John Bowne

1627 - 1695  (68 years)

• Name	John Bowne  [1, 2, 3, 4]
  Alternate birth	3 May 1627  [5]
  Birth	9 May 1627	Matlock, Derbyshire, England   [6, 7, 8]
  Baptism	9 Jul 1627	Matlock, Derbyshire, England   [9]
  Gender	Male
  Death	20 Dec 1695	Flushing, Queens, New York   [5, 6, 7, 8, 9]
  Person ID	I5997	Ancestry of PNH, TNH, and others
  Last Modified	29 Apr 2024

  
  

  Father	Thomas Bowne,   b. Bef 25 May 1595, Matlock, Derbyshire, England d. 18 Sep 1677, Flushing, Long Island, New York (Age > 82 years)
  Mother	Mary   d. 8 Aug 1647, Matlock, Derbyshire, England
  Family ID	F611	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

  
  

  Family	Hannah Feake,   b. Jun 1637, Watertown, Middlesex, Massachusetts d. 31 Jan 1678, London, England (Age ~ 40 years)
  Marriage	7 May 1656	Flushing, New Netherland   [2, 5, 7, 9, 10]
  Children	+ 1. Mary Bowne,   b. 6 Jan 1661, Flushing, New Netherland d. 1728, Woodbridge, Middlesex, New Jersey (Age 66 years)
  Family ID	F1430	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart
  Last Modified	9 Mar 2020

  
  

• Photos

  John Bowne

  
  

• Notes

  From the Bowne House Historical Society: "...[W]e do not know what caused John Bowne with his father, Thomas, and sister, Dorothy, to leave Lime Tree Farm in Matlock, Derbyshire, England to travel to Boston in 1649. After a few years, John left Boston for New York, and by 1661 had built his home in Flushing on land purchased from the Matincock Indians for eight strings of wampum (about $14). He married Hannah Feake, the niece of Governor John Winthrop of Massachusetts and cousin of Governor Robert Winthrop of Connecticut. John and Hannah had 8 children. After Hannah's death in 1677, he married again and had 8 more children. "John Bowne is best known for his courageous defense of religious freedom. Flushing was then part of the colony of New Netherland, and its town charter, granted by the Dutch West India Comapny in 1645 guaranteed 'liberty of conscience.' When Governor Peter Stuyvesant prohibited the practice of religions other than the Dutch Refored Church, town leaders delivered the Flushing Remonstrance to Stuyvesant, challenging his edict, which was aimed chiefly at Quakers. In 1662, John Bowne openly defied the ban and allowed Quakers to hold services in his home. Bowne was arrested and imprisoned, and when he refused to pay a fine or plead guilty, Stuyvesant banished him to Holland, where he argued his case successfully before the Dutch West India Company. Stuyvesant was ordered to permit dissenting faiths to worship freely. John Bowne returned home victorious in 1664, and the principle of religious freedom was established in the New York Colony. His actions and those of his fellow residents of Flushing established principles that evolved into the Bill of Rights of the United States Constitution." [POSTSCRIPT: I like how the hero of the tale is John Bowne, who "openly defied the ban and allowed Quakers to hold services in his home," rather than his wife Hannah Feake, who ACTUALLY HELD THE DAMN SERVICES. Hannah was a Quaker preacher and had converted her husband. As ever, thoughtless writing leads to a version of the story in which the woman's efforts are inconsequential. --pnh]

  
  

• Sources

  [S1387] Eardeley Genealogy Collection at the Brooklyn Historical Society. [S2306] The Winthrop Fleet: Massachusetts Bay Company Immigrants to New England 1629-1630 by Robert Charles Anderson. Boston: New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2012. [S4399] Find a Grave page for Mary Johanna Bowne Thorne. [S7595] The Fones Family by Art Reierson. 1998. [S3825] Milton Rubincam, "A Winthrop-Bernadotte Pedigree." The New England Historical and Genealogical Register 103:246, Oct 1949. [S199] Genealogies of Long Island Families, From the New York Genealogical and Bibliographical Record ed. Henry B. Hoff. Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Company, 1987. [S756] Early New England Families Study Project: Accounts of New England Families from 1641 to 1700 by Alicia Crane Williams. Online database, New England Historic Genealogical Society. [S1272] George E. McCracken, "The Feake Family of Norfolk, London, and Colonial America." New York Genealogical and Biographical Record 86:132, 86:209 (1955), 87:28, 87:104 (1956), 92:229 (1961), 94:243 (1963), 136:303 (2005). [S1131] Bowne Family of Flushing, Long Island by Edith King Wilson and Jacob Titus Bowne. New York, 1948. [S1272] George E. McCracken, "The Feake Family of Norfolk, London, and Colonial America." New York Genealogical and Biographical Record 86:132, 86:209 (1955), 87:28, 87:104 (1956), 92:229 (1961), 94:243 (1963), 136:303 (2005)., date only.