After he had finished his studies, he taught mathematics and languages at several eastern institutions, including academies at Oswego and Glens Falls and the military college at Bristol, Pennsylvania.

In 1854, because of the issue of the Kansas–Nebraska Act being considered by the United States Congress, Bovay, a member of the 36-year-old Whig Party, called a meeting to be held on the evening of February 28, 1854 at the Congregational church.

On March 9, his Missouri master obtained a warrant from the United States district court to apprehend Glover, who was brought to the Milwaukee jail.

After Congress passed the controversial bill, another meeting was held the evening of March 20 in a small frame schoolhouse, where the new party was officially formed.

[4] They came out of the schoolhouse in agreement that one unified front was crucial to the fight against slavery and thus began the Republican Party: "We went into the little meeting held in a school house Whigs, Free Soilers, and Democrats.

Moreover, Thomas Jefferson had earlier chosen "Republican" to refer to his party, which gave the name respect borne of historical significance.

Bovay later wrote, "The actors in that remote little eddy of politics realized at the time that they were making history by that solitary tallow candle in the little white schoolhouse on the prairie."