Asa Fowler (1811 - 1885)
Born at Pembroke (NH), died at San Rafael (CA).
Teacher, lawyer, state legislator, jurist.
Portrait by U.D. Tenney.
Presented to the State, before 1893.

Fowler was a farm laborer until fourteen years of age, and he had a minimum of district schooling. At age fourteen (1825), Fowler was injured or became ill and for a time he could not perform manual labor. Fowler studied at Blanchard Academy, in Pembroke, while he recovered his health.

Fowler was studying with the goal of becoming a common-school teacher; but, while at Blanchard Academy, he became determined to gain a liberal education. After sixty weeks of intensive study (beginning with Latin), Fowler qualified to enter Dartmouth College as a sophomore in 1831. He graduated with the Class of 1833, and was said to have been always prepared for recitation and never to have missed a class while at Dartmouth (Bell, p. 111).

Following graduation from Dartmouth, Fowler became principal of the academy at Topsfield (MA). He stayed at Topsfield for only one school term, however. In Winter 1834 Fowler began to read law, first with James Sullivan at Pembroke (NH), then with Charles H. Peaslee at Concord (NH).

In 1835 Fowler was elected Clerk to the New Hampshire Senate; he held the post until 1841. At the same time Fowler was encouraged by Peaslee to do much of the firm's legal work. Fowler learned quickly , and in 1837 he opened his own law practice at Concord. A year later (1838) Fowler and Franklin Pierce became law partners, and their firm operated successfully for six years (1838/44). The two men had skills which meshed well, with Fowler handling the in-house office work and researching cases and preparing them for trial, while Pierce was a more public figure who appeared more frequently than Fowler in court.

Fowler was elected a State Representative in 1845, 1847, and 1848. On August 1, 1855 Fowler was appointed a justice of the State Superior Court. He resigned this appointment in 1861, and he was appointed a delegate to the Peace Congress, a last-ditch effort to avoid the Civil War held at Washington, D.C. He was also asked to be Solicitor for Merrimack County (served 1861/5).

In 1865 Fowler was asked to be a member of a three-member commission charged with revising the laws of the State of New Hampshire. The commissioners worked diligently, and presented their recommendations to the legislature at the June 1867 session.

In addition to his legal assignments Fowler was a director of the State Capital Bank, and president of both the First National Bank and the Manchester & Lawrence Railroad. Active in many civic organizations, he served his community in myriad ways. During his forty years of professional achievement Fowler traveled here and abroad, as a way to relax. He died in California on one such trip.

Reference: Charles H. Bell, The Bench and Bar of New Hampshire (1894), pp. 111 - 113.