Abel Bowen (1790-1850) was an engraver, publisher, and author in early 19th-century Boston, Massachusetts.
Bowen was born in New York in 1790.[1] Arriving in Boston in 1812, he worked as a printer for the Columbian Museum, at the time under the proprietorship of his uncle, Daniel Bowen.[2] In 1814 Abel married Eliza Healey of Hudson, New York. Their children included Abel Bowen (d.1818).
With W.S. Pendleton he formed the firm of Pendleton & Bowen, which ended in 1826. He joined the Massachusetts Charitable Mechanic Association in 1828.[3] In the 1830s Bowen and others formed the Boston Bewick Company, which published the American Magazine of Useful and Entertaining Knowledge. He lived and worked in Congress Square, ca.1823-1826;[4] in 1832 he kept his shop on Water Street, and lived on Union Street;[5] in 1849 he worked on School Street, and lived in Chelsea.[6]
Bowen taught Joseph Andrews, Hammatt Billings, George Loring Brown, B.F. Childs, William Croome, Nathaniel Dearborn, G. Thomas Devereaux, Alonzo Hartwell, Samuel Smith Kilburn, and Richard P. Mallory.[7] Contemporaries included William Hoogland. His siblings included publisher Henry Bowen.