Francis Cabot Lowell (January 7, 1855 – March 6, 1911) was a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit and of the United States Circuit Courts for the First Circuit and previously was a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts.

Early life

Lowell was born on January 7, 1855, in Boston, Massachusetts. He was the only son of George Gardner Lowell (1830–1885) and Mary Ellen ( Parker) Lowell (1832–1915), a daughter of James Parker. His sister, Anna Parker Lowell, married their distant cousin and Francis' law partner, A. Lawrence Lowell, the 22nd President of Harvard University. His paternal grandfather was industrialist Francis Cabot Lowell, Jr. (son of Francis Cabot Lowell, namesake of Lowell, Massachusetts), and his paternal uncle was historian Edward Jackson Lowell. He received an Artium Baccalaureus degree in 1876 from Harvard College and a Bachelor of Laws in 1879 from Harvard Law School.

Career

Lowell entered private practice in Boston from 1880 to 1898 with his well-known cousin A. Lawrence Lowell. He was private secretary to Justice Horace Gray of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts from 1880 to 1882. He was a city councilman for Boston from 1889 to 1891. He was a member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives in 1895.

Federal judicial service

Lowell was nominated by President William McKinley on January 5, 1898, to a seat on the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts vacated by Judge Thomas Leverett Nelson. He was confirmed by the United States Senate on January 10, 1898, and received his commission the same day. His service terminated on April 15, 1905, due to his elevation to the First Circuit. Lowell was nominated by President Theodore Roosevelt on February 15, 1905, to the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit and the United States Circuit Courts for the First Circuit, to a new joint seat authorized by 33 Stat. 611. He was confirmed by the Senate on February 23, 1905, and received his commission the same day. His service terminated on March 6, 1911, due to his death in Boston.

Personal life

On November 27, 1882, Lowell was married to Cornelia Prime Baylies (1859–1922) in New York City. Cornelia, who was born in Newport, Rhode Island, was a daughter of New York merchant Edmund Lincoln Baylies and Nathalie Elizabeth ( Ray) Baylies. Her brother was the prominent New York lawyer Edmund L. Baylies. Among her first cousins were Elizabeth Livingston Cavendish-Bentinck (the wife of George Cavendish-Bentinck), Ruth Livingston Mills (the wife of Ogden Mills), and Robert Ray Hamilton. He was elected a member of the American Antiquarian Society in 1895. Judge Lowell died suddenly on March 6, 1911, at his home on Beacon Street in Boston. His widow died in 1922.

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