James Bowdoin - Scientific and Other Pursuits

Scientific and Other Pursuits

Bowdoin may have met Benjamin Franklin as early as 1743, and the two became frequent collaborators and correspondents on scientific subjects. During his Harvard years, he was educated in the sciences by John Winthrop, and developed an interest in electricity and astronomy. In 1750 Bowdoin traveled to Philadelphia to meet with Franklin. Bowdoin was interested in Franklin's experiments on electricity, and Franklin solicited his advice on papers he prepared for submission to the Royal Society. Through the offices of Franklin, some of Bowdoin's letters were read to the Society. 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. In 1785 he published a series of memoirs arguing against Isaac Newton's theory that light was transmitted by "corpuscles", citing both natural observations and Scripture.

Bowdoin maintained a lifelong interest in the sciences. In 1780 he was one of the founders of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He served as its first president until his death and left the society his library. Bowdoin published not only scientific papers, but poetry in both English and Latin. He was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Edinburgh and made a fellow of Harvard. His 1788 election to the Royal Society of London was the first such honor bestowed on an American after independence.

Bowdoin also had extensive business interests. Although he was often characterized as a merchant, and he engaged in the Atlantic trade, his principal interest was in land. His 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. Bowdoin expanded his holdings, eventually acquiring property in all of the New England states except Rhode Island. He 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. The dealings with squatters in particular left Bowdoin with a dislike of the lower classes in Massachusetts society, something that affected his politics. His inheritance also included an ironworks in Attleboro (now Bridgewater) that he sold in 1770, apparently because it was too time-consuming to manage. Despite the upheavals of the Revolution, Bowdoin was careful to always manage his financial affairs. He supported the cause of independence financially, but he did so without damaging his own business interests, unlike John Hancock, whose business suffered from neglect.

In later years he served as the first president of the Massachusetts Bank in 1784 and was also the first president of the Massachusetts Humane Society (an organization initially devoted to rescuing survivors from shipwrecks and other water-based disasters).