52 Ancestors: #2 Reuben Lowell - Descended from a King

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks is a writing challenge from blogger Amy Crow Johnson of No Story Too Small.   I am participating this year, hoping to write about an ancestor at least once a week.

This year's challenge offers optional weekly themes to help me pick an ancestor to write about. This week's theme is "King" (as in Martin Luther King or Elvis Presley). However, I will use the opportunity to mention that one of our ancestral lines is considered a royal line - the Lowell family.

See "The Royal Ancestry of Percival Lowell" by Brandon Fraud and Douglas Richardson in The New England Historical and Genealogical Register, (Volume 157, October 2003, pp. 309-319) for the Lowell ancestry back to my 21st great-grandfather, King Edward I of England. (However, don't get excited; he has millions of descendants!)

The following display shows the two lines (which come together again) from which we descend from King Edward I (b. 1239, d. 1307) of England:

Edward I, King of England

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Elizabeth of England

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Margaret de Bohun

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Sir Philip Courtenay                       Elizabeth Courtenay

|                               |

Sir John Courtenay                       Sir Hugh Luttrell

|                               |

Sir Philip Courtenay                       Sir John Luttrell

|                               |

Elizabeth Courtenay    =       Sir James Luttrell

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Sir Hugh Luttrell

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Eleanor Luttrell

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Elizabeth Yorke

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Christian Percival

In about 1570, Christian Percival married Richard Lowle. These are the parents of my immigrant ancestor, 10th great-grandfather Percival Lowell. See Surname Saturday - Lowell for the descendants of Percival Lowle/Lowell down through my maternal grandfather to me.

However, I'm just using this as a jumping off point to write about a Lowell ancestor of mine who lived a short life, my third great-grandfather, Reuben Lowell.

Reuben Lowell was born on December 31, 1794, in Buckfield, Oxford County, Maine, to Thomas Lowell and Judith Farrar. He married Sarah Smith on February 28, 1820, in Topsham, Sagadahoc County, Maine, and had eight children, at least two of whom died young. Sarah (Smith) Lowell outlived her husband by decades, although I have yet to confirm her death date (sometime after 1880, and before 1895).

I find Reuben in the 1830 U.S. Census in Calais, Washington County, Maine, but he didn't live to see the next U.S. Census in 1840, dying on May 18, 1837, at just 42 years old, leaving a wife and six young children, with the youngest, my second great-grandmother, Sarah Lowell at three and a half. She lived a long life (1833-1916) and I wonder if she had any memories of her father who died so young.

I actually have an image of Reuben:

St. Stephen is a town in New Brunswick Canada,
just across the river border from Calais, Maine

Reuben Lowell
1794-1837
Lowell's Grandfather

I descend from Reuben Lowell as follows:

Reuben Lowell
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Sarah Lowell
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Lowell Copeland
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Lowell Townsend Copeland
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My mother
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Me