Lowell W. Haven was born around 1843 in Woonsocket, Rhode Island, to Parker Haven and Caroline Childs. He moved to Ludlow, Vermont, by the early 1860s. He enlisted in the Union army on September 9, 1861, and mustered in as a private in Company I of the 2nd Vermont Infantry on October 18. The regiment took part in the Battles of Antietam, Fredericksburg, Gettysburg, and the Wilderness. Haven was wounded on May 5, 1864, at the Wilderness, but he eventually recovered and rejoined his regiment. In December 1864, he prayed to be “sparred to see this awful Rebellion crushed & to live in peace once more.” He mustered out in Washington, D.C., on July 15, 1865.
Haven settled in Jamaica, Vermont, after the war, and he married Gertrude Waterman there on October 1, 1866. They had at least two children: Webb, born around 1868; and Lee, born around 1870. Haven worked as a farmer, and the family lived in his father’s household until at least 1870. He applied for a federal pension in July 1870 and eventually secured one. He died in Ludlow, Vermont, on March 3, 1879.