Ashley Bowen

In 1758, Bowen married Dorothea Chadwick, who bore him six children during their marriage.^[3] At the time, Bowen was 30 years old, and the fact that he had a wife on land made him think of retirement. Eventually, Bowen gave up seafaring at the age of 35, and set up a rigging business in Marblehead, Massachusetts.^[4] The business was a moderate success, providing enough income to get by, but never by much. Dorothea died in 1771; the same year, Bowen married Mary Shaw. Shaw died in 1781, and the next year Bowen married Hannah Graves.^[5] Bowen's final child was born in 1797. Although Bowen had amassed some wealth through his business and his adventures at sea, as he grew elderly, he was completely dependent upon his children for his upkeep.^[6] Bowen died in 1813.

Although Bowen did not become a master of his own ship or have notable seafaring adventures for his time, his historical contribution is important. Because Bowen was the first American sailor to write an autobiography, his account gives historians valuable insight into life as an 18th-century sailor. Bowen's autobiography and journal had been an important archival source for scholars and in 1973 it was edited by Phillip Chadwick Foster Smith and published by the Colonial Society of Massachusetts. More recently, in 2006, The Autobiography of Ashley Bowen was published by itself by Broadview Editions, edited with an Introduction by Daniel Vickers.