DOVERCOURT, a watering-place in the Harwich parliamentary division of Essex, England, immediately S.W. of Harwich, with a station between Parkeston Quay and Harwich town on the Great Eastern railway, 70 m. N.E. by E. from London. Pop. (1901) 3894. The esplanade and sea-wall front the North Sea, and there is a fine expanse of sand affording good bathing. There is also a chalybeate spa. The scenery of the neighbouring Orwell and Stour estuaries is pleasant. The church, which stands inland in the old village distinguished as Upper Dovercourt, is Early English and later; it formerly possessed a miraculous rood which became an object of pilgrimage of wide repute. It is said to have been stolen and burnt in 1532, three of the four thieves being subsequently taken and hanged.
DOW, LORENZO (1777-1834), American preacher, noted for his eccentricities of dress and manner, was born at Coventry, Connecticut, on the 16th of October 1777. He was much troubled in his youth by religious perplexities, but ultimately joined the Methodists, and in 1798 was appointed a preacher “on trial” in a New York circuit. In the following year, however, he crossed the Atlantic and preached as a missionary to the Catholics of Ireland, and thereafter was never connected officially with the ministry of the Methodist Church, though he remained essentially a Methodist in doctrine. Everywhere, in America and Great Britain, he attracted great crowds to hear and see him, and he was often persecuted as well as admired. In 1805 he visited England, introduced the system of camp meetings, and thus led the way to the formation of the Primitive Methodist Society. Dow’s enthusiasm sustained him through the incessant labours of more than thirty years, during which he preached in almost all parts of the United States. His later efforts were directed chiefly against the Jesuits; indeed he was in general a vigorous opponent of Roman Catholicism. He died in Georgetown, District of Columbia, on the 2nd of February 1834. Among his publications are: Polemical Works (1814); The Stranger in Charleston, or the Trial and Confession of Lorenzo Dow (1822); A Short Account of a Long Travel; with Beauties of Wesley (1823); and the History of a Cosmopolite; or the Four Volumes of the Rev. Lorenzo Dow’s Journal, concentrated in One, containing his Experience and Travels from Childhood to 1814 (1814; many later editions); this volume also contains “All the Polemical Works of Lorenzo.” The edition of 1854 was entitled The Dealings of God, Man, and the Devil as exemplified in the Life, Experience and Travels of Lorenzo Dow.
DOW, NEAL (1804-1897), American temperance reformer, was born at Portland, Maine, on the 20th of March 1804. His parents were Quakers and he was educated at the Friends’ School in New Bedford, Massachusetts. He subsequently became a merchant in his native city and rose to a position of importance in its business and political life. His chief interest, however, was in the temperance question, and he early attracted attention as an ardent champion of the prohibition of the sale of intoxicating drinks. He drafted the drastic Maine prohibitory law of 1851. He was mayor of Portland in 1851 and in 1855, and was a member of the Maine legislature in 1858-1859. Early in the Civil War he became colonel of the 13th Maine Volunteer Infantry. He served in General B. F. Butler’s New Orleans expedition, was commissioned brigadier-general of volunteers in April 1862, and subsequently commanded for a time the department of Florida. He was twice wounded in the attack on Port Hudson, on the 27th of May 1863, and was taken prisoner, remaining eight months in Libby and other prisons before he was exchanged. After the war he devoted a great part of his time and energy to the extension of the prohibition movement in America and England. Through his exertions the prohibitory amendment was added to the Maine constitution in 1884. In 1880 he was the candidate of the National Prohibition Party for president, polling 10,305 votes. He died at Portland on the 2nd of October 1897.
His Reminiscences were published at Portland in 1898.
DOWAGER (from the Old Fr. douagiere, mod. douairière), strictly, a widow in the enjoyment of dower. “Dowager” is also applied to widows of high rank to distinguish them from the wives of their sons, as queen-dowager, dowager-duchess, &c. The title was first used in England of Catherine of Aragon, widow of Arthur, prince of Wales, who was styled princess dowager till her marriage with Henry VIII. By transference the word is used of an elderly lady.