 |
 |
 |
|
|
|
Charles Frederick Stowell, son of Thomas P. and Henrietta (Fowler) Stowell, was born in Owego, N. Y., February 28, 1853, and descends from an English family who emigrated to New England in the early history of this country. Thomas P. Stowell was prominent in the fire insurance business, being connected with the Aetna Fire Insurance Company for about twenty years; he lived in Rochester, N.Y., where he died in February, 1896.
Charles F. Stowell was educated in the public schools and Free Academy of Rochester, was graduated as a civil engineer from the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute at Troy in 1879, and for five years thereafter was associated in a professional capacity with Charles Hilton and the Hilton Bridge Construction Company, bridge builders. In 1884 he was appointed as bridge engineer of the New York State Board of Railroad Commissioners and held the position until 1892. His duties consisted of examining plans and strains of all railroad bridges in the State and reporting as to their safety. The results of his valuable labors were published by the board in 1891, in a volume of 1,880 pages, and covers outline sketches of every railroad bridge then in the State, with the strains of each member of the bridge, a tabulation of sizes of each member and recommendations for strengthening where weakness was found. As a result of that report probably one-half of the railroad bridges in the State were strengthened or rebuilt, and since then no railway bridge in New York has broken down.
Since 1892 Mr. Stowell has been a consulting bridge engineer and is now a member of the firm of Stowell & Cunningham. He is a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers. October 10, 1882, he married Emily A., daughter of Thomas Blossom, of Canandaigua, N. Y., a prominent railroad man and identified with the Rochester Water Works. They have two children: Grace Elizabeth and Thomas Charles. Mrs. Stowell's family were early Puritan settlers of Massachusetts and prominent in public life. Her grandfather, Col. William Blossom, was a noted hotel keeper in Canandaigua.
