640 AUGUSTUS LOWELL. 



Lowell's father. In consequence the father had come himself into con- 

 nection with them, and it seemed well that the son should do likewise. 

 He was therefore sent to Lowell to become practically acquainted with 

 the running of the mills. The house in which he boarded was kept 

 by a woman who was destined through her own exertions to no little 

 notoriety later on. She had a sister who had a beautiful voice. This 

 voice was one of the few alleviations of the place to the boarders, and 

 the same voice, more ably than considerately exploited by the boarding- 

 house keeper, proved the family's making. For the boarding-house 

 keeper was so successful in her management that she soon became the 

 proprietress of the Revere House in Boston, and next emerged by the 

 help of the voice at her entertainments into one of the chief lights of 

 Newport and New York society. Such in a nutshell was the career of 

 Mrs. Paran Stevens. 



After passing a year at the mills, Mr. Lowell in 1853 became engaged 

 to and in 1854 married Katharine Bigelow Lawrence, the youngest 

 daughter of the Hon. Abbot* Lawrence, then recently returned from his 

 post at the Court of St. James. Mr. Lawrence was as closely identified 

 with the then nascent cotton manufactures of New England as was Mr. 

 John Amory Lowell. Mr. Augustus Lowell thus found himself doubly 

 involved in them, first by birth and then by marriage. For the two 

 centres of the industry were the towns of Lowell and Lawrence, the one 

 named as I have said after his father's uncle, the other after his father- 

 in4aw. On his engagement Mr. Lawrence put him in with J. M. Beebe, 

 Morgan & Co. Thus for the years preceding and following his marriage 

 he was busy learning the details of what was to make Massachusetts' 

 mercantile greatness, her manufacturing interests. With one exception, 

 from this period to the end of his life, he was always associated in one 

 way or another with the Lowell and Lawrence mills. He was succes- 

 sively treasurer, that is, the executive head, of more than one of them, 

 and president of many others. 



Tiie exception occurred some time after Mr. Lawrence's death, whicli 

 happened in 1855, when Mr. Lowell entered into business ventures of 

 his own, forming a partnership with Mr. Franklin H. Story for the pur- 

 pose of engaging in the East Indian trade. For some years this trade 

 was profitable, but the firm was brought to a close by the panic of 1857, 

 for though the firm did not suffer the East Indian trade did. The friend- 

 ship remained, and among the pleasantest incidents of the writer's boyhood 

 was the acquaintance of this genial gentleman. By a coincidence he 

 died only about a week before his former partner. 



