Background
Metcalf Bowler was born in 1726, in London.
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Metcalf Bowler was born in 1726, in London.
When about seventeen years of age, Metcalf Bowler accompanied his father, Charles Bowler, to Boston, where the latter purchased land in the vicinity of the Common and Beacon Hill, later moving to Newport, Rhode Island, and serving as collector of His Majesty's revenues.
During the French and Indian War, both as an investment and an adventure, he fitted out four privateers, Prince Frederick, the New Concert, the Diana, and the Defence. While these brought him large profits, lengthy litigation in prize suits, often with appeals to England, brought him equally great losses.
Representative in the Rhode Island General Assembly, and speaker of the House of Representatives, 1767-76, he led the opposition to the Stamp Act, representing the colony, in 1765, at the New York Congress.
The people's confidence in him was further evidenced by his election, in 1768, as assistant judge of the supreme court, and, in 1776, as chief justice. Service with the Committee of Correspondence in 1773, his signature upon the Rhode Island Declaration of Independence, and the marriage of his daughter, Bathsheba, to Marquis Langford, are but a few of the indications of his close association with the colonial cause.
Virtually ruined by the Revolution, he opened a small shop at Providence, and, in 1787, the "Queen's Head" tavern. Two golden eagles, devices derived from the Bowler coat of arms, which originally ornamented the gateposts of his Portsmouth farm, to-day face each other on Thames St. , Newport.
Metcalf Bowler was one of the most successful Atlantic merchants of his time. Businessman, adventurer, genial host, and patriot, Metcalf Bowler lived prosperously through the days of Newport's commercial supremacy. He was also appointed a representative in the Rhode Island General Assembly, and speaker of the House of Representatives, 1767-76. He led the opposition to the Stamp Act, representing the colony, in 1765, at the New York Congress. Appreciation of his services resulted in his choice, the following year, as the one to present to the King a message of thanks for the act's repeal. The accounts of the fame of his choice fruits and rare flowers and his Treatise on Agriculture and Practical Husbandry (1786) show him to have been a skillful horticulturist. The woodwork and paneling of one of the rooms of his Portsmouth house may be seen in the American wing of the Metropolitan Museum.
(This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of th...)
Bowler's marriage to Anne, daughter of Bathsheba (Palmer) Fairchild and Maj. Fairchild, a business associate, founded a large family of eleven children. His commercial prosperity permitted him to maintain them in a considerable state in what was later known as the Vernon House on Mary and Clarke Street.
