Norwood Penrose Hallowell

Norwood Penrose "Pen" Hallowell (April 13, 1839 – April 11, 1914) was an officer in the Union Army during the American Civil War. One of three brothers to serve with distinction during the war, he and his brother Edward Needles Hallowell both became commanders of the first all-black regiments. He is also remembered for his close friendship with and influence upon future Supreme Court justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., who was his classmate at Harvard and his comrade during the war.

Norwood Penrose Hallowell
Hallowell as a captain in the Union Army, 1862
Born	(1839-04-13)April 13, 1839 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, US
Died	April 11, 1914(1914-04-11) (aged 74) Medford, Massachusetts, US
Place of burial	Mount Auburn Cemetery Cambridge, Massachusetts
Allegiance	United States
Years of service	1861 – 1863
Rank	Colonel
Unit	20th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry
Commands held	55th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry
Battles/wars	American Civil War - Battle of Ball's Bluff - Battle of Glendale - Battle of Antietam - Second Battle of Charleston Harbor

Background and education

 

At Harvard, c. 1861

Hallowell was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1839 to Morris Longstreth Hallowell, and Hannah (Penrose).^[1] Norwood and his brothers, Edward Needles and Richard Price, were raised in a household that was strongly Quaker, and strongly abolitionist; during the Civil War, their father opened his home as a hospital for wounded Union soldiers.^[2] He was named for his ancestor Captain Bartholomew Penrose Sr. (1674-1711), who settled in the city of Philadelphia in 1698, establishing a shipyard at the invitation of William Penn that stayed in the Penrose family for 150 years.

He attended Harvard College, where he befriended Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. He graduated in 1861 and was elected the Class Orator.^[3] Their sister Anna Hallowell was a nurse during the Civil War and went on to be an education reformer.^[4]

Civil War service

Hallowell's fervent abolitionism led him to volunteer for service in the Civil War, and he inspired Holmes to do the same.^[5] He was commissioned a first lieutenant on July 10, 1861, joining the 20th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry with Holmes.^[6] Hallowell fought in the Battle of Ball's Bluff on October 21, 1861, in which he distinguished himself by leading a line of skirmishers to hold off Confederate forces. Hallowell then swam across the Potomac River, constructed a makeshift raft, and made several trips to the Virginia bank to rescue trapped Union soldiers before his raft fell apart.^[7] Hallowell was promoted to captain on November 26, 1861.^[8] He was wounded in the Battle of Glendale on June 30, 1862, and suffered more severe wounds in the Battle of Antietam on September 17.^[9] His left arm was shattered by a bullet but later saved by a surgeon; Holmes was shot in the neck. Both took refuge in a farmhouse (a historic site now known as the Royer–Nicodemus House and Farm) and were eventually evacuated.^[10]

On April 17, 1863, he was promoted to lieutenant colonel, as second-in-command (after Colonel Robert Gould Shaw) of the 54th Massachusetts, one of the first all-black regiments in the U.S.^[8] In a letter to the governor of Massachusetts, John Murray Forbes recommended Hallowell for the promotion based on his bravery, soundness of mind, and willingness to lead a black regiment despite the fact that many found the idea "unpopular."^[11] On May 30, he accepted Governor John A. Andrew's personal request that he be made colonel in command of the 55th Massachusetts, another all-black regiment.^[12] He and his regiment were stationed at Charleston Harbor and participated in the siege and eventual taking of Fort Wagner; Hallowell was one of the first to enter the fort after its abandonment.^[9] Hallowell faced continuing disability due to his wounds, and was discharged on November 2, 1863.^[8]

Later life

 

Hallowell moved to New York City, where he first worked for the commission house of Watts, Crane & Co., followed by a partnership with his brother Richard, as Hallowell Brothers and later Hallowell, Prescott & Co.^[1]

He moved to Medford, Massachusetts in 1869.^[8] He became a wool broker in Boston, and was made vice president of the National Bank of Commerce of Boston in 1886.^[13]

Personal life

Hallowell married Sarah Wharton Haydock (1846–1934),^[14] a granddaughter of Deborah Fisher Wharton and a niece of Joseph Wharton, founder of the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, in New York on January 27, 1868.^[15] They had six children together:

• Anna Norwood Hallowell (1871–1943), who married Horace Andrew Davis, grandson of Gov. John Davis.^[16][17]
• Robert Haydock Hallowell (1873–1958), who married Sarah Borland Jackson, a daughter of James Jackson.^[18]
• Norwood Penrose Hallowell (1875–1961), who married Margaret Ingersoll Bowditch, a daughter of Alfred Bowditch. After her death, he married Cornelia Fitch (née Middlebrook) Baekeland.^[19]
• John White Hallowell (1878–1927), a football player and businessman who died of typhoid fever.^[20]
• Esther Fisher Hallowell (1881–1974), who married Arthur Holdrege Morse, a son of Col. Charles Fessenden Morse.^[21]
• Susan Morris Hallowell (1882–1985), who married Lawrence Graham Brooks.^[1]

Hallowell died in Medford on April 11, 1914, two days before his 75th birthday. Holmes wrote several days later that his death had left "a great space bare for him." Hallowell had been his "oldest friend...[and was] the most generously gallant spirit and I don't know but the greatest soul I ever knew....[H]e gave the first adult impulse to my youth."^[22] African American writer Benjamin Griffith Brawley dedicated his 1921 book, A Social History of the American Negro, "to the memory of Norwood Penrose Hallowell (1839-1914), patriot." He is buried in the Hallowell family plot at Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Descendants

He was the grandfather of physiologist Hallowell Davis, and Olympic athlete Norwood Hallowell.

Legacy

In the Civil War film, Glory, Norwood and his brother were recreated as the fictional character, Major Cabot Forbes, portrayed by actor Cary Elwes.^[23][24]

Writings

• The Negro as a Soldier in the War of the Rebellion. Boston: Little, Brown & Company, 1897.

Notes

1. Rand 1890, p. 277.
2. Brawley 1921, p. vii. Senator Charles Sumner also rested there after his attack on the Senate floor.
3. Brooks, Whitmore & Usher 1886, p. 483; Brawley 1921, p. vii; White 1993, p. 31. Holmes was elected Class Poet.
4. Swing, Elizabeth Sherman (2000). "Hallowell, Anna (1831-1905), civic leader and education reformer". American National Biography. doi:10.1093/anb/9780198606697.article.0900882. ISBN 978-0-19-860669-7.
5. White 1993, pp. 31–32, 477. They initially left Harvard to do so, but returned to graduate.
6. Brooks, Whitmore & Usher 1886, p. 483; Rand 1890, p. 277.
7. Menand 2001, pp. 35–36.
8. Brooks, Whitmore & Usher 1886, p. 483.
9. Brooks, Whitmore & Usher 1886, p. 483; Brawley 1921, p. vii.
10. Menand 2001, p. 41; described in greater detail in Bowen 1944, pp. 169–170.
11. Hallowell, Norwood Penrose (1863), The Norwood Penrose Hallowell Papers, 1764-1914, Massachusetts Historical Society
12. Brooks, Whitmore & Usher 1886, p. 483; Rand 1890, p. 278.
13. Rand 1890, p. 277; Merrill & Ruchames 1981, p. 487 n.3.
14. "Mrs. N. P. Hallowell". The New York Times. June 11, 1934. Retrieved August 11, 2022.
15. Rand 1890, p. 277; Merrill & Ruchames 1981, p. 499 n.4.
16. "Anna Norwood Davis Wed". The New York Times. June 21, 1948. p. 24. Retrieved August 11, 2022.
17. "Horace A. Davis, 87, a Lawyer, Author". The New York Times. October 6, 1957. p. 84. Retrieved August 11, 2022.
18. "Robert H. Hallowell". The New York Times. June 14, 1958. p. 21. Retrieved August 11, 2022.
19. "N. P. Hallowell, Financier, was 85; Chairman of Lee Higginson Investment House Dies -- Partner Since 1905". The New York Times. February 14, 1961. p. 37. Retrieved August 11, 2022.
20. "John W. Hallowell: Head of Associated Harvard Clubs and Former Athlete Dies". The New York Times. January 6, 1927. p. 27. Retrieved April 23, 2023 – via Internet Archive.
21. "Miss Susan H. Morse Becomes Betrothed; Winston, Mass., Girl, Alumna of Bryn Mawr, Will Be Married to John Window Putnam". The New York Times. December 24, 1936. p. 15. Retrieved August 11, 2022.
22. White 1993, pp. 31, 589 n.1; Menand 2001, p. 68. Both sources quote from an April 17, 1914 letter by Oliver Wendell Holmes to Lewis Einstein.
23. Anderson, John (September 2019). "Medford Historical Society and Museum Newsletter" (PDF). Medford Historical. Retrieved April 23, 2023.
24. Dwyer, Sam (June 6, 2012). "Inside Boston's Most Exclusive 'Old Boys Clubs'". AmericanINNO. Retrieved April 23, 2023.

References

• Bowen, Catherine Drinker (1944), Yankee From Olympus: Justice Holmes and His Family, Little, Brown & Company.
• Brawley, Benjamin (1921), A Social History of the American Negro, New York: The Macmillan Company.
• Brooks, Charles; Whitmore, William Henry; Usher, James M. (1886), History of the Town of Medford, Middlesex County, Massachusetts: from its first settlement in 1630 to 1855; revised, enlarged and brought down to 1885, Rand, Avery.
• Menand, Louis (2001), The Metaphysical Club: A Story of Ideas in America, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, ISBN 0-374-52849-7.
• Merrill, Walter M.; Ruchames, Louis, eds. (1981), The Letters of William Lloyd Garrison: To Rouse the Slumbering Land, 1868-1879, Harvard University Press, ISBN 978-0-674-52666-2.
• Rand, John C., ed. (1890), One of a Thousand: A Series of Biographical Sketches of One Thousand Representative Men Resident in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Boston: First National Publishing Company.
• White, G. Edward (1993), Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes: Law and the Inner Self, New York: Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-510128-6.
• Hallowell, Norwood Penrose (1863), The Norwood Penrose Hallowell Papers, 1764-1914, Massachusetts Historical Society.