His paternal ancestors, three O'Nolan brothers (James, John and William Nowlan), emigrated from Ireland in the 18th century and helped settle southwest Virginia, changing the spelling of the family name to "Nowlin.
He became assistant editor of the new The Times newspaper in Wytheville in 1856, and the following year was a featured speaker at Fourth of July festivities in the Odd Fellows lodge, but left town by 1858.
[7] His brother Dr. John B. W. Nowlin also served in the Confederate Army in southwest Virginia and into Tennessee, and later established a residence and practice in Nashville.
[9] In 1871 voters elected Abner Nowlin to the Virginia Senate, where he served until 1875, when he was succeeded by fellow Confederate veteran John Calhoun Dickenson.
[10] In the 1900 census, after his wife's death and their daughter Lila's marriage, Nowlin was listed both as a lawyer and as the assistant superintendent of the Central Union Mission (founded in 1884 and D.C.'s oldest social service agency).