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 the degree of Ph. D. and the second colored man to take the degree in any university in this country. Soon after leaving the university, Dr. Bowen joined the New England Methodist Conference, and was appointed pastor of the Revere Street Church. While in New England he also preached acceptably in many white churches--serving one for a month, and was asked to become their pastor after this period. After serving St. John's colored church in Newark three years, he became pastor of the Centennial Methodist Episcopal church in Baltimore, and at the same time professor of church history in the Morgan college for colored people in that city. During this pastorate he conducted a phenomenal revival in which there were 735 conversions.