Francis Cabot Lowell

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.

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 member of the Boston Common Council 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. 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.