Henry Chandler Bowen

Henry Chandler Bowen (September 11, 1813 – February 24, 1896) was an American businessman, philanthropist, and publisher. He was an influential member of Plymouth Church in Brooklyn, where he resided much of his life, and the founder of the New York-based newspaper The Independent. He built a Gothic-style summer home named Roseland Cottage in , his place of birth.

Henry Chandler Bowen was born on September 11, 1813 in Woodstock, the son of George Bowen and Lydia Wolcott Bowen (née Eaton). He was educated at and Dudley Academy.

He moved to New York City and joined a dry-goods company owned by the abolitionist Arthur Tappan. Later he would open his own company Bowen and McNamee, specializing in silks. He opened a store on 112-114 Broadway, an Italian Marble building designed by English architect Joseph C. Wells, an architect he would work with later. The company was renamed Bowen, Holmes and Company in 1859.

In 1848, Bowen founded The Independent, a weekly congregationalist newspaper that was closely associated with Plymouth Church in Brooklyn Heights, of which he was a founding member. Plymouth's minister, Henry Ward Beecher, was the editor from 1861 to 1863 and a frequent contributor. The paper was strongly pro-abolitionist and pro-women's suffrage. Bowen served as the newspaper's chief finacier and publisher, and from 1870 until his death he was the editor as well. The paper has a circulation of 70,000 in 1870.

Abraham Lincoln was a subscriber of The Independent. Bowen was a key figure in inviting Lincoln to speak in New York at the Cooper Institute in February 1860, during which time he accepted Bowen's invitation to attend Plymouth Church to hear Beecher's sermon.

During the Civil War, Bowen lost most of his clients for his silk business (many from the South) and the company Bowen, Holmes and Company went bankrupt. By this time, he also had considerable income from the fire insurance business as well has his newspaper The Independent. in 1853 he established the Continental Insurance Company.

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