Sylvanus B. Lowry (July 24, 1824 – 1865) was an American Democratic political boss, newspaper publisher and pioneer in St. Cloud, Minnesota before the American Civil War. He moved there from Kentucky, bringing slaves with him as laborers. He was a profiteer of slavery-related-enterprises.[1] He was elected to the Territorial Council, as the first president of the town council (the office of city mayor did not yet exist), and to the Minnesota State Senate in 1862.
Repeatedly attacked in writing by the abolitionist newspaper publisher Jane Swisshelm, he found his political influence reduced. He started a rival paper The Union. He died young in 1865.
- ^ Christopher P. Lehman, Slavery's Reach: Southern Slaveholders in the North Star State (St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2019), 19.