Bowden, John, Dd

Bowden, John, D.D., a minister of the Protestant Episcopal Church, was born in Ireland in 1751. At an early age he came to America, and soon after entered Princeton College, where he remained two years, and then returned to Ireland. On his second visit to America he entered King's (now Columbia) College, N. Y., where he graduated in 1772, and then repaired to England for ordination. In 1774 he became assistant minister of Trinity Church, N. Y.; but after the commencement of the Revolution he retired to Norwalk, Conn., and thence to Jamaica, L. I., where he occasionally officiated. In 1784 he accepted the rectorship of the church at Norwalk, and in 1789 went to St. Croix, West Indies. Returning to the United States, he settled at Stratford, Conn., taking charge of the Episcopal Academy in Cheshire. In 1796 he declined the episcopate for the diocese of Connecticut in consequence of delicate health, and in 1802 became professor of moral philosophy, belles- lettres, and logic in Columbia College, where he remained, discharging the duties of his office "with great fidelity and acceptance," till 1817, when, on the 31st of July, he died at Ballston Spa. He published a Treatise on Episcopacy (N. Y., 1807, and often, 2 vols. 12mo):-A Full-length Portrait of Calvinism, besides a number of pamphlets, chiefly on Episcopacy and Ordination.-Sprague, Annals, v, 306.