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Below is a family biography included in the Biographical Annals of Montgomery County, Pennsylvania published in 1904 by T. S. Benham & Company and The Lewis Publishing Company; Elwood Roberts, Editor. These biographies are valuable for genealogy research in discovering missing ancestors or filling in the details of a family tree. Family biographies often include far more information than can be found in a census record or obituary. Details will vary with each biography but will often include the date and place of birth, parent names including mothers' maiden name, name of wife including maiden name, her parents' names, name of children (including spouses if married), former places of residence, occupation details, military service, church and social organization affiliations, and more. There are often ancestry details included that cannot be found in any other type of genealogical record.
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LEWIS M. LOWNES, of Norristown, Pennsylvania, is a native of Centre Square, where he was born August 15, 1867, on the family homestead at that place. He was educated at the public schools of the township of Whitpain, Worcester and Gwynedd townships, and in the Loller Academy, a famous school at Hatboro, in Montgomery county, Pennsylvania. He then served an apprenticeship to hat making in West Perkiomen township. Mr. Lownes went to Fall River, Massachusetts, where he was employed for several years in manufacturing hats in one of the extensive establishments at that place, and later was similarly engaged at Newark, New Jersey, and Orange Valley, Connecticut, remaining there some time, all of which was spent in his occupation of hat making.
In 1890 he came to Norristown, in his native county, and opened an establishment for manufacturing hats on East Main street, where he is now permanently located, having purchased the property in which he conducts his business, one of the most eligibly located business places in Norristown. Mr. Lownes has been very successful in his business, having provided himself with the latest machinery for doing first class work. He has acquired an excellent reputation for the product he turns out, and because of his up-to- date methods in general. His patrons are among the best and most substantial citizens of Norristown and of the surrounding country. Mr. Lownes is not only a thoroughly wide awake business man, but he is an inventor of considerable note, and many patents have been granted to him in this and other countries for his improvements in the manufacture of hats.
In politics Mr. Lownes is an active Republican, never missing an election, although he is too much devoted to his business interests to seek the emoluments of official position. He is unmarried. Fraternally he is a member of the Order of Knights of the Golden Eagle, and of the Junior Order of United American Mechanics. He is a Lutheran in religion.
(For the early history of the Lownes family see the biographical sketch of Robert C. Lownes, elsewhere in this work).
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This family biography is one of more than 1,000 biographies included in the Biographical Annals of Montgomery County, Pennsylvania published in 1904 by T. S. Benham & Company and The Lewis Publishing Company. For the complete description, click here: Biographical Annals of Montgomery County, Pennsylvania
View additional Montgomery County, Pennsylvania family biographies here: Montgomery County, Pennsylvania Biographies
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