as a "solid citizen of Bristol", determined at the age of 68 that the future was in the New World. A man of wealth, he sailed from England aboard the merchant vessel, the Jonathan, in April, 1639 with a party of 16 people: his two sons John (1595–1647) and Richard (1602–82) and their wives, servants, furniture and livestock.
Massachusetts Bay Colony Governor, John Winthrop needed solid dependable people to settle the North Shore area as a buffer against the French from Canada and he urged that the Lowells relocate to Newburyport on the north shore of the Merrimack River on the border of the failing Province of Maine.[1]
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[edit] Coat of Arms
The Harleian Society, a British publisher of the official Royal Heraldic visitations, describes the Lowell Coat of Arms from the herald's records taken in Somersetshire in the years 1573, 1591, and 1623.[2]
The English translation: A shield with black field displaying a right hand cut-off at the wrist and grabbing three arrows, one vertical and two crossed diagonally, in silver. Above the shield, a male deer's head mounted behind the ears, and between its antlers a barbed, broad arrowhead in blue. And a loose translation of the family motto, Know Your Opportunity.
Use of the Lowell Coat of Arms have varied slightly between the generations; some families omitted the pheon azzure or substituted blunted bolts for the pointed darts; and one generation, notably a pastor, used an urn in his families crest instead of the stag's head. The right for a man to bear arms traditionally passes from father to eldest son; occassinally subsequent generations change the Coat of Arms to reflect their lives or vocations better, sometimes even "quartering" their Coat of Arms with another family by way of marriage.
[edit] Notable Lowells
- Abbott Lawrence Lowell, lawyer, historian, philanthropist, and former President of Harvard University
- Amy Lowell, poet, critic, publisher, and sister of Abbott Lawrence and Percival Lowell
- Andrea Lowell, actress and model
- Augustus Lowell, businessman, philanthropist, and father of Percival, Abbott Lawrence, and Amy Lowell
- Carey Lowell, actress and wife of actor Richard Gere
- Charles Russell Lowell, Sr., Unitarian pastor, son of the The Old Judge, father of James Russell, and great-great grandfather of Robert Lowell
- Charles Russell Lowell, Union General and Civil War hero
- Charlie Lowell, keyboardist for Jars of Clay
- Chris Lowell, actor
- Delmar R. Lowell, pastor, Civil War veteran, and genealogist
- Edward Jackson Lowell, author and father of Guy Lowell
- Francis Cabot Lowell, businessman and co-founder of Lowell, Massachusetts
- Guy Lowell, architect and landscape designer
- James Russell Lowell, poet, critic, publisher, abolitionist, Harvard professor, and foreign diplomat
- Joan Lowell, actress and newspaper reporter
- John Lowell (aka The Old Judge), Federal Judge appointed by President George Washington and American Revolutionary
- John Lowell, Jr. (aka The Rebel), son of Francis Cabot Lowell and founder of the Lowell Institute
- John Amory Lowell, businessman and philanthropist
- Josephine Shaw Lowell, sister of Civil War hero Robert Gould Shaw, first woman to hold a public office in New York City, and wife of Gen. Charles Russell Lowell
- Maria White Lowell, poet, abolitionist, and wife of James Russell Lowell
- Mike Lowell, MLB baseball player for the Boston Red Sox
- Norman Lowell, founder of the extreme-right Maltese political party, Imperium Europa
- Percival Lowell, author, astronomer, founder of Lowell Observatory, and brother of Amy and Abbott Lawrence Lowell
- Ralph Lowell, businessman, philanthorpist, and founding force behind Boston's WGBH public television
- Robert Lowell, poet and lecturer
- Scott Lowell, actor
Some Lowell daughters married into other influential families with notable decendants.
- Sir Cuthbert Lowell Ackroyd, 1st Baronet, Lord Mayor of London (1955–56)
- Godfrey Lowell Cabot, businessman and philanthropist
- Julian Lowell Coolidge, mathmatician
- Abbott Lowell Cummings, noted Yale architectural historian
- William Lowell Putnam, banker, lawyer, and philanthropist
- Ava Lowle Willing, Philadelphia socialite and ex-wife o John Jacob Astor IV (RMS Titanic casualty)
[edit] Portrait Gallery
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ Greenslet, Ferris, The Lowells and Their Seven Worlds; Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1946; ISBN 0897602633.
- ^ Lowell, Delmar R., The Historic Genealogy of the Lowells of America from 1639 to 1899 (pp xiv-xxi); Rutland VT, The Tuttle Company, 1899; ISBN 9780788415678.
[edit] External links
- The Historic Genealogy of the Lowells of America from 1639 to 1899 is available for free download at Google Books.
- Lowell descendant Carol Bundy speaks with ThoughtCast about her biography of the Civil War cavalryman Charles Russell Lowell, Jr.
