Rowland Ebenezer Trowbridge

Rowland Ebenezer Trowbridge (June 18, 1821 – April 20, 1881) was an American politician and farmer from Michigan who served multiple terms in the United States House of Representatives and later as commissioner of Indian Affairs. He was born in Horseheads, Chemung County, New York, to Stephen Van Rensselaer Trowbridge (1794–1859) and Elizabeth Conkling (1797–1873). In the first year of his life, in 1821, he moved with his parents and siblings to Oakland County in the Michigan Territory, where the family settled on a farm in what is now Troy, Michigan. He was one of twelve children; among his siblings were William Petit Trowbridge (1828–1892), who became a noted mechanical engineer and Union general, and Luther Stephen Trowbridge (1836–1912), who also served as a general during the Civil War. Raised in a frontier farming environment, he was shaped early by the agricultural life that would remain central to his identity and later public service.

Trowbridge pursued higher education at Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio, where he formed friendships with classmates who would later become prominent national figures, including future President Rutherford B. Hayes and future Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court Stanley Matthews. He graduated from Kenyon College in 1841. Although he initially intended to study law, problems with his eyesight forced him to abandon those plans, and he returned to agricultural pursuits. In 1848 he settled in Thorndale, Michigan, where he resumed farming and began to participate in local affairs, serving as town supervisor. In 1851 he married Mary Ann Satterlee, a native of Birmingham, Michigan. The couple had four children: Susan Elisabeth (born 1852), Stephen Van Rensselaer (born 1855), Tillman Conklin (born 1857), and Samuel Satterlee (born 1860).

That same year, 1851, Trowbridge returned to his parents’ home county in Oakland County and continued as a farmer while expanding his involvement in public life. Aligning with the emerging Republican Party in the 1850s, he was elected to the Michigan Senate, where he represented a district including Bloomfield, Michigan, from 1856 to 1860. During this period he combined legislative service with the management of his farm, reflecting his long-standing commitment to agricultural interests. In 1860 he and his family moved to Mary Ann’s hometown of Birmingham, Michigan, where he traded his Bloomfield farm for a mill, further diversifying his economic activities while remaining closely tied to the agricultural and rural economy of the state.

In 1860, Trowbridge was elected as a Republican from Michigan’s 4th congressional district to the 37th United States Congress. He served in the House of Representatives from March 4, 1861, to March 3, 1863, during the opening years of the Civil War. After the 1860 census, congressional redistricting in Michigan created a new 5th congressional district, and in 1862 Trowbridge ran for reelection in that district. He was defeated by Democrat Augustus C. Baldwin. Remaining active in Republican politics, he stood again in 1864, this time defeating Baldwin and winning election to the 39th Congress. He was reelected in 1866 to the 40th Congress, serving from March 4, 1865, to March 3, 1869. Over the course of his nonconsecutive terms, he represented Michigan’s 4th congressional district from 1861 to 1863 and again from 1865 to 1869.

During his later service in the House, Trowbridge became particularly associated with agricultural policy. In the 40th United States Congress he served as chairman of the Committee on Agriculture, a position from which he helped shape federal policy affecting farmers and rural communities at a time of post–Civil War reconstruction and economic transition. His work on the committee reflected both his personal background as a farmer and his broader interest in the development of the nation’s agricultural resources. Despite his influence in this area, he was an unsuccessful candidate for renomination in 1868 and left Congress at the close of his term in March 1869.

After leaving Congress, Trowbridge returned to private life and again devoted himself primarily to farming. In 1873 he purchased a farm in Lansing, Michigan, continuing the agricultural pursuits that had framed much of his life before and between his periods of public service. Although largely withdrawn from elective office during the 1870s, he remained connected to national political circles through his longstanding friendship with Rutherford B. Hayes, his former Kenyon College classmate.

Trowbridge’s political career resumed briefly at the national level when Hayes became President of the United States in 1877. Drawing on their collegiate association and Trowbridge’s experience in public affairs, Hayes appointed him commissioner of Indian Affairs in 1880. Trowbridge served in that federal post from 1880 to 1881, during the closing phase of the Hayes administration. His tenure as commissioner of Indian Affairs marked his final role in federal service and came after a lifetime in which he had alternated between agricultural work and public office.

Rowland Ebenezer Trowbridge died on April 20, 1881, in Birmingham, Michigan. He was interred in Greenwood Cemetery in Birmingham. Throughout his life he remained closely identified with Michigan’s agricultural communities while also playing a significant role in state and national politics during a period of civil conflict and reconstruction.