Percival Lowell Percival Lowell Percival Lawrence Lowell (; March 13, 1855 – November 12, 1916) was an American businessman, author, mathematician, and astronomer who fueled speculation that there were canals on Mars. He founded the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona and formed the beginning of the effort that led to the discovery of Pluto 14 years after his death. Percival Lowell was born on March 13, 1855, in Boston, Massachusetts, the first son of Augustus Lowell and Katherine Bigelow Lowell. A member of the Brahmin Lowell family, his siblings included the poet Amy Lowell, the educator and legal scholar Abbott Lawrence Lowell,
A. Lawrence Lowell including Widener Library, the Memorial Church and many others, had transformed the university's infrastructure. Also among the new campus buildings of Lowell's tenure was the President's House (later called Loeb House) at 17 Quincy Street, which Lowell commissioned from his cousin Guy Lowell. It remained the residence of succeeding Harvard Presidents until 1971. Lowell is remembered as well for a donation of one million dollars to help found the Harvard Society of Fellows. Years before, he had given $10,500 to purchase a 13-inch telescope for his deceased brother Percival's Lowell Observatory, which in 1930 gained fame as the Pluto Discovery