Dr. John Wesley Edward Bowen was born in New Orleans. His
father, Edward Bowen, went to New Orleans from Washington,
D. C. He was a free man, a boss carpenter and builder by
trade, and able to read, write and cipher. He was highly
esteemed, was prosperous in business, accumulated some money
and lived in comfort. Dr. Bowen's mother, Rose Bowen, he
says, was the grand-daughter of an African Princess of the
Jolloffer tribe, on the west coast of Africa. When he was
three years old his father bought him and his mother out of
slavery. When he was thirteen he went to the preparatory
school of New Orleans University for colored people,
established after the war by the Methodist Episcopal church.
When he was seventeen he entered the University proper, and
five years later he was graduated with the degree of A. B.
At the age of seventeen he was converted in a Methodist
revival meeting, and nine months later was licensed as a
local preacher, and has been preaching ever since.

Soon after his graduation Dr. Bowen became Professor of
Latin and Greek in the Central Tennessee College, at
Nashville, in which position he remained for four years. In
1882 he resigned his professorship and entered Boston
University, where he studied four years, taking the degree
of B. D. in 1885; and the degree of Ph. D. in 1887 from the
school of all sciences of Boston University. He also did
special advanced work in Greek, Latin, Hebrew, Chaldee,
Arabic and German, and in Metaphysics and Psychology.

He was the first colored man in the Methodist church to take