XXXV

A Chapter of History

Suggested by the Death of Professor Bowen The Alford Professorship in Harvard College.

HE death of Professor Bowen, of Harvard College, suggests a chapter of historical notes of Charles

TH

town and Charlestown people which will, I think, be interesting to some readers.

Professor Bowen filled for a long period the position of Alford professor of natural religion, moral philosophy, and civil polity in Harvard College. That professorship was founded by John Alford, who died in Charlestown, September 29, 1761, leaving a will in which he directed that a certain portion of his estate should be devoted to "pious and charitable purposes," the selection of those purposes to be determined by his executors. This bequest was afterwards divided by the executors equally between Harvard College, Princeton College, and the Society for Propagating the Gospel among the Indians. Harvard College received its proportion, £1362.8.5, Massachusetts currency, in 1765. This gift and its accumulation was the foundation of the professorship I have referred to, which was established, and the first professor appointed, during the presidency of Dr. John T. Kirkland.

John Alford, while he lived in Charlestown, held a good deal of real-estate in the town, a portion of which was in the vicinity of the street which now bears his name. He was a man of prominence and had been in the Colonial Council. The amount paid by his executors to Princeton College was probably the same as that to Harvard College, while that to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel among the Indians, which they received in 1787, was $10,675.

In a former article I have referred to Rev. Dr. James Walker, who was the distinguished pastor of the Harvard Church for twenty-one years previous to the settlement of Rev. Dr. Ellis. Doctor Walker left Charlestown to take the Alford professorship in Harvard College above referred to, which had been founded, as I have shown, by the bequest of a citizen of the old town of Charlestown; and he held this position from 1839 till 1853, when he was elected president of the college.

His successor in the professorship was Francis Bowen, who was born and spent his boyhood in Charlestown. The Boston Transcript of Wednesday, January 22, 1890, with a notice of the death of Mr. Bowen, gives a sketch of his life as follows:

Professor Bowen was born at Charlestown, September 8, 1811. One of his grandfathers was a farmer in New Hampshire, the other a farmer in Connecticut. He was of a large family, and from an early age had to depend upon himself—at least to a considerable extent for support. He studied for a while in the Mayhew School in this city, and afterwards he was a clerk in a publishing house here. In January, 1829, he entered Phillips Exeter Academy, and in August, 1830, he was admitted to the sophomore class at Harvard College, so well

prepared was he already for the work of that class. He was graduated from Harvard in 1833, in the class with Professor Lovering, Professor Torrey, the late Professor Jeffries Torrey, his brother, and Dr. Morrill Wyman, of Cambridge. He then returned to Exeter as instructor in mathematics, and two years later he received the appointment of tutor in intellectual philosophy and political economy at Harvard. He left Harvard in 1839, when he visited Europe and spent a year in study and travel. In 1843 he succeeded Doctor Palfrey as editor and proprietor of The North American Review, which he conducted for eleven years. His unpopular views on the Hungarian question were challenged by the late Robert Carter of Boston, an early free-soiler and a warm admirer of Kossuth, and because of these and other unpopular opinions on political subjects the Harvard overseers failed to confirm Mr. Bowen's appointment as McLean professor of history.

In 1853 he was appointed Alford professor of natural religion, moral philosophy, and civil polity, and continued in active service until about ten years ago, when he reduced the amount of his lecturing about one-half. He gave his remaining courses regularly up to the time of his resignation, early in December, 1889. He contributed four lives to Sparks' "Library of American Biography," and in 1842 he published an edition of Virgil, and a volume of essays on philosophical subjects; other works from his hand are "Documents of the Constitution of England and America from Magna Charta to the Federal Constitution of 1789," "Principles of Political Economy Applied to the Condition, Resources, and Institutions of the American People," "A Treatise on Logic," "American Political Economy," "Modern Philosophy from Descartes to Schopenhauer and Hartmann," and "Gleanings of a Literary Life." As an editor he issued many valuable volumes, including the essays of Sir William Hamilton, Dugald Stewart's "Philosophy of the

Human Mind," and De Tocqueville's "Democracy in America." In his views on political economy Professor Bowen was opposed to Adam Smith, Ricardo, and Malthus, and drew an elaborate answer to his theories of philosophy from Mill in a later edition of the "Logic. He received the degree of doctor of laws in 1879. Within the past five years he had served on a United States commission, for which he prepared a report on silver. In his college work he was indefatigable and was a prompt and constant attendant at lectures. Professor

Bowen was one of the popular lecturers of the Lowell Institute. He gave a series of lectures on the "Relation of Science to Religion" in 1849-'50, and afterwards gave several series of lectures on "Political Economy,' one on "American and English Constitutions," and another on the "Later English Philosophers."

FEBRUARY 1, 1890.

XXXVI

The Name of Austin

It Appeared Very Early and Has Held a Prominent Position in the History of Charlestown Nathaniel Austin William Austin.

VER
Ꮩ

VERY early in the history of Charlestown the name of Austin appears among its inhabitants, and all along from that time until the present it has held a prominent position. Richard Austin, who came here some time previous to 1659, was the ancestor of the Austins in Charlestown and of those in Boston, many of whom have been distinguished for intelligence, patriotism, and thriftiness. Richard Austin's name is on the list of those who shared in a division of land by the town in 1659, and on the list of freemen in 1677. His sons and grandsons were active and enterprising business men, some of them officials in the town, and, just before the Revolution in 1775, they were especially useful as members of patriotic committees, signers of remonstrances and petitions having a bearing upon the exciting questions of the day, and in urging the authorities to active measures of resistance to the abuses of the crown. The names of Timothy, John, John Jr., Nathaniel, Samuel, and Joseph Austin, citizens of Charlestown, can be found on these papers, and Samuel and Benjamin Austin, of Boston, were among the most patriotic in that town in the early days of the Revolution.