Bowdoin, JAMES

Bowdoin, JAMES, an American statesman, of Huguenot descent, born in Boston in 1727, graduated at Harvard in 1745, was elected to the Continental Congress in 1774, but was unable to attend, and in 1785-86 was governor of Massachusetts. He published scientific papers, poems, &c.; referred, in a letter to Benjamin Franklin, the phosphorescence of the sea to animalecules; was F.R.S., LL.D., and in his honour Bowdoin College, at Brunswick (q.v.) in Maine, was named. He died in 1790.