Representative William Henry Harrison Stowell

William Henry Harrison Stowell (July 26, 1840 – April 27, 1922) was a 19th-century congressman, merchant, and industrialist whose career connected Virginia, Vermont, Massachusetts, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. A member of the Republican Party, he served three consecutive terms as a Representative from Virginia in the United States Congress from 1871 to 1877, contributing to the legislative process during a significant period in American history.

Stowell was born in Windsor, Vermont, on July 26, 1840. During his youth, his family relocated to Massachusetts, and he attended the public schools of Boston. He completed his secondary education at the Boston Latin School, from which he graduated in 1860. After graduation, he entered mercantile pursuits, gaining early experience in business that would shape his later career as an industrialist.

Following the Civil War, Stowell moved to Virginia in 1865, during the early years of Reconstruction. There he continued his commercial activities and soon entered public service. In 1869 he was appointed collector of internal revenue for the fourth district of Virginia, a federal position that placed him at the center of the postwar fiscal and administrative restructuring of the region. His work in revenue collection and his alignment with Republican Reconstruction policies helped establish his standing within the party and among Virginia’s Unionist and Republican constituencies.

In 1870 Stowell was elected as a Republican to the United States House of Representatives from Virginia, winning his first term unopposed. He served in the House from March 4, 1871, to March 3, 1877, encompassing the Forty-second, Forty-third, and Forty-fourth Congresses. During this period he participated in the democratic process at the national level and represented the interests of his constituents as Congress addressed Reconstruction, civil rights, and the reintegration of the former Confederate states. He secured reelection in 1872 with 65.61 percent of the vote, defeating Conservative candidate Phillip Watkins McKinney, and again in 1874 with 63.9 percent of the vote, defeating Democrat William Hodges Mann and Independent C. H. Porter. While serving in Congress, Stowell was also active in party leadership; he served as chairman of the Virginia Republican Party from 1872 to 1873 and was a delegate to the Republican National Convention in 1876, reflecting his prominence within the party at both the state and national levels.

After leaving Congress in 1877, Stowell gradually shifted his focus from politics to industry and finance. In 1880 he moved to Appleton, Wisconsin, where he engaged in paper manufacturing, participating in the development of one of the state’s key industries. In 1886 he relocated to Duluth, Minnesota, then an emerging industrial and transportation center on Lake Superior. There he expanded his business interests to include both paper and steel manufacturing, contributing to the industrial growth of the Upper Midwest. Stowell also entered banking, serving as president of the Manufacturers Bank of West Duluth from 1889 to 1895, a role that underscored his influence in regional commercial and financial affairs.

In addition to his business and political activities, Stowell pursued work in journalism later in life. He spent a period in Paris, France, where he served as a correspondent for various newspapers, providing an international dimension to a career otherwise rooted in American politics and industry. In 1914 he moved to Amherst, Massachusetts, marking his final relocation after a lifetime of geographic and professional mobility. William Henry Harrison Stowell died in Amherst on April 27, 1922. He was interred in Woodlawn Cemetery in New York City, closing a life that spanned the Civil War, Reconstruction, and the rapid industrialization of the United States.