Robert E. McDowell Biography


	This biography appears on pages 1493-1494 in "History of South 
	Dakota" by Doane Robinson, Vol. II (1904) and was scanned, 
	OCRed and edited by Maurice Krueger, mkrueger@iw.net.

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	ROBERT E. McDOWELL, who is private secretary of United States 
Senator Robert J. Gamble, of South Dakota, is a native of the stat eof 
Wisconsin, having been born near Fox Lake, Dodge county, on the 21st day 
of December, 1866. He is the son of Samuel C. and Margaret J. (Gamble) 
McDowell, the former of whom was born near Downpatrick, County Down, 
Ireland, on the 12th of July, 1832, while the latter was born in the 
same county, near Belfast, on the 16th day of May, 1838. The father of 
the subject came to the United States when seventeen years of age, 
having received excellent educational advantages in the Emerald Isle, 
and was successfully engaged in teaching for a number of years in New 
York and Wisconsin. He served in the war of the Rebellion, enlisting as 
a private in Company D, Eighth (Eagle Regiment) Wisconsin Volunteer 
Infantry, and was honorably discharged from the service as first 
lieutenant, having served some three years and nine months. During two 
years .of his service he acted as adjutant of the regiment. While 
serving with his regiment, it took part in over thirty engagements and 
battles, in which were included a number of the most memorable battles 
of the war. On return from the war Mr. McDowell located on a farm in the 
town of Trenton, near Fox Lake, Wisconsin becoming one of the honored 
and influential citizens of that section, removing in 1901 to the 
village of Fox Lake. He served as a member of the Wisconsin legislature, 
and held a number of local offices at different times. In politics he is 
a Republican, and fraternally is commander of the Grand Army of the 
Republic post. His wife mother of the subject, is a sister of United 
States Senator Gamble, and of the late John R. Gamble, member of 
congress from South Dakota, and Hugh S. Gamble, all of Yankton, South 
Dakota. Jennie B., a sister of the subject, born February, 11, 1870, 
resides with her parents at Fox Lake, Wisconsin. 

	Robert E. McDowell secured his preliminary educational training in 
the public schools, and supplemented the same by a course in Wayland 
Academy at Beaver Dam, Wisconsin, graduating in 1887; afterward 
continuing his studies at Yankton College, and Bryant & Stratton 
Business College in Chicago. He took a position in 1889 in the law 
offices of Gamble Brothers at Yankton, South Dakota territory (the firm 
consisting of the late John R. Gamble and the present United States 
Senator Robert J. Gamble), studied law and was admitted to the bar of 
the state of South Dakota. He acted as secretary to Senator Gamble while 
the latter was a member of the house of representatives in the fifty-
fourth congress, and thereafter he was for two years engaged in the 
active practice of his profession in Yankton, being associated with Hon. 
John Holman, under the firm name of Holman & McDowell. He again acted as 
private secretary to Mr. Gamble during the fifty-sixth congress, and has 
continued to act as such since the latter's election to the United 
States senate in 1901. 

	The subject is a staunch adherent of the Republican party, is 
actively identified with the Masonic fraternity, in which he has 
advanced to the thirty-second degree of the Scottish Rite, holding 
membership in Oriental Consistory, No. 1, in Yankton; is a member of El 
Riad Temple, Nobles of the Mystic Shrine, in Sioux Falls; is a member of 
Phoenix Lodge, No. 37, Knights of Pythias, and of Yankton Lodge, No. 1, 
Ancient Order of United Workmen, in the same city. He and his wife are 
members of the Congregational church in Yankton. 

	On June 6, 1900, Mr. McDowell was married in the Zion Reformed 
church at Hagerstown, Maryland, to Miss Edith Ellen Eyerly. of 
Hagerstown, she being a daughter of Hon. George W. Eyerly, an old-time 
resident and prominent merchant of that city, she is also a sister of 
Prof. Elmer K. Eyerly, a member of the faculty of the State Agricultural 
College of South Dakota.