Henry Clay McDowell, Junior., was a Virginia lawyer and federal judge.
Background
He was the son of Henry Clay McDowell, proprietor of Ashland Farm and one of Kentucky"s most notable citizens, and Anne Clay, daughter of Henry Clay, Junior. One of seven children, he was a brother of social reformer, Madeline McDowell Breckinridge and of Thomas Clay McDowell, renowned Thoroughbred racehorse owner/breeder and trainer who won the 1902 Kentucky Derby.
Education
Born in Louisville, Kentucky, McDowell graduated from Yale University in 1881, and from the University of Virginia School of Law in 1887.
Career
McDowell and Bullitt organized the Police Guard of Big Stone Gap. The New York Times reported in 1901 that the author John Fox, Junior., also from Big Stone Gap, based a character in his book Blue-grass and Rhododendron: Outdoors in Old Kentucky on McDowell. The book is dedicated to McDowell, Bullitt, and Horace Ethelbert Cox, as "The First Three Captains of the Guard."
On the recommendation of Fox and Campbell Slemp, McDowell received a recess appointment from Theodore Roosevelt on November 12, 1901, to a seat vacated by John Paul on the United States District Court for the Western District of Virginia.
His nomination was confirmed by the United States Senate on December 18, 1901.
As judge, McDowell had a home in the Diamond Hill section of Lynchburg, Virginia. In 1902, the Times reported that Judge McDowell had sentenced a labor organizer to jail for eight months for organizing activity aimed at the Virginia Iron Coal & Coke Company.
The late Judge H. Emory Widener, Junior., in the foreword to the Washington & Lee Law Review"s 1998 remembrance of Fourth Circuit judges, noted that Fox had helped convince Roosevelt to give the judgeship to McDowell, and went on to tell this story about a trial at the federal courthouse in Abingdon, Virginia:
John South. Mosby while working in the Justice Department supported McDowell for nomination to the Supreme Court, or at least to the Court of Appeals. McDowell assumed senior status on September 1, 1931, and was succeeded by John Paul, Junior., son of his predecessor.