42 Facts About James Bowdoin

James Bowdoin II was an American political and intellectual leader from Boston, Massachusetts, during the American Revolution and the following decade.

James Bowdoin initially gained fame and influence as a wealthy merchant.

James Bowdoin served in both branches of the Massachusetts General Court from the 1750s to the 1770s.

James Bowdoin authored a highly political report on the 1770 Boston Massacre that has been described by historian Francis Walett as one of the most influential pieces of writing that shaped public opinion in the colonies.

James Bowdoin was elected president of the constitutional convention that drafted the state's constitution in 1779, and ran unsuccessfully for governor in 1780, losing to John Hancock.

James Bowdoin personally funded militia forces that were instrumental in putting down the uprising.

James Bowdoin was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of London and was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society in 1787.

James Bowdoin was a founder and first president of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, to whom he bequeathed his library.

James Bowdoin II was born in Boston to Hannah Portage Bowdoin and James Bowdoin, a wealthy Boston merchant.

James Bowdoin's grandfather, Pierre Baudouin, was a Huguenot refugee from France.

James Bowdoin I had a modest inheritance from his parents, but greatly expanded his father's merchant business and land holdings to become one of the wealthiest men in the province.

James Bowdoin married Elizabeth Erving, sister of his Harvard roommate, in 1748.

In 1750, James Bowdoin traveled to Philadelphia to meet with Franklin.

James Bowdoin was interested in Franklin's experiments on electricity, and Franklin solicited his advice on papers he prepared for submission to the Royal Society.

James Bowdoin was instrumental in gaining support in the provincial assembly for an expedition to Newfoundland to observe the 1761 transit of Venus across the sun, and in the same year published a treatise suggesting improvements to the telescope.

James Bowdoin served as its first president until his death and left the society his library.

James Bowdoin published not only scientific papers, but poetry in both English and Latin.

James Bowdoin was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Edinburgh and made a fellow of Harvard.

James Bowdoin's inheritance included major tracts of land, most of which he kept, in present-day Maine as well as in the agriculturally rich Elizabeth Islands off the state's south coast.

James Bowdoin expanded his holdings, eventually acquiring property in all of the New England states except Rhode Island.

James Bowdoin was one of the managing proprietors of a large territory on the Kennebec River, where he was frequently involved in legal proceedings with squatters on the land, and with competing land interests.

James Bowdoin's inheritance included an ironworks in Attleboro that he sold in 1770, apparently because it was too time-consuming to manage.

James Bowdoin supported the cause of independence financially, but he did so without damaging his own business interests, unlike John Hancock, whose business suffered from neglect.

James Bowdoin was elected to the provincial assembly in 1753 and served there until named to the governor's council in 1756.

In that year Bernard rejected James Bowdoin's renewed election to the council.

James Bowdoin was instrumental in causing Bernard's downfall from office.

James Bowdoin rebutted the charges and claims made in Bernard's letters, and published a highly polemic pamphlet arguing for Bernard's removal that was sent to the colonial secretary, Lord Hillsborough.

James Bowdoin won reelection to the assembly in 1770, and was promptly reelected to the council the same year, soon after Bernard left the province.

However, the seat James Bowdoin vacated in the assembly was taken by Samuel Adams, another leading political opponent of the royal governors, and Hutchinson was faced with the prospect of opposition on both fronts.

James Bowdoin as named as a delegate to the First Continental Congress in 1774 but did not attend, citing the poor health of his wife.

James Bowdoin was again ill in 1775 when the American Revolutionary War broke out, and the family was relocated from British-occupied Boston first to Dorchester, and eventually to Middleborough, where he resided until 1778.

James Bowdoin continued to correspond with other revolutionaries, and enjoyed their confidence, although his absence from the war effort would lead to later political difficulties.

James Bowdoin began to return to public life in 1778, and when Massachusetts wrote its own constitution in 1779, he was president of the convention called to create it, and chairman of the committee that drafted it.

James Bowdoin was cast by Hancock supporters as unpatriotic, citing among other things his refusal to serve in the First Continental Congress.

James Bowdoin ran against Hancock in subsequent elections, but was never able to overcome Hancock's enormous popularity.

For example, in 1776, while Hancock was simultaneously treasurer of Harvard and president of the Second Continental Congress, a committee headed by James Bowdoin decided that securities physically held by Hancock were at risk because of the war, and a delegation was sent to Philadelphia to receive an accounting of them and physical custody of the papers.

Hancock's dilatory responses and refusal to produce an accounting of the college books dragged on for several years, as a result of which James Bowdoin orchestrated his censure by the Harvard board of overseers.

James Bowdoin, seeking to make payments the state owed against the nation's foreign debt, raised taxes and stepped up collection of back taxes.

In 1788 James Bowdoin served as a member of the Massachusetts convention that ratified the United States Constitution.

James Bowdoin remained active in his charitable and scientific pursuits in his later years, continuing his leadership of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences as well as that of the Humane Society.

James Bowdoin continued to engage in new business ventures, buying in 1789 an interest in one of the first American merchant ships to sail to China.

James Bowdoin's funeral was one of the largest of the time in Boston, with people lining the streets to view the funeral procession.