James D. Lowman Family Photograph Collection, circa 1880-1917

James Lowman was an early Seattle business and civic leader. He was born in Leitersburg, Maryland on October 5, 1856. After teaching school for one year in Maryland, he moved to Seattle at age twenty where his uncle, Henry Yesler, employed him as an assistant wharf master. In 1882, he used his saved earnings to purchase a half interest in the bookstore W.H. Pumphey. After two years, he bought his partner’s share in the business and established the Lowman and Hanford Stationary and Printing Company with an establishment at Front and Cherry Streets.

Lowman and Hanford Stationary operated as a bookseller, binder and newspaper printer, but also sold sewing machines, typewriters, pianos and organs. During the 1889 Seattle fire, Lowman loaded wagons with his printing equipment and transported it to his home on Spring Street for safekeeping. The business was destroyed in the fire, and Lowman was a key contributor in rebuilding Seattle, including the Lowman and Hanford Building at 616 First Avenue and the new Seattle Theater.

Mary Emery Lowman was born in Williamsport, Pennsylvania on November 1, 1863. She married James Lowman in Seattle in 1881, and the couple resided at 11th Avenue and Marion Street, later 820 Boren Avenue. The Lowman home was the center of much of Seattle’s early social life, and they enjoyed travel, theater, fishing, golf, pets, and entertaining friends and family. Mary Lowman was active with the Red Cross, the Children’s Orthopedic Hospital and the Seattle Tennis Club. She died on September 4, 1939 at the Lowman residence after a brief illness and was survived at the time of her death by two sisters, a nephew and her husband. James Lowman died in Seattle on November 18, 1947 at the age of 91.