Abram L. Lowell Papers

Abram Leland Lowell (1832-1882) was born in Chester, VT and educated at Harvard University (class of 1858). He studied medicine at New York University (graduated in 1860). He worked as a surgeon at Bellevue Hospital and the Charity Hospital. During the Civil War, Lowell served in Army hospitals and later as a surgeon for the Pension Bureau. Moving to New York in 1871, he worked at St. Peter's Hospital as a surgeon. His obituary in the New York Times includes a tribute from the records of the hospital, praising his "uncommon skill, close attention and kind feelings...toward the patients of this institution, [and] his extraordinary interest and benevolence in following them, when discharged from the surgical wards into their own humble dwellings, and there assisting their complete restoration or administering to their comfort."

Abram had two sisters: Harriet and Helen. Harriet Whiting Lowell (1827-1907) married Joseph Barrett (1824-1910) in 1853. He was a noted biographer of Abraham Lincoln, journalist of the Cincinnati Gazette, politician, and Commissioner of Pensions in Washington, D.C. They had 1 child. Helen Miriam Lowell (1833-1911) married George H. Hilton (d. 1901) in 1853. He was a dry goods merchant and hotel proprietor at Lowell Lake, both in the Chester, VT area. They had 4 children.

Their parents were Abram Lowell (Sr.) (1794-1876) and Miriam L. Whiting (1796-1852). Lowell Sr. was a doctor who opened his practice in Chester, Vermont in 1818 and enjoyed "an extensive and lucrative practice" for almost 50 years. Tributes printed in regional newspapers at the time of his death called him an eminent physician, accomplished gardener, "eccentric in his ideas," and "the wealthiest man in town."