Queenswalk: Bowne House, Part Two

    by
    1

    Flushing resident John Bowne was arrested and was sent to Holland by New Amsterdam’s Governor-General Peter Stuyvesant to stand trial for practicing his Quaker faith. The year was 1662, and Stuyvesant had declared that no other religion but that of the Dutch Reformed Church was allowed to worship in the colony under his watch. Unfortunately for him, many of the residents of Flushing had signed and approved a document called the “Flushing Remonstrance,” which stated that any religion could and would be welcome within the town, and that no man had the right to deny someone their right to worship God as they pleased. John Bowne had taken the spirit of that document to heart, and openly allowed Quaker worship services to take place in his home. His own wife, Hannah, was a Quaker preacher, and often led the services. All of this drove the very Calvinist and rather intolerant Peter Stuyvesant to distraction, and he intended to use Bowne as an example for the rest of Flushing’s wayward apostates.

    When Bowne argued his case before the Dutch West Indies Company leadership, which owned New Amsterdam, they were impressed by his faith and won over by his arguments. They reversed the Governor-General’s edict, and ordered Stuyvesant to allow dissenting faiths to worship freely in the colony. Bowne had won. He returned to New Amsterdam and Flushing victorious and a free man. This was a very important step for religious freedom in New Amsterdam, but more importantly, the Flushing Remonstrance would become the basis for our Constitutional right of freedom of worship, one of the most important rights we have here in America. For more on John Bowne and the Flushing Remonstrance, please read Part One of our story.

    The Bowne home, today located in Weeping Beech Park, at 37-01 Bowne Street, in Flushing, is one of the oldest houses in New York City and State, and the best preserved example of Anglo-Dutch vernacular architecture in the entire country. It has always stood where it is now, and the earliest parts of the house date from 1661, with additions in 1669 and 1680. For America, that’s positively ancient. The fact that this house has survived in a city that thinks nothing of tearing down the old for the new, with a rapidity that can be frightening, is also remarkable. If John and Hannah Bowne had been the only people to achieve any historical importance, this house would still be very important. The fact that further generations of Bowne’s were such high achievers is the subject of the remainder of our tale.

    John Bowne would go on to serve in the provincial assembly of New York. His wife Hannah died in 1678. They had eight children. He remarried a year later, and he and his second wife, also named Hannah, had another six children, although two died at birth. She also died, and he married a third time, this time to a woman named Mary Cock, with whom he had two more children, before John died in his beloved Flushing home, in 1695. Today, a park, an elementary school and a high school bear his name.

    The next Bowne to make a name for himself was Robert Bowne, who was born in 1744. He founded Bowne & Company, a financial printing business, which is the United States’ oldest public company, and is still in business. In 1784 he became a founding director of the Bank of New York, and in 1787, became a founding director of the Mutual Assurance Company, New York City’s first fire insurance company. As if that wasn’t enough, he was also a founder of New York Hospital and the American Chamber of Commerce. He also was interested in trading with the new western territories, and pushed for transportation and shipping lanes, which led to the creation of the Erie Canal.

    As a Quaker, he was vehemently opposed to slavery, which was legal in New York State until 1827. In 1784, he and Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, Thomas Eddy and George Clinton, who was married to his cousin, formed the Manumission Society of New York, which worked to end slavery in New York, as well as in the rest of the nation. In 1805, he was one of the leaders in establishing The Society for Establishing a Free School in the City of New York, which would choose scholars on the basis of need, with no distinction of “sect, creed, nationality, or name.”

    In 1968, Robert Stanley established the Robert Bowne Foundation, which exists to honor the name and accomplishments of this great man. At his death in 1818, a friend said of Robert Bowne “”His active mind, open purse, expanded heart, and willing feet knew no bounds.” The Foundation supports after and out-of-school programs that foster education, literacy and learning in New York City. Among their principles is the belief that “Literacy is a fundamental part of being human in 21st century America.” Their many programs support scholars, teachers and students in various programs and courses of study. Robert Bowne would have been proud.

    Walter Bowne (1770-1846) was a member of the State Legislature, and in 1792, the founder of Union Engine Company Number 18, at John and Pearl Street. This company was part of the city’s first fire department. From 1829-1833 Walter Bowne was Mayor of New York City, and like Robert Bowne, was a supporter of the Erie Canal. While mayor, he foresaw the city’s need for a reservoir system in order to assure the city’s present and future growth.

    Another Bowne, cousin Robert Bowne Minturn (1805-1866), also had a role to play in the history of the City of New York. He was a founder of the famous shipping line Grinnell, Minturn & Co. Their clipper ship “Flying Cloud” was the fastest ship on the seas, sailing the 16,000 mile route from New York to San Francisco in 89 days, in 1851, creating a record that would remain unbroken for 23 years. Remember, ships had to sail all around South America in order to get from the East to the West Coast. Minturn and his wife donated land to help establish Central Park. As a Bowne and a Quaker, he was also very much against slavery, and as the first president of the Union League Club, helped support Abraham Lincoln in his run for the presidency.

    The Bowne women were no slouches either. As mentioned before, Hannah Bowne, the first wife of John Bowne, was an active Quaker preacher. Maria Bowne opened up her Lower Manhattan home on Cherry Street to George Washington, offering it to him for use as the first presidential mansion, when New York City was the capitol of the new nation. Later, Mary Bowne Parsons (1784-1839) who lived in the Flushing house, founded a school for indigent young women called the Flushing School for Young Women. They were taught reading, writing, arithmetic and needle and sewing skills, with the hope that they could go out and be self-supporting.

    Mary Bowne Parsons, like many of her relatives, was also an abolitionist, and the Bowne house was rumored to have been a stop on the Underground Railroad, although there is no documentation or evidence to prove it. Many houses in Flushing were used as safe houses and conduits to freedom, and the Bowne house may have been one. It certainly would be fitting.

    The Bowne house became a museum in 1947. Up until 1945, members of the Bowne family had lived in the house continually since it was built. The house was deeded to the city that year, for use as a museum. It is located in Weeping Beech Park, named after a Belgian weeping beech tree imported by Samuel Bowne Parsons, a noted horticulturist and husband of Mary Bowne Parsons. Mr. Parsons was responsible for introducing the Valencia orange and the pink orange dogwood plants to America. In his day, he was also the only American grower of rhododendrons and azaleas. His son, Samuel Parsons Jr. was an even more prominent horticulturist, who became Superintendent of Parks, as well as a noted landscape architect who worked with Calvert Vaux, and designed many important gardens and landscapes, including the grounds of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in Manhattan.

    Weeping Beech Park was founded in 1925, as Jackson Park, and also contains the Kingsland Homestead, the second oldest house in Queens, which was moved here from 155th Street and Northern Boulevard. The Bowne house is not open to the public now, as it is undergoing a massive restoration, and is slated to be finished in 2015. The two oldest houses in the borough, and an enormous wealth of American history: all are here in Flushing. GMAP

    (Photo: Library of Congress)

    Robert Bowne and Mary Bowne Parsons Photographs: bownehouse.org.

    Robert Bowne and Mary Bowne Parsons Photographs: bownehouse.org.

    Bowne House: Library of Congress

    Bowne House: Library of Congress

    Bowne House interior: Library of Congress

    Bowne House interior: Library of Congress

    Bowne House interior: Library of Congress

    Bowne House interior: Library of Congress

    What's Happening