Lloyd Wheaton Bowers

Who was Lloyd Wheaton Bowers?

Lloyd Wheaton Bowers was an American lawyer.

Bowers was born in Springfield, Massachusetts, the son of Samuel Dwight Bowers and Martha Wheaton Dowd. On both sides his ancestors were Puritans who had settled in New England more than two centuries before his birth.

His family moved to Brooklyn, New York, and later to Elizabeth, New Jersey, where he was tutored privately in preparation for college. Entering Yale in 1875, he graduated valedictorian of his class in 1879, where he was a member of Skull and Bones. For one year he remained a graduate student, then traveled in Europe, and despite an offer to teach at Yale University, he turned to the law profession. He graduated from the Columbia Law School, was admitted to the New York bar, and received a clerkship from a leading firm in New York City in 1882.

His efforts earned him the position of managing clerk in one year, and in 1884 he became a member of the firm. Ill health compelled him to rest, and as a result of travel to the Northwest he moved to Winona, Minnesota in October 1884. There he formed a partnership with Thomas Wilson, former chief justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court, where he practiced law until 1893. He then became the general counsel of the Chicago & North Western Railway Company, one of the great railway systems of the country, and in this office he served until 1909, when he was appointed by President Taft, an intimate friend since college and fellow Bonesman, Solicitor General of the United States.