Orin Fowler

Orin Fowler (July 29, 1791 – September 3, 1852) was a U.S. representative and anti-smoking activist from Massachusetts.

Biography

Born in Lebanon, Connecticut, Fowler pursued classical studies and attended Williams College, Williamstown, Massachusetts. He graduated from Yale College in 1814. He studied theology and pursued extensive missionary work in the Valley of the Mississippi. Finally settled as a minister in Plainfield, Connecticut, in 1820. He moved to Fall River, Massachusetts, in 1829, where he was installed as pastor of the Congregational Church in 1831. Wrote a history of Fall River in 1841. He served in the State senate in 1848.

Fowler was elected as a Whig to the Thirty-first and Thirty-second Congresses and served from March 4, 1849, until his death in Washington, D.C., September 3, 1852. He was interred in the North Burial Ground, Fall River, Massachusetts. The former Fowler School in Fall River was named in his honor; it closed and was consolidated into the Vivieros School in the early 2000s.

Anti-smoking

Fowler was a leading opponent of tobacco-smoking. In 1842, he authored A Disquisition on the Evils of Using Tobacco.

Selected publications

A Disquisition on the Evils of Using Tobacco (1842) History of Fall River: With notices of Freetown and Tiverton (1862)