Bowden, John (1),
a minister in the Methodist Episcopal Church South, was born in Baltimore, Md., Feb. 1, 1820. He joined the Church in 1838, in 1841 received license to exhort, and in 1844 was licensed to preach and admitted into the Kentucky Conference. In 1846 he was transferred to the Louisville Conference, and in 1848 retired from the itinerancy and travelled for the improvement of his health in Florida and Georgia, at the same time acting as general agent for Transylvania University and colporteur for a local Bible society. He graduated in medicine at Louisville University in 1852, and practiced successfully in Bowling Green until within a few months of his death, which occurred at Russleville, Aug. 5, 1854. Mr. Bowden was a warm friend, a true Christian gentleman, remarkably amiable, and a faithful expounder of the truth. See Minutes of Annual Conferences of the M. E. Church South, 1854, p. 506.