The Lowell Institute School at Northeastern University

in the department of pastoral care.”20 He continued as the pastor of that church for forty-two years and delivered his farewell sermon, The Advantages of God’s Presence with his People in an Expedition against their Enemies, on May 22, 1755.21 John died on May 15, 1767, at the age of sixty-three years. He was buried in the Old Hill Cemetery at Newburyport.

Judge John Lowell (sixth American generation) Judge John Lowell, the second and surviving son of Reverend John Lowell,22 was born in Newburyport on June 17, 1743. A 1760 graduate of Harvard College, he settled in Newburyport before moving to Boston in 1776. Although he made a vow with his college friend the Honorable John Jackson never to marry, he ended up marrying three times, the first time in a double ceremony on the same evening in Salem, Massachusetts, along with Jackson and his bride.

In 1792, Harvard College honored him by awarding him an L.L.D. He served Harvard as a Fellow from 1784 to 1802. President Washington appointed him as a judge of the U.S. District Court of Massachusetts in 1789, and in 1801, President Adams appointed him Chief Justice of the U.S. Circuit Court, which included Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island. In 1776, he was elected Representative of the General Court from Newburyport and in 1778 from Boston. In 1779 he was chosen to be a member of the convention for framing the constitution of Massachusetts. He took a leading role and caused to be placed in the constitution the clause “All men are born free and equal, and have certain natural, essential and inalienable rights among which may be reckoned the right of enjoying and defending their lives and liberties.”23 In 1782 and 1783 Judge John Lowell was elected a delegate to Congress.

He introduced into the Bill of Rights the clause by which slavery was abolished in Massachusetts and advocated its adoption in the convention.24 When it was adopted he exclaimed: “Now there is no longer slavery in Massachusetts, it is abolished and I will render my services as a lawyer The Lowell Family l 9