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 * Moses Fowler House

Fowler originally came to Lafayette in 1839 from Circleville, Ohio, with his friend and business partner John Purdue (founder of Purdue University) and engaged in the dry goods business. The business lasted until 1844, when the duo parted to pursue different goals. Over the years a number of business pursuits made him very wealthy. These included the wholesale business, cattle ranching, the railroads, and banking. With his brother-in-law, Adams Earl (1819–1898), Fowler founded a branch of the Indiana State Bank in about 1860. By 1865, with Earl having departed and with Fowler as its president, the local bank was merged into the National State Bank and grew steadily until its 20-year charter expired. In 1885, a new Fowler National Bank was organized with Moses Fowler the president.

In 1861, Fowler founded the meat packing house of Culbertson, Blair and Co. in Chicago, Illinois. Around the same time, he and Earl began buying rich, level farmland in Benton County, Indiana.

In the 1870s, Fowler donated over $40,000 and was involved in moving the Benton County seat from the town of Oxford, where a square still exists, to a new town platted in 1872 and called Fowler. Although separated from Eliza towards the end of his life, Moses left her a substantial amount of his fortune, which she shared philanthropically. She donated land for a new Presbyterian church, known since 1914 as Central Presbyterian, at 7th and Columbia streets. She also gave Purdue University $60,000 for the building and $10,000 for an organ and other equipment and furnishings in what would become Eliza Fowler Hall, suitable for commencement ceremonies, lectures, and various other public programs. She did not live to see Fowler Hall completed, but it was a Purdue campus landmark for half a century. Dedicated in 1903, it was demolished in 1954; but it reappeared, at least in name and memory, as the Eliza Fowler Hall section of the present Stewart Center complex at Purdue. Both Moses and Eliza are interred in Lafayette's Spring Vale Cemetery.